Billy Bush and NBC are negotiating his exit from NBC News, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.
His impending exit will cap a whirlwind few days that began last Friday when The Washington Post released video of a lewd and misogynistic 2005 conversation between Bush, then the co-host of NBC’s Access Hollywood, and GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.
The tape has imperiled Trump’s candidacy less than a month before the election and upended Bush’s short tenure at the Today show; he joined the program full-time in September.
Since the tape was revealed, NBC’s social media platforms have been deluged with negative comments, while Hollywood publicists have also promised to keep their clients away from Today if Bush remains.
Marcel Pariseau, a partner at True Public Relations, who has a number of high-profile female clients, including Scarlett Johansson, wrote on Facebook: “He was rude and lewd to a few female clients of mine.
When the tape leaked, one celebrity publicist told THR, “People who were already booked on the Today show were saying, ‘Maybe we should look at GMA or make sure it’s not him doing the interview.’
There are people who wouldn’t talk to him before the news. At Access, he was always ‘that guy.’ There were people who were anxious about him before he started on Today.”
Source: AURN