What Former News Anchor Ann Curry Has Been Doing Since Her Controversial 'Today' Firing

Ann Curry is an award winning journalist, and she was a mainstay on NBC News for years, most notably on "Today." She started on the show in 1997, and by 2011, she was a co-host. But her time there was cut short. In 2012, after just one year as co-host, Curry made a tearful announcement that she was on her last day in the role. It was one of the biggest scandals to ever hit morning TV. After her ousting, she became one of those news anchors who disappeared basically without a trace. But thankfully, her career didn't come to an end with that firing.

Curry was an executive producer and host on two seasons of the PBS show "We'll Meet Again," which looked to reunite people who'd met under challenging circumstances, like a woman who wanted to meet the helicopter pilot who saved her life, and a Holocaust survivor looking for an old friend. The show aired in 2018 and 2019.

The show meant a lot to Curry on a personal level. Her parents were separated during World War II after they'd fallen in love; her father was a soldier and her mother was Japanese. For Curry, she said the show, "is about how people react in world changing events. How they can reach out and do something, an act of kindness. And sometimes even more, be heroic and rescue each other. And how they can help save their lives emotionally as well as physically," per CBS News.

In 2019, Ann Curry hosted "Chasing the Cure," which was all about trying to get people with unexplained illnesses diagnosed and helped. It won the Critic's Choice Award for "Best Live Show" in 2020. It also received a "Solve Together: A Special Recognition for World Changing Ideas" award from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation.

Curry has also been traveling around the world, continuing her passion for reporting and journalism, and she's been a speaker at a number of events. In 2022, she was a speaker at the Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, and she discussed the future of journalism. She spoke at the Texas Women's Foundation annual Luncheon in 2024; the theme was "Catalysts for Change." In November 2024, Curry shared on social media that she was interviewing Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny who died in a Russian prison in 2024. You can watch the interview here. She's also written for National Geographic, and in 2021, she was a recipient of the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Awards, for "her award-winning humanitarian journalism," per the Muhammad Ali Center website. 

And at the end of 2024, Curry shared a series of photos to Instagram showing her trip to Antarctica. While it's unclear if it's a personal or professional trip, it looks like a lot of fun (and very cold)!

To understand how dramatically Curry's career changed, it's important to look at what we've learned about her departure from "Today." At the time, it seemed to be completely unexpected and clearly emotional. And while there are some "Today" anchors who were fired for very clear reasons (hello, Matt Lauer), Curry doesn't even know for sure why she was fired. In a 2020 interview with Elle, she talked about being let go at NBC, saying: "I know I did nothing wrong. I know I was good at my job." There was conversation at the time that the ratings were low, and that the lack of chemistry between co-hosts Curry and Lauer were to blame.

But there's also been rumors that Curry was let go because of Lauer. In 2012, before she was fired, Curry was confided in by someone on the NBC team who said that Lauer had sexually harassed her. Without naming the woman's name, Curry told NBC management, "they had a problem and they needed to keep an eye on [Lauer] and how he deals with women," per The Washington Post. Lauer was fired in 2017 after workplace sexual misconduct allegations came to light.

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