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_Today_ show anchors Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb are speaking out about a new book that details rape allegations against former _Today_ anchor Matt Lauer. In a somber segment Wednesday,

Guthrie called the new details of the complaint that ultimately led to Lauer’s 2017 firing “shocking and appalling.” “I feel like we owe it to our viewers to pause for a moment,” Guthrie

said. “This is shocking and appalling. I honestly don’t even know what to say about it. I want to say, I know it wasn’t easy for our colleague Brooke to come forward then, it’s not easy now

and we support her and any women who have come forward with claims. And it’s just very painful for all of us at NBC and who are at the _Today_ show. It’s very, very, very difficult.”

Becoming noticeably emotional, Guthrie and Kotb said they were still working to process the difficult situation. “I’m looking at you and having a weird moment: we were sitting here just like

this two years ago,” Kotb told Guthrie. “Truth be told, Savannah and I did a little prayer upstairs before just to sort of sort out what we were going to do. I think you feel like you’ve

known someone for 12 years. I don’t know if you guys have ever felt like that. You know someone, you feel like you know them inside and out and then all of a sudden, a door opens up and it’s

a part of them you didn’t know.” Kotb continued: “We don’t know all the facts on all of this, but there are not allegations of an affair, there are allegations of a crime. I think that’s

shocking to all of us here who have sat with Matt for many, many years. So I think we’re going to just sort of continue to process this part of this horrific story and as you said, our

thoughts are with Brooke. It’s not easy what she did, to come forward. It’s not easy at all.” “We are disturbed to our core,” added Guthrie. The allegations are detailed in Ronan Farrow’s

new book _Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators,_ which features an interview with Lauer’s victim, former NBC News employee, whose complaint about Lauer led to

his firing in November 2017. (At the time, her identity was kept anonymous at her request; this is the first time the full details of her allegations have been made public.) In the book,

obtained by _Variety_, Nevils claims Lauer anally raped her in his hotel room while working at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. According to _Variety_, Lauer, 61, pushed Nevils against a door and

kissed her before moving to the bed and “flipping her over, asking if she liked anal sex,” Farrow wrote. “She said that she declined several times.” She “was in the midst of telling him she

wasn’t interested again when he ‘just did it,’ ” Farrow wrote. “Lauer, she said, didn’t use lubricant. The encounter was excruciatingly painful. ‘It hurt so bad. I remember thinking, Is this

normal?’ She told me she stopped saying no, but wept silently into a pillow.” Nevils reportedly claims the encounter was painful and that she “bled for days.” “It was nonconsensual in the

sense that I was too drunk to consent,” Nevils said in the book, according to Variety. “It was nonconsensual in that I said, multiple times, that I didn’t want to have anal sex.” Nevils said

in the book that she had more sexual encounters with Lauer back in New York City, according to _Variety_, telling Farrow: “It was completely transactional. It was not a relationship.” At

Vieira’s urging, Nevils reported her ordeal to NBC executives in the fall of 2017, in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, _Variety_ reports. Lauer was fired, Nevils went on medical

leave in 2018 and was eventually paid, Farrow wrote, according to _Variety_, “seven figures.” PEOPLE is out to reps for Vieira and Farrow. In a statement read on-air Wednesday on the _Today

_show, NBC News said, “Matt Lauer’s conduct was appalling, horrific and reprehensible, as we said at the time. That’s why he was fired within 24 hours of us first learning of the complaint.

Our hearts break again for our colleague.” Lauer, 61, was fired by NBC News in November 2017 after the network received a “detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual

behavior,” with reason to believe “this may not have been an isolated incident.” After he was fired, _Variety_ released a report in which three additional anonymous women accused the former

newsman of sexual harassment. Lauer, who joined NBC in 1992 as a newsreader on _Today _and had been co-anchor of the morning show since January 1997, broke his silence on the allegations in

a statement read by his former co-hosts on-air after his firing. “There are no words to express my sorrow and regret for the pain I have caused others by words and actions,” he said. “To the

people I have hurt, I am truly sorry. As I am writing this, I realize the depth of the damage and disappointment I have left behind at home and at NBC.” “Some of what is being said about me

is untrue or mischaracterized, but there is enough truth in these stories to make me feel embarrassed and ashamed. I regret that my shame is now shared by the people I cherish dearly,” he

continued. “Repairing the damage will take a lot of time and soul searching, and I’m committed to beginning that effort. It is now my full time job. The last two days have forced me to take

a very hard look at my own troubling flaws. It’s been humbling. I am blessed to be surrounded by people I love. I thank them for their patience and grace.” He addressed his past

relationships with colleagues in a second statement to the _Washington Post _in April 2018. “Five months ago I was terminated by NBC after admitting to past relationships with co-workers,”

he said. “A day later I took responsibility, apologized to the people I had hurt and promised to begin the process of repairing the damage I had caused my family. I have worked every day

since then to honor that promise.” “I have made no public comments on the many false stories from anonymous or biased sources that have been reported about me over these past several months

— including a claim that I would, or even could, lock someone in my office,” he continued. “I remained silent in an attempt to protect my family from further embarrassment and to restore a

small degree of the privacy they have lost. But defending my family now requires me to speak up. I fully acknowledge that I acted inappropriately as a husband, father and principal at NBC.

However, I want to make it perfectly clear that any allegations or reports of coercive, aggressive or abusive actions on my part, at any time, are absolutely false.” _Catch and Kill _is out

Oct. 15. _IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW HAS BEEN SEXUALLY ASSAULTED, PLEASE CONTACT THE NATIONAL SEXUAL ASSAULT HOTLINE AT 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) OR GO TO __ONLINE.RAINN.ORG__._