Four years after his role in President Trump’s “Access Hollywood” tape scandal ended his “Today” show hosting gig, Billy Bush says he was hurt by Matt Lauer’s lack of support.
“That he didn’t fight for me is so deeply hurtful because I’ve known him for absolutely ever,” Bush told Men’s Health in a new interview published Tuesday.
Bush, 48, recalled the downward spiral he entered when the tape was leaked to the Washington Post and claimed he’s a better person today because it went public.
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On the tape, Trump bragged he had the power to walk up to women he found attractive and begin touching them in a sexual manner without consent.
“You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful, I just start kissing them,” he said. “It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the p—y. You can do anything.”
It was recorded on a bus in 2005, while Bush was 33 years old and working as a host for NBC’s “Access Hollywood” franchise.
Bush is heard laughing at Trump’s lewd comments, calling actress Arianna Zucker “hot as s–t” and then goading Zucker to hug Trump after the men got off the bus.
Bush told Men’s Health he was devastated when the recording went public in October 2016 and he was quickly fired from “Today.” Already separated from his wife, he was living alone in an apartment, drinking too much whiskey and wallowing, the magazine reported.
“I’m paralyzed. I can’t get off my couch. I can’t stop crying. I can’t stop thinking terrible thoughts of what I want to do to myself if I didn’t have children,” Bush recalled telling his brother Jonathan.
He went on a weeklong therapeutic retreat, started a serious yoga practice and went along to a mountain to hold a “funeral” from himself and imagine the attendees’ reactions, he reportedly said.
Bush soothed himself by thinking, “People know I am not a bad person,” he told the publication.
Ultimately, he said the reckoning “was important for my development as a broadcaster.”
Now a host at Fox’s “Extra,” Bush said he has more empathy and gravitas when it comes to covering other people in the public eye.
“I’m not just some untouched little sheltered, happy-go-lucky, ‘Jeez, everything good happens to this guy’ (person]),” Bush said. “It makes you real.”
Lauer, 62, declined to comment for the article. He was fired from NBC in 2017 after he was accused of inappropriate sexual conduct. He was later accused of raping an NBC colleague during the Sochi Olympics, allegations he denied.
Looking back at his behavior on the infamous bus, Bush claimed he really didn’t have the option of confronting and challenging Trump.
He said his job was to be “the fluffer,” and Trump at the time was the ratings-grabbing host of NBC’s “The Apprentice.”
“I’m not going to give (you) a pandering answer,” Bush told Men’s Health. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”