Ex-'Today' staffer details alleged affair with Matt Lauer: 'It was a massive mistake'

Addie Zinone, the ex-"Today" show staffer that detailed her alleged month-long affair with Matt Lauer in Variety last week, appeared on "Megyn Kelly Today" on Monday morning to further explain her story and reveal the blowback she's received since coming forward.

Zinone, who was a production assistant on NBC's premiere morning show back in 2000, previously detailed the origins of her sexual relationship -- which she insists was largely consensual -- with Lauer, which began when the veteran anchor sent her "flirty" instant messages out of the blue. And, on Monday, Zinone revealed that Lauer was clearly aware that he was acting inappropriately.

SEE ALSO: Inside Matt Lauer’s secret relationship with a ‘Today’ production assistant

"In the previous message he had said, 'I hope you don't take me to personnel for saying this,'" Zinone told Megyn Kelly. "So, there was some sort of, from him, knowing that this was crossing a boundary."

Zinone, who had recently accepted a job as a local news anchor in West Virginia when Lauer sent her the messages in June of 2000, proposed that they get lunch so she could get professional advice from the news vet.

"During the lunch, it didn't go to professional advice," she recounted on Monday. "It went quickly to accomplishing his goal, and I realized that and I didn't know how to keep up with that conversation because, again, I was sitting across from Matt Lauer, and I just don't know where he's going with it."

Lauer asked the then-24-year-old Zinone to leave lunch first, which Kelly chimed in to call a "red flag," and the entire encounter left Zinone feeling "overwhelmed" and "confused." Nevertheless, later that day, she went to Lauer's dressing room, where they had their first sexual encounter.

"I went on my own. I'm owning that," she said. "I'm not suggesting that -- well, he kind of lured me -- but I'm not suggesting that I'm not owning my part in this."

Watch Addie Zinone's interview with Megyn Kelly below:

SEE ALSO: MSNBC’s Chris Matthews was reprimanded over comments about woman in 1999

She went on to reveal that her affair with Lauer "shattered" her perception of him as a journalist she had idolized, but she kept meeting up with him with the "goal" of trying to get him to see her "as a human being."

"It's a massive mistake, and I understand how I made it because I know who I am at my core and the values I have," she told Kelly.

When Kelly asked why Zinone came forward with her story now -- 17 years after her alleged affair with Lauer occurred -- she was clear about her intentions of attempting to both give a face to the anonymous women accusing Lauer of sexual misconduct as well as wanting to shed light on abuses of power in the workplace between men and women.

"I'm coming forward, number one, because I've carried this for 17 years and I've carried it almost exclusively on my own," Zinone said. "Media outlets have come to me over those 17 years because he's been in the tabloids, and I have consistently said 'no comment' or not [given] them anything, so I've pushed this away on my own. I've been offered thousands of dollars for my story, and I want no part of that. [...] I want to own my part in it and also talk about this power dynamic in the workplace and how that imbalance really does affect your thinking, your ability to think logically [...] and, also, if you do find yourself in that position like I did, how do we empower young women in the future who find themselves in that situation to get themselves back and make better decisions?"

Zinone went on to add that she "felt some comfort knowing that [she] wasn't alone" when the news first broke that Matt Lauer had been fired from NBC News following a complaint of "inappropriate" sexual behavior in the workplace. And, though her alleged relationship with Lauer was mutual, that doesn't mean that there wasn't a power dynamic at play.

"This was consensual [but it was also] an abuse of power," she told Kelly. "I want to put a face, a story to these women's accusations because I'm seeing that they're being doubted. I thought, 'I've got to validate their claims.' This happened! I've got to explain it to embarrassing detail because I want them to understand the commonalities in our stories."

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