‘Today’ Alum Katie Couric Says Bryant Gumbel Had “Incredibly Sexist Attitude” About Her Maternity Leave

Armando Tinoco
·2 min read
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Katie Couric called out her former Today co-anchor, Bryant Gumbel, over his alleged “sexist attitude” about her maternity leave from the NBC morning show.

In a new interview, Couric opened up about her time on Today and claimed the journalist was not supportive when she took time off to give birth to her first child.

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“He got mad at me because I was doing something on maternity leave,” Couric said on the Club Random podcast with Bill Maher. “And he was giving me endless s** for taking like a month or two off. I was having my first baby.”

Maher added, “Yeah, I could see that.”

“He was like, ‘Why don’t you just drop it in the field and come back to work right away or something?'” Couric added. “It was really…”

The podcast host noted that Gumbel was kidding, with Couric adding, “No, he was kidding. He was goofing on me but giving me a lot of s***, but it was emblematic of an incredibly sexist attitude.”

Earlier in the podcast, Maher said that Gumbel was probably mad at him over political stands as they had not been in contact in recent years. Maher described the journalist as a “guy’s guy.”

“He is a guy’s guy. He is a guy’s guy, you got that right. He is,” Couric said. “He was prickly but I mean, what a talent. He’s such a seamless broadcaster, eloquent. When that countdown would happen, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, he would just hit it perfect.”

Deadline reached out to Gumbel’s representatives for comment and will update the story when we hear back.

Listen to the entire Club Random podcast in the video below.

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