Ever since Brian Williams imploded in one of the most spectacular career nose-dives I’ve ever seen, I’ve been waiting to hear “the inside story.” You knew it was coming, and here it is. Vanity Fair has an epic, insider-y media story on just what went down with Williams’ implosion and who is to blame – you can read the full piece here. Vanity Fair honestly excels at this kind of reporting, and they got many NBC insiders and executives to go on the record about everything going on behind the scenes. Williams wasn’t the only one getting slammed though – many inside NBC believe that Comcast is to blame (Comcast bought NBC in 2011), and some blame NBC News chief Deborah Turness for letting “the on-air talent” run wild. People aren’t just mad at Brian Williams either – it seems like Matt Lauer is pretty hated within NBC too. Here’s one excerpt from VF’s story:
Deborah Turness learned the startling news: the most important person at the network, the face of NBC News, its anchorman Brian Williams, had apparently been exaggerating an anecdote about coming under fire in a U.S. Army helicopter during the Iraq war in 2003. A reporter from the military newspaper Stars and Stripes had called about it that morning. Williams was supposed to talk to him off the record in an effort to determine what the reporter planned to write. Instead, to the dismay of NBC’s P.R. staff, Williams had gone on the record and admitted he hadn’t been telling the truth, not only on a Nightly News broadcast the previous week but also over the years at public appearances and on talk shows.
Stunned, Turness was still trying to grasp the gravity of the situation when the Stars and Stripes story went online. At that point her biggest concern was the apology Williams was preparing to read to viewers on his broadcast that evening. He was already taping segments as he and Turness began swapping e-mails on its all-important wording. Turness and the other executives who had gotten involved quickly became frustrated, as they would remain for days, with Williams’s inability to explain himself. “He couldn’t say the words ‘I lied,’ ” recalls one NBC insider. “We could not force his mouth to form the words ‘I lied.’ He couldn’t explain what had happened. [He said,] ‘Did something happen to [my] head? Maybe I had a brain tumor, or something in my head?’ He just didn’t know. We just didn’t know. We had no clear sense what had happened. We got the best [apology] we could get.”
And that was a problem. Because the apology Williams read on the air that evening not only failed to limit the damage to his reputation, and to NBC News, its elliptical wording—“I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago”—made a bad situation worse, inflaming a crisis that led a week later to Williams’s suspension for six months.
It’s sort of amazing that Williams thought the NBC Nightly News was his personal venue to handle his personal crisis without any input from anyone else. It sounds like everyone around Williams was like “Dude, just fall on your sword, say you lied and let’s move past this.” And he just refused. Oh, and “brain tumor”? Dude… no.
What else is in the article? Let’s see… a “former top NBC exec” lays the blame completely at Comcast, saying their takeover has been “a nightmare.” Another executive is quoted saying this: “News is a very particular thing, NBC is a very particular beast, and Deborah, well, she really doesn’t have a f–king clue. She’s letting the inmates run the asylum. You have kids? Well, if you let them, they’ll have ice cream every night. Same thing in TV. If you let the people on air do what they want, whenever they want, this is what happens.” Another “former executive” says it’s not Turness’ problem because she “walked into a complete sh-tstorm” and “Today is a horror show. Brian Williams? He didn’t give a rat’s ass what Deborah Turness says.”
Sigh… I love it when a situation gets so terrible that everyone (even those even tangentially involved) starts sniping at each other in the press. Super professional for these world-class news professionals, right?
Photos courtesy of WENN.
“It’s not a tumah!”
LMAO!!! Perfect.
Beautiful.
Roll Credits! It can’t get any better than that.
I don’t understand the reference. Please explain.
It’s a quote from the movie Kindergarten Cop with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Ha! Perfection!
LOL! FTW
Hahahahaha. I’m laughing way too hard at this.
Why is it so hard to let someone loose who messed up? Allow him to go on SNL, he can do skits about lies and take on his next career as a humorous caricature of himself.
Its like Mad Men, you screw up you go on leave. It’s easier I guess than buying out a contract.
Williams seems to be unwilling to take responsibility for his actions to the point that it’s practically pathological. Brain tumor?! Then why not get an MRI (assuming he hasn’t) to check it out?
It really does seem pathological, especially the way the NBC people said he literally could not say “I lied.” Funny/sad/crazy.
I’ve known people like that. They cannot, no matter what, admit they were wrong. I don’t see how this is anyone’s fault but his.
I work for a person like this. No matter how ridiculous or egregious the behavior, there is always a “reason” that no one else believes except the person telling it.
Ugh, it’s the worst, right? They just look you right in the eye and say “I never said that,” and you’re powerless to prove otherwise.
Yes! I have known a handful of people like this too. What is with this? And in Brian’s case it is all public record, but still, not his fault. A brain tumor? Really?
Read up on the narcissist personality disorder, wonder if he has this. They do not want to admit they are wrong, and will act like nothing ever happened. Part of their game is to get people around them to act like nothing happened. They weren’t held accountable as young boys/men and this is the end result.
