PIERS MORGAN: Katie Couric's women-trashing book reveals her hypocrisy
PIERS MORGAN: If there’s a ‘special place in hell for women who don’t help other women’, mean-girl Katie Couric is going to have a ring-side seat after her women-trashing book reveals her lectures about female equality and bullying to be the rankest hypocrisy
Two months ago, Katie Couric retweeted a tweet from a health researcher named Ahmed Ali which contained photos of me, Donald Trump and conservative activist Charlie Kirk and the words: ‘Bullying successful women is a coping mechanism for a lot of mediocre men.’
Couric commented: ‘A friend sent me this. Hmmmmmmmm.’
The clear implication was that she endorsed the message Ali posted after I, Trump and Kirk criticized gymnast Simone Biles for quitting in the Tokyo Olympics.
(The woke brigade had decided that Biles was an inspiring, courageous heroine for giving up on her teammates – she later competed in a solo event – and anyone who said otherwise was a disgusting misogynist pig).
Ms Couric wanted her 1.7 million Twitter followers to know she has no time for awful mediocre men like me who ‘bully’ successful women.
I had a flick through her tweets since then, and they follow a similar pattern of endlessly virtue-signalling pro-women, anti-bullying rhetoric.
I was excited to read extracts from her new autobiography, Going There, expecting to read yet more inspiring proclamations of supportive sisterhood. But imagine my surprise when in fact I found the complete opposite? It turns out that Katie Couric isn’t a pro-women anti-bullying icon at all
Ironically, Couric reveals herself to be a nasty piece of work who chews up female colleagues and competitors like a hungry hippo gorging on watermelon. Couric had a long and often brutal rivalry with Diane Sawyer (left) and boasts in the book that she loved ‘getting under Diane’s skin.’ When Sawyer beats her to an exclusive with a woman who gave birth to twins aged 57, Couric accuses her of deploying sexual favors, raging: ‘I wonder who she had to blow to get that?’ She froze out Ashleigh Banfield (right), one of the nicest people I’ve ever worked with, when she perceived her to be a threat so refused to help.
She was particularly incensed by the way Andrew Cuomo behaved towards women in the workplace when he was Governor of New York, and by the Taliban’s treatment of women.
She enthusiastically supported Women’s Equality Day on August 24, and heavily promoted Gretchen Carlson’s campaign to stop women having to endure ‘bad things that happen to them at work.’
Couric was also thrilled to be one of Meghan Markle’s ludicrous 40th birthday list of 40 celebrities selected by Princess Pinocchio in August to donate just 40 minutes (!) of their empowering (!) time to ‘support women in the workforce’ and using ‘mentorship to help women regain confidence.’
Hypocrisy is another of Couric’s pet hates.
So, I was excited to read extracts from her new autobiography, Going There, expecting to read yet more inspiring proclamations of supportive sisterhood.
But imagine my surprise when in fact I found the complete opposite?
It turns out that Katie Couric isn’t a pro-women anti-bullying icon at all.
Ironically, she reveals herself to be a nasty piece of work who chews up female colleagues and competitors like a hungry hippo gorging on watermelon.
Two months ago, Katie Couric retweeted a tweet from a health researcher named Ahmed Ali which contained photos of me, Donald Trump and conservative activist Charlie Kirk and the words: ‘Bullying successful women is a coping mechanism for a lot of mediocre men.’ Couric commented: ‘A friend sent me this. Hmmmmmmmm.’
The clear implication was that she endorsed the message Ali posted after I, Trump and Kirk criticized gymnast Simone Biles for quitting in the Tokyo Olympics. (The woke brigade had decided that Biles was an inspiring, courageous heroine for giving up on her teammates – she later competed in a solo event – and anyone who said otherwise was a disgusting misogynist pig)
Her idea of feminist trailblazing is to bully, intimidate, abuse and damage other women.
She froze out Ashleigh Banfield, one of the nicest people I’ve ever worked with, when she perceived her to be a threat so refused to help.
