I wondered what his life was like now, how he spent his days. I hoped he was getting help.
That spring, Matt and John met up for a round of golf; they’d forged a cordial relationship before all this, so John reached out. As they walked down the fairway, John tried to extend an olive branch.
“Katie really cares about you,” he said.
Matt’s reply: “Don’t go there.”
ON A SATURDAY night in January, 14 months after Matt was fired, David Zaslav, the president of Discovery, was celebrating his birthday at the Palm in East Hampton. John and I had become friendly with David and his wife, Pam; they had invited us to join them at the French Open, and we would have dinner together a few times a year. We decided to spend that weekend in the Hamptons so we could go toast David.
There were about 60 of us in the cozy, wood-paneled space, all the cozier for the fact that it was bitterly cold and a fire was going in the fireplace.
For me, anyway, things got a lot less cozy when Matt walked in. I had no idea he’d be there, although I did know that David and a handful of others were rallying around him as best they could.
It had been over a year since I’d seen Matt in the flesh. My heart was thumping as he came toward me. His smile was tight, his gaze level—there was so much to say, but the time to say it had passed. So we defaulted to bone-dry, fake-nice conversation. He told me his son was starting to look at colleges. I updated him on Ellie and Carrie. It was so strained. The whole conversation lasted less than three minutes before we each pretended there were other people in the room we needed to talk to.
I’d see him again seven months later at an engagement party for CNN’s Don Lemon and his partner, Tim Malone, at Ron Perelman’s spread in East Hampton. Matt walked in with Lorraine Bracco. When he got close enough that he couldn’t pretend he didn’t see me, he leaned in with a kiss so perfunctory and stiff, it almost bruised my cheek. The conversation that followed was even more stilted than the one at the Palm.
Later, John strolled up to a kibitzing threesome in the middle of the room: Matt, Jeff Zucker, and Allison Gollust. They gave him three ice-cold shoulders. John laughed about how awkward it was.
95
I’m Gonna Miss This
ON YOM KIPPUR, the day of atonement, nearly two years after Matt’s implosion, my inbox was once again flooded with emails. Ronan Farrow’s book Catch and Kill was about to drop; among other things, it discussed the allegations by Brooke Nevils, then Meredith Vieira’s assistant, whose anonymous complaint had prompted Matt’s firing. The details of what happened at the Sochi Olympics were harrowing, including the image of Nevils lying facedown during sex, tears soaking the pillow.
That morning on the TODAY show—Savannah and Hoda, once again looking shaken.
As if the day couldn’t get any more surreal, Matt’s “open letter” flew into my inbox next. As he attempted to set the record straight, you could feel the rage radiating from every word…words I never imagined Matt （or pretty much anyone else I’d ever known） having to say publicly:
We performed oral sex on each other, we had vaginal sex, and we had anal sex. Each act was mutual and completely consensual…
Whoa.
Matt went on to characterize the women who’d gone public about him as liars and opportunists （Nevils was said to be shopping a book）。 He added, “I will no longer provide them the shelter of my silence.”
What was this—the fury of a man who felt his accusers had gone too far? Slut-shaming? I couldn’t believe how sordid it had all become.
DECENT. KIND. GENEROUS. Conscientious. The epitome of a good guy. That’s how I always described Matt.
My partner in crime. We had so much fun: Matt getting the GM at the Breakers to festoon my room—the minibar, my pillow, the underside of the toilet seat—with his headshot; me almost running him over while we were snowmobiling at the Olympics in Salt Lake City; the two of us plus Al singing horrendous backup for Stevie Wonder…Seamlessly supporting each other during breaking news, my constant companion in the morning.
Did I imagine all that? Was Matt a bad guy all along and somehow I’d failed to see it? I don’t think so.
The MeToo reckoning taught me a lot, including the fact that people aren’t all bad or all good. In many ways, Matt was decent. His dedication to the job, his love for his co-workers, friends, and, of course, his kids were real, I’m certain of it. Every bit as real as what he did to those women.
So many of us were blindsided, never imagining that a dashing, witty, beloved TV star had such a dark side. I’ve come to realize that Matt could be an excellent professional partner, a good friend, and a predator.