YES. That was my ex husband. Gorgeous, 6-foot-4, owns his business, comes from a great family, smart and charming and funny and…behind closed doors, the most viciously cruel person I’ve ever known. He always needed a victim, someone he could manipulate and insult and play with as a cat plays with a toy. Could be anyone – an admin, a roommate, or, finally, me.
After I ran away with our 18-month-old son (at the time, he’s 5 now), the abuse stopped. He didn’t have control over me any more, so he went back to abusing his employees. It’s so weird – after years of gaslighting, insults, cruelty, he treats me with respect now, as he did before we married. We’re excellent co-parents now, and I’m probably the best friend he has. Bizarre.
Perhaps he got shrapnel in the brain from the helicopter crash that didn’t happen.
In the full article there’s a section where an “anonymous insider” describes a meeting the executives held with Williams to try to figure out what actually happened and he was confused and unable to comprehend that he had gotten it so wrong. I think lying/embellishing is so second nature to him, and it’s a lie that he has told for so long, that he actually believed it was true.
A sincere apology could have saved his career. Instead, he gave more excuses. Take your lumps and move on!
As someone who has seen the devastation a brain tumor can cause, I find his comment especially repugnant.
I am also amazed he would be so clueless as to mention a brain tumor. I have known more than one person who suffered the effects, and telling lies was never part of the severe suffering any of them experienced.
He’ll probably reinvent himself as an entertainment reporter… all his Hollywood friends will line up to be interviewed. Rita Wilson was so dismissive of this story on WWHL, I was shocked!
Yeah, Rita Wilson was extremely dismissive about the story, proving herself to be flippant and out of touch. Consequences are only for the little people!!!!
No wonder she raised a son who became “Chet Haze” the horrendously misguided white boy rapper.
“As someone who has seen the devastation a brain tumor can cause, I find his comment especially repugnant.”
Could not agree more, Bethy. Made me sick to my stomach to read that he said that.
I used to like Brian Williams as a newsperson that could be trusted. Wham! I’m hit again with the “naive ball.” And brain tumor?!? Yes, Bethy, you are so right! My stepson’s best friend since infancy died in his early 30’s from a brain tumor. Jesus. You just don’t mock that stuff. EVER.
I just had major brain surgery 3 weeks ago to remove a cystic (non-malignant) tumor near the pineal gland; it was pressing on the tectal plate, compressing the optic nerve and reducing CSF drainage from the 3rd ventricle.
Left me with a 6 inch scar and a titanium plate in back of my head!
Had some awful symptoms before it was removed. Compulsive lying was not one of them, though!
-Horrible headaches, every day in exactly the same few spots. In my case they were always the left side; that was due to the position of the tumor and resulting higher pressure in the upper-left part of my head.
-Messed up vision. It was like everything would swing to the right, snap back, Like the spins when you’re really drunk…but it happened every morning when I woke up. Edges were never solid, always waving back and forth. And everything was covered in shapes and patterns of colored lights, whether my eyes were open or closed.
-Hallucinations, including visual ones, especially in my peripheral vision, and I’d sometimes hear voices, too. I’d smell smoke, flowers, etc. when no one else did. There was a constant high pitched tone in my ears…I’m enjoying the silence so, so much.
-Hyperreflexia – my ankles, knees and wrists would sometimes twitch repeatedly, making a fast beat, if I lightly engaged the muscles (putting my forefoot on the ground while sitting would set it off like crazy).
No lying, though! Sorry, Brian.
(The post-op symptoms were BIZARRE, such as words changing into different words as I was trying to read them, and several lines getting scrambled all together, the words moving back and forth if I tried to read a paragraph, but fortunately those are gone now!)
Of course tumor symptoms can vary widely depending on its location. All I can report is my own experience.
Hi Lunareclipse, thanks for sharing and I’m so glad that it was a benign tumour and that you’re doing better post-op.
As a medical professional myself, it was very interesting reading your detailed symptoms.
Well wishes for your fullest recovery!
Amazing how much control these fools gave to Brian Williams. They should have told him to have a seat and let Leaster Hoult taken over until they had the boss, legal and a psychiatrist talk truth to William’s giant sized ego.
I find that fascinating. Any psychiatrists out there? He believed his own stories because he sees himself as truthful. It reminds me of the story of the girl who went to her prom, had a baby in the bathroom, then went back to her prom as if nothing had happened. They can’t even integrate what they did with who they are. I’m still sad – I liked the guy, and God knows other people have told bigger lies. But where can he go from here?
Brian Williams can make a comeback. Marv Albert did. He needs to start being honest.
Just stop, Brian.
Next up: The “evil twin” defense.
Amnesia; clearly amnesia…
LOL evil twin defence!!!
Wow, just wow.
I used to like him, but he apparently is the type who cannot admit his own errors. And those are people IRL that are best avoided.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I actually have a brain tumor. It has not made me a pathological liar. Nice try, Brian.
