Speaking on Sunday’s episode of Bill Maher’s “Club Random” podcast, veteran news anchor Katie Couric delved into her dynamic with former “Today” show co-host Bryant Gumbel.
Together, they hosted the morning program from 1991 to 1997 before Gumbel departed NBC for CBS.
Gumbel was the host of HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” from 1995 to 2023.
While praising Gumbel as a “seamless broadcaster” with remarkable talent and intelligence, Couric candidly acknowledged occasional clashes between them.
“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.”
On the podcast, Couric referenced a time back in 1991 when she was about to go on maternity leave while pregnant with her first child.
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Couric claims that Gumbel got “mad at her” and gave her “endless” flack for the 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.”
Couric did note that “he was kidding” and “goofing on me,” but she also said it “was emblematic of sort of an incredibly sexist attitude.”
“He got mad at me because I was doing something on maternity leave,” Couric recounted. “And he was giving me endless s— for taking like a month or two off. I was having my first baby.”
“He was like, ‘Why don’t you just drop it in the field and come back to work right away or something?'” Couric remembered. “It was really…”
Maher asserted that Gumbel was probably kidding when Couric referenced his “sexist attitude.”
“No, he was kidding,” Couric affirmed. “He was goofing on me but giving me a lot of s— but it was emblematic of an incredibly sexist attitude.”
Gumbel’s program “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” ended last year after 29 seasons.
