Exposed! 'Today' Production Assistant Tells All On Steamy Affair With Matt Lauer
Dec. 14 2017, Updated 9:48 p.m. ET
On the heels of Matt Lauer's shocking firing from Today over bombshell sexual assault allegations, Addie Zinone has come forward about a secret steamy affair she had with the shamed anchor when she was production assistant on the show in 2000.
In an explosive open letter, Zinone told Variety about the beginning of her affair with newly married Lauer, now 59. “He opens the door. There you go. It crossed the line. It was a consensual encounter. It happened in his dressing room above studio 1A, which was empty in the afternoons. He got in his car and I had to go back to work, and now my life had completely changed."
It all started when Lauer sent Zinone a disturbing message, just weeks before she was to leave NBC for a job as a local anchor on WDTV Channel 5 in her hometown in West Virginia.
“hey,” Matt wrote to her via a system called Top of Line, which was instant messaging for employees. “i hope you won’t drag me to personnel for saying this. but you look fantastic. i don’t know what you have done, or what is going on in your life…but it’s agreeing with you.”
At the end of the chat, the two agreed to meet up to "get his advice" before she left on her next career venture.
A little over a month had gone by and on July 12 she received another cryptic text: “OK…NOW YOU’RE KILLING ME…YOU LOOK GREAT TODAY! A BIT TOUGH TO CONCENTRATE.” Zinone recalls she was wearing a skirt and heels that day.
The next day they went to lunch the next day, and while Zinone says her intentions were purely professional, she insists Lauer's were not.
"We went to lunch. My intentions were purely professional. I thought this was a way to get real-world constructive advice. What that turned into was an opportunity for him to come on to me. It was flattering, confusing, overwhelming. I was nervous. I didn’t know what to do with it" Zinone recalls." He was clearly trying to guide the conversation. He was there to hit on me and manipulate the situation, and I fell for it. Here’s how I should have known what I was getting myself into. When we left, he told me: 'You leave first, and I’ll leave after.' In no lunch I’d ever had at Today had anyone suggested we leave separately, as if something was up."
That's when things really took a turn — and before she knew it, just hours after their lunch, Zinone was in a then newly married Lauer's dressing room having an affair.
After their secret encounter, Zinone would then proceed to meet with Lauer in the coming weeks. "It was a whirlwind. Over the next few weeks, we met several other times," she said.
"The situation really took its toll on me," she admits. "I became unsure of myself. Any confidence I had was gone. For him, it was a conquest."
"One afternoon, he told me to come see him in his office. I thought he was finally going to talk to me and encourage me professionally. I wanted to hear from him that I could succeed in West Virginia. I sat across from him, and he pushes a button from his desk and the door