NBC fires producer who leaked Lawrence O’Donnell meltdown video: report

NBC News has fired an editor suspected of leaking video of MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell screaming at staffers during his prime-time program “The Last Word,” according to a Monday report. 

 

The New York Post reports that the editor who leaked the video to Mediaite worked for NBC’s “Today.” 

 

“The video of Lawrence O’Donnell was leaked on Sept. 20. The leaker was identified, confronted and fired on Sept. 26. It turned out to be a ‘Today’ show editor who said he did it because he thought it was funny. But it wasn’t exactly the perfect crime — he left a very clear trail,” an unnamed source told the paper’s “Page Six” gossip column.

 

The footage quickly went viral on social media, with the 65-year-old O’Donnell shouting in the footage about “insanity in the control room” and “f—ing out-of-control shit” while complaining about a hammering sound happening on another floor above his studio and referring to MSNBC president Phil Griffin. 

“Stop the hammering up there! Who’s got a hammer? Where is it? Where’s the hammer? Go up on the other floor … I’ll go down to the goddamned floor myself and stop it! Keep the goddamned commercial break going! Call f—ing Phil Griffin! I don’t care who the f— you have to call!”

O’Donnell apologized on Twitter a few hours after the Mediaite story was published.

 

 

Contract expires June 4. I’ll let you know where you can watch me June 5 if it’s not msnbc. I’m sorry this situation has become public. https://t.co/bS8V8GXbZ1

— Lawrence O’Donnell (@Lawrence) May 17, 2017