I’m sorry, Venus! I hope it’s treatable.
Yikes. I’m so sorry! I just had a benign (thank goodness!) cystic tumor removed 3 weeks ago, so let me know if you have questions about post-op recovery, what to bring to the hospital, etc.
I hope you’re okay. Hugs!!
General Hospital called they want their story line back.
Perfection!
ha ha ha yes! I was thinking Days of our Lives but I like GH better 😀
Whatever happened to the good old days when they had good anchormen such as Walter Cronkite tell the news? Those days have been over for a long time.
Sadly the line between news and entertainment has become increasingly blurred since they days of Cronkite. Even Williams clearly couldn’t recognize it anymore.
i was thinking that just the other day. I miss Cronkite. *sigh*
This guy. Unbelievable.
He’s too much of a narcissist to be genuinely sorry and admit he lied. Narcissists never take responsibility…it’s always someone or something else’s fault, never theirs. They lie to make themselves look good and eventually believe their own lies as fact. Brian Williams fits the definition of a narcissist to a tee.
I don’t think so. Narcissist usually blow up in a narcissistic rage fit if their version of themselves becomes threatened. He just seems bewildered.
I’m sure he did rage in private…narcissists are obsessed with their reputation and so would act different in public
He’s confused. It wasn’t a tumor, it was Twinkies.
Guffaw.
RIP Milk and Moscone. Maybe Williams should look into Alzheimer’s. In addition to memory, loss, there’s often also a loss of judgement in the early days.
Who cares about network anchors anymore? I’m retired from all that TV nonsense and I get my news online like many others.
Some people just rearrange reality in their heads and it becomes truth to them. So they can be baffled when you remind them that no, it didn’t happen that way. They can get angry when you contradict them. Don’t know how far gone this fellow is in that direction, but it’s possible it started with exaggerations, graduated to lies, and then became revised history in his head. He obviously has a chronic problem, though. Whether or not a liar in the traditional totally conscious sense, such people are very hard to live and work with. I got to the point with one local fellow, who was quite influential, that I decided I would never work with him on any project again unless everything he said was written down and notarized. He would tell me to do something or okay the plan, then later he would insist I did it without him knowing anything about it. In some cases he would give me incorrect information to transmit, and then blame me when the mistake was discovered (these were not things that could be independently checked). It was rather surreal. He caused real problems for me with people who actually believed his stories, although I think one of them eventually caught on to the problem when she married him (they divorced, I’m sure he started doing the same thing to her even though he was madly in love with her). He would also enthusiastically take on responsibility for projects and then never follow through, causing the project to collapse, and he always insisted that someone else failed to do their part, baffling all concerned. I had to console the baffled victims more than once. They are not necessarily malicious people, but cause huge amounts of trouble when in certain positions of power or responsibility.
He should consider working on his 5th chakra.
Is it wrong that I laughed like I was at a Kevin Hart show at this headline?
Ummmm, then that is one slow growing tumor as there are many stories about BW telling outlandish stories/lies as a teen and as a young man. Wow, he really can’t just own it and move on to potentially save his career. Clinical narcissist indeed!
Narcissists engage in several manipulative tactics like playing the victim, feigning ignorance, shifting the blame onto others, etc
Narcissists rage when their tactics don’t work and they are still being held accountable.
We don’t know if he has had a huge meltdown behind closed doors, threatening to retaliate and take others down with him.
Narcissists wear a fake mask and are often quite charming. They’d rather keep their mask on and try to fool you than let the crazy emerge.
But all narcissists implode sooner or later, it just takes a while.
It’s never the lie, and it’s always the coverup that does one in. How many times has history proved that to be true. Even now, he should just use the phrase “I lied.” and get on with it. When asked why he lied, just admit that “I guess I thought it just sounded better.” and then stop talking.
Yup, you’re right. “My ego got the better of me,” and move on. Instead he just keeps digging a deeper hole.
In all seriousness, this guy has some kind of personality disorder. SMH.
I don’t know why I lie all the time. I must have a brain tumor. Hyuk hyuk hyuk.
Uh, yeah. That brain tumor thing is another lie but does he even realize this? Or is he just laughing off his lies. He’s supposed to be a professional whose credibility is necessary for his job.
Did anyone else read the full VF article? It’s really juicy! Lots of squabbling and infighting! There’s even an “anonymous Williams supporter” who says all the haters working at NBC are just jealous that he’s handsome and had a hot wife!
I just lost my mother to a brain tumor. It was no joke, the worst way to die that I can think of. This will never be funny to me.
I’m so sorry :(.
I just had a brain tumor removed, and thank goodness it was benign (they couldn’t be sure till they removed it, because it was too deep to biopsy – that in itself would have been major surgery).
Through all of it, the scary symptoms and brutal, constant headache, I focused on making it through and living for my son (he’s 5). I truly wasn’t worried for me.
I just didn’t want to leave my child without a mother. That’s the one thing that kept me going. I’m so, so sorry your mom’s was not curable and you had to lose her.