"We Have No Secrets and Nothing to Hide" - NBC President on the Ronan-Lauer Row

The row surrounding Matt Lauer and Ronan Farrow has only gotten more complex than ever before. While Farrow's claims on Lauer that he made in his book about sexual harassment among other things have been the talk-of-the-town, people and companies associated to Lauer have been constantly denying it mentioning how there is no evidence about any of it.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators, which releases on Tuesday, details alleged secret payouts at NBC News and how ousted Today anchor Matt Lauer may have played a role in the network’s decision to kill Farrow's Harvey Weinstein exposé that ultimately published in the New Yorker in October 2017.

On Monday, one day before the book's release, Oppenheim told his staff in the memo obtained by THR, "Matt Lauer's actions were abhorrent, and the anger and sadness he caused continue to this day. As we've said since the moment he was fired, his abuses should never have happened. Ronan Farrow's book takes that undeniable fact and twists it into a lie — alleging we were a 'company with a lot of secrets.' We have no secrets and nothing to hide."

He continues, "Now that we’ve read Farrow’s book, it’s clear — his smear rests on the allegation that NBC’s management knew about and took steps to hide Matt Lauer’s misconduct before his firing in November of 2017. Without that, he has no basis on which to rest his second conspiracy theory — that his Harvey Weinstein reporting was squashed to protect Lauer.

"Farrow alleges there were employees who reported Lauer’s behavior prior to November of 2017 and were paid settlements to silence them. Not only is this false, but the so-called evidence Farrow uses in his book to support the charge collapses under the slightest scrutiny."

"I feel absolutely terrible that these three employees were subjected to Matt Lauer’s horrific behavior, but the facts do not support Farrow’s allegation of a 'cover-up,' and he offers no further evidence," said Oppenheim about the three women. "In fact, [Kim] Harris and the Legal team have determined that nothing in the book undermines any of the conclusions of the May 2018 investigation conducted by NBCUniversal in the wake of Lauer’s firing. There is no evidence of any reports of Lauer's misconduct before his firing, no settlements, no 'hush money' — no way we have found that NBC's current leadership could have been aware of his misdeeds in the past."