She talks sexism, body-image issues, and more.
Katie was invited back to her old stomping grounds to discuss her upcoming memoir Going There on the TODAY Show this week. She spoke to Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager about grappling with bulimia, opened up on the 3rd Hour about the sexism she faced as she rose to fame, and spoke to Savannah Guthrie about everything from her falling out with Matt Lauer to the heartbreak of losing her husband Jay.
Watch all three segments here, and get your copy of Going There now!
“I couldn’t imagine writing something that wasn’t honest and sort of radically transparent,” Katie said to Savannah about her new book, which includes her candid impressions of her colleagues, competitors, and of the broadcast industry as a whole. She wrote about one encounter, early on in her career at CNN, where an executive attributed her rise at the network to her “determination, work ethic, and breast size,” Katie said.
“At 26, I wrote a scathing memo asking for him to apologize, and I think in many ways that set the tone for the rest of my career,” she said.
Katie also reflected on her former co-host Matt Lauer and the troubling sexual misconduct allegations made against him.
“The side of Matt I knew was, I think, the side of Matt that you all knew,” she told Savannah. “He was kind and generous and considerate and as I got more information and learned what was going on behind the scenes it was really upsetting and disturbing.”
Katie also spoke about her controversial decision to edit her interview with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and how the deeply personal memoir has been received by her daughters Ellie and Carrie. Check out the rest of the interview:
Katie spoke to Hoda and Jenna about how she grappled with body-image issues and suffered from bulimia as a young woman. She brought up one instance where a promotional photo of her for CBS had been airbrushed, to “shave about 20 pounds off me.”
“They didn’t ask permission,” Katie said. “I was so mortified, but listen, that’s really embarrassing but I put it in the book.”
When asked what she thinks readers will take away from Going There, Katie said she hopes some will be inspired by how she pushed back against critics and succeeded by getting in there, “being scrappy,” and “working my butt off.”
Katie joined the 3rd Hour of TODAY to discuss how she wrote the book, in part, for her daughters.
“I just thought this was a good time to look back on my career, to make Jay come alive for Ellie and Carrie, and talk about our courtship and why we fell in love,” she said.
She also opened up about departing TODAY for CBS and the “culture clash” she felt during the transition. “I don’t think people internally really accepted me,” she said, adding that she felt the nation, at the time, also wasn’t ready to embrace a female anchor of the evening news.
