Today Show Pokes Fun at Rumor That Geist and Morales Were Fired

In light of a debunked report by Us Weekly on Wednesday that Today show co-hosts Natalie Morales and Willie Geist had been fired — which was quickly refuted by NBC News president Deborah Turness — the Today crew decided to poke fun at the media rumors Thursday morning.

“What are you doing here?” co-hosts Tamron Hall and Al Roker quipped. “That’s not what I read in the papers and on the Internet.”

Hall joked she thought Geist was gone when she got to work in the morning and his usual “diva self” wasn’t there to banter with her — not to worry though, she said, he was just on assignment in Brooklyn. Geist said he and Morales walked into work yesterday and jokingly asked each other what they were doing there, given the report that they had been fired. Geist also thanked the loyal Today viewers for what he described as an outpouring of support.

“When this totally erroneous out-of-the-sky report came out, the support and the concern blew

me away on Twitter and Facebook and phone calls and emails, so it just re-affirmed for me how special this show is and how great our viewers are, and I’m just so grateful for all that, so thank you guys,” Geist said in a more serious tone.

Hall compared the entire Us Weekly report to a Kindergarten game of whisper-down-the-lane, and Morales said that once more Internet sites picked up the news, she got calls from concerned family members.

Watch the video below, via NBC:

[h/t Huffington Post]

[Image via screengrab]

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