Katie Couric is reflecting on the “sexist attitude” she experienced as a female journalist in the ’90s.
On Sunday’s episode of Bill Maher’s “Club Random” podcast, the veteran news anchor reflected on her relationship with former “Today” show co-host Bryant Gumbel while they were the faces of the morning program between 1991 and 1997, when Gumbel left NBC for CBS.
The Television Hall of Fame inductee praised Gumbel as “a seamless broadcaster” who is “really talented” and “incredibly smart,” but acknowledged they sometimes butted heads.
“He’s a guy’s guy. You got that right,” Couric, 67, told Maher. “He was prickly, but I mean, what a talent. I mean, my God.”
“Complicated guy, though, I think,” she added. Gumbel, 75, left “Today” in 1997 after 15 years. Couric also had a 15-year tenure, leaving in 2006.
Couric recalled an incident from 1991 as an example of a time when they were at odds.
Gumbel “got mad at me” as Couric was about to embark on maternity leave when she was pregnant with her first child, she said, and gave her “endless” flack for her upcoming time off.
“I was having my first baby,” she told Maher. “He was like, ‘Why don’t you just drop it in the field and come back to work right away?’ or something.”
USA TODAY has reached out to Gumbel’s representative for comment.
She acknowledged that “he was kidding” and “goofing on me,” but Couric said this exchange “was emblematic of sort of an incredibly sexist attitude.” Being a female journalist entailed a work environment that was “replete with microaggressions,” she said.
“It was a very different environment,” she said of working in broadcast news after Maher brought up Matt Lauer, who was fired from “Today” in 2017 amid sexual harassment allegations, which he has denied. “Lots of fraternization, a polite way of saying interoffice schtupping.”
Most recently, Gumbel hosted HBO’s “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel,” which ended last year after its 29th season.
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Katie Couric said 1991 exchange with Bryant Gumbel was ‘shocking to watch’
This isn’t the first time Couric has taken a look back at her experience working with Gumbel.
In a 2019 installment of her Wake-Up Call newsletter, Couric recalled an “uncomfortable exchange” with Gumbel on her last day at work before taking maternity leave.
“Let’s just say, Bryant Gumbel didn’t quite get it,” Couric wrote. “It’s pretty shocking to watch it now, 28 years later!”
In the clip, Gumbel asks Couric why she’s taking “so long” off work.
Couric, then 34 and expected to give birth to her first daughter, Elinor Monahan, in three weeks, said she would be away from the show for nine weeks total. She ultimately only took four weeks off, Couric told USA TODAY in 2019.
“I’m going to relax for three weeks, as much as you can relax when you’re carrying around 30 extra pounds,” Couric told Gumbel during the segment. “Then hopefully I’ll have the baby and everything. It’s a major shock to your body, I hope you realize, when you have a baby. And it takes a while to get back to normal and get on a schedule.”
Gumbel apparently thought that was too much time: “Our ancestors didn’t worry about that shock to your body. They came right back and worked.”
“And they died when they were, like, 32 years old,” Couric said.
“You’re 34 − what are you worried about?” he responded.
After Couric noted she hadn’t had more than a week off of work in a year, Gumbel asked, “How many men get nine weeks off?”
She retorted, “Do we have to do this in, like, a sexist debate?” and asked him to “be nice to me” on her last day.
Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel were ‘very friendly’ post-‘Today’
Couric told USA TODAY in 2019 that her relationship with Gumbel was “very friendly.”
“It’ll be interesting to hear his reaction, but we had a great working relationship,” she said. “I think some of (his attitude) was sort of in jest and clearly he was giving me a hard time, but just in context of all the conversations these days, it was interesting to watch.”
Couric made it clear she had no ill will against Gumbel, but that the “funny/not funny” clip was a great starting point to launch a discussion about the stigma against maternity leave in the U.S.
“Times have changed so much, but I do think there’s a lot of implicit bias against moms,” Couric told USA TODAY. “I think it’s important to make sure your employer is up on the times and that women aren’t penalized, consciously or unconsciously, when they have children.”
Contributing: Hannah Yasharoff
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