Brooke Nevils — a woman who accused Matt Lauer of raping her in a hotel room during the 2014 Winter Olympics — has revisited the brutal experience she says left her broken.
After first reporting Matt in 2017, Brooke has now written a memoir, “Unspeakable Things: Silence, Shame and the Stories We Choose to Believe,” which details the initial assault and explains her consensual encounters that followed.
In an excerpt, published by The Cut, Brooke writes, “I have spent the long years since using my otherwise abandoned skills as a journalist to report and write the book about sexual harassment and assault that I wish had existed for me.”
Brooke explains she was drunk and alone the night Matt insisted on having anal sex with her. In the essay, she says the next morning she woke up in a pool of blood.
“It hurt to walk. It hurt to sit. It hurt to remember,” she writes.
But later, Brooke says she actually initiated a subsequent sexual encounter, thinking it would help her take back control.
Tragically, Brooke writes, her plan completely backfired … “I just implicated myself in my own abuse.”
According to Brooke, it was her “preexisting relationship” with Matt that made it difficult for her to frame it as abuse at first.
She writes, “Even now, I hear ‘rape’ and think of masked strangers in dark alleys. Back then, I had no idea what to call what happened other than weird and humiliating.”
As you know … Brooke’s complaint led to Matt’s firing from NBC. He denied the accusation, saying all their encounters were consensual. In the aftermath, several other women came out with their own allegations against Matt. His wife of 19 years, Annette Roque, later filed for divorce.
When TMZ reached out to Matt by phone for comment, he said he was at dinner and hung up.
