Matt Lauer Turns 61: Inside His Quiet Life 1 Year After Today Show Firing
As Matt Lauer celebrates his 61st birthday a little over a year after being fired from NBC for alleged sexual misconduct, he continues to live a quiet life away from the spotlight.
A source recently told PEOPLE the disgraced news anchor has struggled to come to terms with his new normal.
“It has been hard for him. He went from being a super busy person to having nothing but time on his hands,” said the source. “He is not doing well.”
The longtime news anchor, who was fired from the Today show in November 2017, “is not thinking about working again right now.”
“He doesn’t sit around thinking about a comeback,” added a second source.
Instead, Lauer is focusing all his attention at home — with his children.
“He’s trying to get by putting all his energy into his kids,” said the source. “He is working on his relationship with his kids. They have a good relationship, but they’ve been through a lot.”
As Lauer and his estranged wife Annette Roque continue working out the terms of their divorce, the former couple is still living together at their Hamptons compound with sons Jack, 17, and Thijs, 11, and daughter Romy, 14.
“All he wants is to be involved in his kid’s lives,” said the second source. “He spends his days doing as much kids stuff as he can.”
And while Lauer is mainly staying home and keeping a low profile, he still makes time to socialize with friends.
“He is not dating,” added the second source. “Some former colleagues have visited him. He has some long-term friends he sees and hangs out with on a regular basis.”
Lauer’s lawyer did not return PEOPLE’s request for comment.
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In May, the network released a report about Lauer’s firing. The internal investigation, which was led by NBCUniversal general counsel Kim Harris, focused on four complainants’ allegations and resulted from nearly 70 interviews with current and former employees and more than 30 focus groups with 262 current employees. According to The New York Times, one complaint included a former NBC employee who alleged Lauer sexually assaulted her in his office in 2001.
In the first paragraphs of the report, the investigation team states that Lauer “admitted to engaging in sexual activity” with the anonymous woman whose allegations prompted his firing.
Lauer has also admitted to — and apologized for — seeing NBC staffers romantically during his tenure at the network.
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“Five months ago I was terminated by NBC after admitting to past relationships with co-workers. 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,” he said in a statement to PEOPLE in April.
“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. 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,” Lauer continued.
“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,” he concluded.