This story contains graphic details that some readers might find disturbing.
More than eight years afterMatt Lauerwas fired from NBC's "Today" Show, one accuser is telling her side of the story.
In"Unspeakable Things"(out now from Viking), former NBC talent assistant Brooke Nevils starts from the first incident of alleged assault in 2014 when NBC was covering the Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. She also writes about the shame that kept her from disclosing the several instances of assault to her friends and colleagues, and the backlash that ensued after she did.
But "Unspeakable Things" is more than a personal retelling. The book employs Nevils' journalistic background to take a scalpel to toxic newsroom dynamics and who they protect. Nevils consults psychiatrists and experts in victim and offender behavior, alcohol, traumatic memory and sexual violence.
NBC fired Lauer in 2017, facing multiple accusations of sexual harassment and assault. Lauer has maintained that the sexual encounter with Nevils was consensual and denied wrongdoing. He has not faced any criminal charges.
Brooke Nevils interrogates 'superstar harasser' culture at NBC
From the author's note, Nevils makes it clear her book is not here to crack open new allegations "beyond those I reported in detail to NBC in November 2017" and what has been uncovered by investigative reports. Instead, Nevils looks at NBC's workplace culture through the lens of the "superstar" harasser, a term the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission used more than a year before the #MeToo Movement went viral in 2017.
"Superstars are privileged with higher income, better accommodations, and different expectations. That privilege can lead to a self-view that they are above the rules, which can foster mistreatment," the EEOC writesin its report. "In short, superstar status can be a breeding ground for harassment."
Nevils also points to other newscaster "superstars" fired due to sexual misconduct and harassment accusations, like Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes at Fox News and Charlie Rose at CBS.
Then-unreported allegations against Lauergo back to 1996, NBC found in its internal investigation. USA TODAY has reached out to representatives for Lauer and NBC for comment.
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"In all those years, why had no one complained? I think the answer is circular: Matt's behavior was clearly a problem, but it could never beseenas problematic because it was Matt's behavior. It was okay because he did it, so he apparently kept doing it because it was okay. We were all watching but still didn't see."
Nevils writes that after thanking Lauer for buying drinks for her and her boss, he invited her to continue hanging out in her hotel room. She didn't feel that she could say no. When she got to his hotel room, he pressured her to have anal sex. The next morning, she woke up in pain and with blood on her underwear and sheets, she writes.
"But there was no laughing off Matt Lauer, and there was certainly no rejecting Matt Lauer in his underwear. There was only pleasing Matt Lauer. To do anything else would have been to become a problem, and Matt's problems at NBC tended to disappear," Nevils writes.
She also writes that she had the realization that "if anyone else had done this to me, I would have gone to the police."
Who is the 'perfect victim'?
Lauer's advances continued after that, Nevils writes, pressuring her again to have anal sex and perform sexual acts in his office. Her shame was overwhelming, she writes. Friends and family noticed something was going on with her: "Every bad decision became a way of proving to myself that what happened in Sochi had not been an aberration, but my choice and something I deserved," Nevils writes.
Here, Nevils scrutinizes the "perfect victim" and how the media – including her own past work – shifts the blame to what the victim could have done differently. Narrow legal definitions of consent and sexual violence, fear of the criminal justice system, blame and disbelief often causedelayed disclosureof sexual violence, according to RAINN.
In "Unspeakable Things," Nevils interviews Joyce Short, founder of the nonprofit Consent Awareness Network, about the difference between consent and agreement.
"If somebody is beating you over the head with a two-by-four and demanding sex and you ultimately say, 'Yes, get it over with, just stop beating me,' if a court does not have a definition of consent that allows the jury to distinguish between different kinds of agreement, then you have legally consented to sex," Short says.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence, RAINN's National Sexual Assault Hotline offers free, confidential, 24/7 support to survivors and their loved ones in English and Spanish at: 800.656.HOPE (4673) andHotline.RAINN.organd en EspañolRAINN.org/es.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Matt Lauer accuser Brooke Nevils details toxic NBC culture in book
