Brooke Nevils Attempted Suicide Following Alleged Rape - PAPER Magazine

Former NBC journalist Brooke Nevils, who accused former Today showanchor Matt Lauer of rape, endured post-traumatic stress disorder and attempted suicide after the alleged 2014 assault, according to Ronan Farrow's new book, Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators.

Related | What We Know So Far About Matt Lauer's Sexual Harassment Allegations

Since the book was released, its interview with Nevils has garnered significant attention. Page Sixreports that Nevils alleges that Lauer anally raped her in his hotel room at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, when they were both working for NBC.

In the two years after she filed the complaint that led to Lauer's termination in 2017, Nevils' mental and physical health declined. According to Farrow, she attempted suicide, was hospitalized for post-traumatic stress disorder, and descended into heavy drinking.

"She'd lost fourteen pounds," Farrow writes. "And gone to doctors twenty-one times in a single-month period."

Nevils' coming forward with her experience came with a plethora of consequences. "I've lost everything I cared about," she says in the book. "My job. My goals."

In her interview with Farrow, Nevils details other sexual encounters with Lauer that she says were non-consensual and "completely transactional" following the alleged rape. This includes a time where she says Lauer "grabbed her hips and fingered her" while she looked for something in his office. "I just went numb. In my internal narrative, I failed because I didn't say no," she says in the book, according to People.

Another time, Nevils says that Lauer forced her to go down on him in exchange for filming a goodbye video for her then-boyfriend, who was leaving NBC. Lauer penned a letter to Variety last week denying these allegations and calling their sexual encounters "completely mutual and consensual."

Nevils has responded to this in a statement which aired on NBC News saying Lauer's letter is "a case study in victim shaming." Amid all this, last week, in her first official tweet, Nevils thanked fellow survivors who have shared their stories and been supportive.

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Also, as of this morning, The Cut reports that yet another allegation of sexual misconduct against Lauer has surfaced, detailing an account made in Farrow's book by Melissa Lonner, a former Today producer who alleges that Lauer exposed himself to her at work back in 2010.

This is a developing story.

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