Brooke Nevils Reveals 2014 Lauer Allegation in New Memoir
Brooke Nevils Reveals 2014 Lauer Allegation in New Memoir
In her forthcoming memoir, Brooke Nevils recounts an alleged 2014 assault by Matt Lauer and its lasting impact on her mental health.
Brooke Nevils, a former NBC employee, details in her forthcoming memoir Unspeakable Things: Silence, Shame, and the Stories We Choose to Believe a claim that Matt Lauer raped her in a hotel room during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. The allegations helped lead to Lauer's firing by NBC in 2017 after Nevils filed a complaint. Nevils publishes new excerpts in which she describes the encounter and its aftermath in more detail than before.
Nevils writes that after their first encounter in Sochi, Lauer insisted on having anal sex and that she felt she would bury what happened. She says she began to feel totally alone, drowning in plain sight, and like she’d obviously done something wrong in the wake of that night. The memoir notes that she kept these experiences secret for years, including an email the next day in which Lauer asked how she was doing, another moment she says reflects the power imbalance and pressure she faced.
The memoir, Unspeakable Things: Silence, Shame, and the Stories We Choose to Believe, is set for release on Feb. 3, and excerpts published by The Cut indicate Nevils’s mental health suffered as a result of the years of secrecy and the continued fallout from the events in Sochi. Nevils previously went public with the allegations in Ronan Farrow’s 2019 book Catch and Kill, and in contemporary coverage, Lauer has denied the allegations.
This new material adds detail to the public record and fuels ongoing conversations about accountability, survivor voices, and how the media industry handles claims of sexual misconduct. Nevils’s account contributes to a broader reckoning around power dynamics, workplace safety, and the pressures faced by whistleblowers in high-profile environments.
