ABC’s The View host Whoopi Goldberg argued that rape allegations like the one facing former NBC host Matt Lauer would not happen if married people did not cheat on their spouses.
“Maybe people shouldn’t be having extramarital affairs, and this kind of stuff won’t happen,” Goldberg said during the close of a segment on a claim that Lauer raped a former co-worker. Lauer has denied that he assaulted the woman, saying the sex with his colleague was “consensual” and part of an extramarital affair.
“Even without that it still happens,” host Joy Behar replied to Goldberg.
Brooke Nevils, a former NBC News employee, accused Lauer of anally raping her in a hotel room during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, leading to his firing as an anchor from the Today show three years later. The details of the accusation came out as a part of investigative journalist Ronan Farrow’s upcoming book Catch and Kill.
“It was nonconsensual in the sense that I was too drunk to consent,” Nevils told Farrow. “It was nonconsensual in that I said, multiple times, that I didn’t want to have anal sex.”
Lauer, 61, said he had stayed quiet for too long on the allegations against him and planned to fight back. The former anchor claimed women were making accusations against him in order to avoid taking responsibility for cheating on their own boyfriends or husbands.
Goldberg’s opinion on extra marital affairs appears to have shifted since a 2015 interview, during which she encouraged people to “go for it.”
“Sometimes in a relationship, people can’t always get what they need, and if you have reputable people you can turn to in order to get what you need, I say go for it,” she told the New York Post. “It is a whole lot better than being frustrated and angry at the person you love.”
