Katie Couric Sparks Controversy: Accuses Former ‘Today’ Co-Anchor Bryant Gumbel of Exhibiting ‘Blatantly Sexist Attitude’ Towards Maternity Leave.

Katie Couric recently discussed the “sexist attitude” she experienced from her former co-anchor, Bryant Gumbel, while they were on the Today show together.

“He was upset with me because I took some time off for maternity leave, and he relentlessly criticized me for taking a month or two off,” Couric, 67, explained on the latest episode of Bill Maher’s “Club Random” podcast. “I was having my first child, and he said something like, ‘Why don’t you just have the baby in a field and come back?'”

She continued, “He was joking, but he was teasing me and giving me a hard time, which really reflected a deeply sexist attitude.”

Couric also acknowledged Bryant’s “seamless” and “eloquent” broadcasting skills, but she described him as a “prickly” individual and a quintessential “man’s man.”

Bryant started his tenure on “Today” in 1982, and Couric came aboard in 1991. She had her first daughter, Ellie, with her late husband Jay Monahan, shortly thereafter, less than a year later. (Couric and Monahan had their second daughter, Carrie, in 1996. Monahan passed away from colon cancer two years later at the age of 42.)

Couric and Bryant continued to collaborate until 1997 when Bryant left the NBC show to join CBS. Couric later made a significant career move herself, becoming the first female anchor of the CBS Evening News in 2006.

Couric’s recent remarks about Bryant are part of a broader conversation she’s had about workplace sexism. At a 2018 forum on women’s workplace issues, Couric recounted experiencing “gross” comments at work. This included public critiques of her wardrobe when she started anchoring the CBS Evening News, and an incident at CNN where an executive attributed her success to “her hard work, intelligence, and breast size.”

Rather than ignore the comment, Couric responded by writing to the executive, who later called her, “dripping with apologies.”

She also mentioned that although she has been “fortunate to not experience much sexual misconduct,” she has still faced “widely held attitudes about women and the pigeonholing of women.”

Couric’s other longtime co-host on “Today” was Matt Lauer, who was dismissed from NBC on November 29 following a colleague’s allegations of sexual misconduct in the workplace, which he has denied. Discussing her time with Lauer on Maher’s “Club Random,” Couric described broadcast news as a “very different environment.”

“There was a lot of fraternization,” she noted, using a euphemism to describe it as “interoffice schtupping.”