Couric writes: ‘For a minute there, Ashleigh Banfield was the next big thing; I’d heard her father was telling anyone who’d listen that she was going to replace me. In that environment, mentorship sometimes felt like self-sabotage.’
In other words, she had to stop her.
Couric, after all, is the person Taylor Swift credits with passing onto her the famous words of sisterly wisdom from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: ‘There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.’ After ‘Going There’ is published, the Devil may need to reserve a seat for the ghastly author
Banfield, who was at NBC with Couric from 2000-2004, was shocked by the revelations. ‘Her words have really hit me hard,’ she said. She (Katie) was my North Star. I always looked at her as one of the most brave presenters … at a time when we were all called bimbos. She was the best morning show host ever. I’m just gobsmacked.’
She was particularly upset by the slur against her father, telling TMZ: ‘I was mad about what she said about my dad because it wasn’t true. He was senile and near 80 and he wasn’t out telling people that.’
As for her prime-time show being suddenly mysteriously cancelled in 2002 despite strong ratings and amid hugely positive press coverage, Banfield said it happened ‘within an instant, with no warning, no explanation – it was just all over. Everything disappeared. They cancelled me. They took away my office, my phone, my desk. I wandered aimlessly, literally looking for desks to sit at for about 10 months. Then they cleared out a tape closet and put a desk in there and that’s where I sat the rest of my contract.’
The bitter experience tarnished her rising star career and still hurts.
‘It feels weird to say this,’ she said, ‘but the emotional gut punch that it took to my soul when NBC sort of kicked me to the curb lasted a long time… it broke my heart. It broke my soul.’
Banfield said it ‘saddens’ her that Couric wasn’t more supportive.
Others might use a different word to describe what happened once Couric had determined that helping her younger talented rival would damage her own career.
Banfield is one of many women Couric trashes in her book.
She bitches that Deborah Norville had ‘relentless perfection’ that was off-putting to viewers.
‘I’m really too stunned and, frankly, hurt to comment,’ Norville responded.
Couric had a long and often brutal rivalry with Diane Sawyer and boasts in the book that she loved ‘getting under Diane’s skin.’
When Sawyer beats her to an exclusive with a woman who gave birth to twins aged 57, Couric accuses her of deploying sexual favors, raging: ‘I wonder who she had to blow to get that?’
She also revels in Martha Stewart’s imprisonment for insider trading, sneering that she needed the ‘healthy humbling’ to ‘develop a sense of humour.
Couric even goes after women in her personal life, branding a female nanny named Doris as ‘delusional’ and ‘trying to destroy my marriage.’
And a load of men, too, cop it from her acid tongue.
And a load of men, too, cop it from her acid tongue. Couric accuses Prince Harry, who she met at a polo match in Brazil during what she says were his ‘wild-oats sowing phase’, of stinking of booze and cigarettes that oozed from ‘every pore of his body.’
She accuses Prince Harry, who she met at a polo match in Brazil during what she says were his ‘wild-oats sowing phase’, of stinking of booze and cigarettes that oozed from ‘every pore of his body.’
Couric brands Larry King a letchy creep, her ex-boyfriend Tom Werner a ‘textbook narcissist’, and even her late husband Jay Monahan who died of cancer in 1998 aged just 42 doesn’t escape her poisonous literary claws as she says she was embarrassed by his confederacy-loving antics.
But it’s her constant attacks on other women that make such a mockery of her pro-women stance.
Couric, after all, is the person Taylor Swift credits with passing onto her the famous words of sisterly wisdom from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: ‘There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.’
After ‘Going There’ is published, the Devil may need to reserve a seat for the ghastly author.
Not least because if this stuff is what she’s prepared to openly admit to, the mind boggles as to what else she got up to that she deemed too awful to share.
Katie Couric went there alright.
And by doing so, she has showed the world that she’s a vile, horribly hypocritical, vindictive misogynist who bullied women as a coping mechanism.
Or as she would say: ‘Hmmmmmm.’
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