Matt Lauer Releases New Statement to “Defend His Family” Five Months After ‘Today’ Firing

The last time we heard from Matt Lauer he was apologizing to everyone following his abrupt Today firing due to sexual harassment allegations. And now, five months later, he’s breaking his silence again with a new statement — this time to defend his family.

“I have made no public comments on the many false stories from anonymous or biased sources that have been reported about me over these past several months. I remained silent in an attempt to protect my family from further embarrassment and to restore a small degree of the privacy they have lost,” he told The Washington Post in a statement published on Thursday, April 26.

“But defending my family now requires me to speak up. I fully acknowledge that I acted inappropriately as a husband, father, and principal at NBC. However I want to make it perfectly clear that any allegations or reports of coercive, aggressive, or abusive actions on my part, at any time, are absolutely false,” he concluded.

Perhaps Matt finally spoke out because lately he’s feeling like the “loneliest man in the world,” a source recently told In Touch Weekly. “He either stays inside the guesthouse or sits in one of the Adirondack chairs on the porch to take calls. You never see him smiling,” the insider said.

Perhaps that’s because he’s in the middle of a multi-million dollar divorce from wife Annette Roque. “Annette didn’t pull the trigger [on legal action] right away because of the kids, but she could no longer separate rumor from fact when it came to his sexual misdeeds and abuse of power. She’s done with him,” a source exclusively revealed to In Touch Weekly in January.

Apparently, she ended their 19-year-long marriage with “one quick phone call” just a month later. A source shared, “She’s taken off her wedding ring and has been living the high life in Europe. She’s acting like a woman who has already moved on from a hellish marriage.”

And it looks like she won’t be begging for him back. He’s allegedly in “bad shape” following their split. “He feels he lost everything important in his life overnight. He is embarrassed and ashamed,” the insider recently Entertainment Tonight. “There is no chance at this point they will work things out. Matt held on to the idea that Annette might eventually forgive him because she had always stuck by him but now he has no hope.”

Matt was previously terminated from Today in late November 2017. Shortly after his former co-anchor, Savannah Guthrie, and his now replacement, Hoda Kotb, broke the news, Matt released a statement to the public. “There are no words to express my sorrow and regret for the pain I have caused others by words and actions. To the people I have hurt, I am truly sorry,” he said at the time. “As I am writing this I realize the depth of the damage and disappointment I have left behind at home and at NBC. Some of what is being said about me is untrue or mischaracterized, but there is enough truth in these stories to make me feel embarrassed and ashamed.”

Matt continued, “I regret that my shame is now shared by the people I cherish dearly. Repairing the damage will take a lot of time and soul searching and I’m committed to beginning that effort. It is now my full time job. The last two days have forced me to take a very hard look at my own troubling flaws. It’s been humbling. I am blessed to be surrounded by the people I love. I thank them for their patience and grace.”