The former “Today” cohost said he “could feel it in the room” that Matt Lauer and Al Roker “definitely did not want me there.”

Billy Bush blasts Al Roker as ‘vindictive,’ ‘rageful’ during their Today run: ‘He’s a mean person’

The former "Today" cohost said he "could feel it in the room" that Matt Lauer and Al Roker "definitely did not want me there."

By Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2022. Her work has previously appeared on MTV News, Teen Vogue, and NME.

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June 16, 2026 2:54 p.m. ET

Billy Bush; Al Roker. Credit:

River Callaway/Getty; Taylor Hill/WireImage

- Billy Bush is bashing his former *Today* cohost, Al Roker.

- The TV presenter described Roker as "vindictive," "rageful," and "mean" during their time on the morning program together.

- “There was this general feeling they don't want you there,” he said.

Billy Bush isn't holding back his feelings about his former *Today* cohost, Al Roker.

The television presenter, 54, ripped into the weatherman, 71, on a recent episode of *The Nerve With Maureen Callahan*, calling Roker a “vindictive” and “rageful” colleague with whom he was at odds during his two-month stint on the daytime program in 2016.

“There's something about me in particular, forever, that was like [he] likes me but fears me, didn't want me anywhere near,” Bush claimed. “The way I describe Al is three words: territorial, vindictive, and chronically unprepared.”

** has reached out to a representative for Roker for comment.

Bush and Roker on the set of 'Today' at the Rio Olympics in 2016.

Joe Scarnici/NBC/Getty

The radio personality went on to share that the third hour of *Today*, during which Roker serves as a permanent cohost, will “never be a successful hour because he's maybe the worst interviewer on television,” claiming, “He's totally unprepared.”

Bush also claimed he was supposed to eventually be “the lead person” on Today’s third hour. Instead, he said “the Trump thing happens” — a reference to the infamous leaked *Access Hollywood *interview between Bush and the eventual president during which Trump declared he could “do anything” to women including grabbing them “by the p---y.” The exchange ultimately led to Bush losing his job on the series.

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But that wasn’t all Bush had to say about Roker. He also bashed what he believes is the TV personality's lack of preparation ahead of interviews and reflected on feeling unwanted while on the show.

“There was this general feeling they don't want you there,” he said. “When I got the gig, the bosses did the thing, they thought I was going to be great for the third hour. But the territorial talent, especially the men — Matt Lauer, Al Roker — definitely did not want me there. You could feel it on their skin. I could feel it in the room with them.”

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Bush also claimed that, in one instance, Roker went so far as to like a tweet that described him as a “white-splaining racist” while they were on the show together. “I was on the air with him every day. And so I'm like, ‘Oh, my god, I'm here. I'm new. I'm the new guy. And this dude's liking tweets from people that are calling me things that are career-ending and awful and not f---ing true,’” Bush recalled.

He said he raised the issue with producers, but claimed, “Al had been there forever, so he kind of, you know, he gets free run of the place for his many credentials and one of them being longevity.”

Bush continued, “People don't know how mean he was. He's mean. He's mean. He's a mean person. When you say rageful and all that, it’s mean. There is rage in there. There's jealousy. And I talk about vindictiveness, but he's mean.”

Bush described Roker as someone who “doesn’t share the air” and wasn’t a team player. He added, “He sees somebody doing well on the *Today* show and immediately it's take them down.”

He also claimed that part of the reason why Roker didn’t like him was because the women on staff enjoyed his presence.

“Al is furious. He's rageful. He's angry. And when I got there, they said, you know, a younger guy with a full head of hair who the women on the staff genuinely liked a lot. And that was infuriating to him,” Bush asserted. “When I got sacked and sent out of there, they all, all the women were destroyed. And the men, which is Al and Matt and the executive producer at the time, Don Nash, who was a waterboy for Matt, they were, 'Get him out of here.'”

And, if that wasn’t enough, he also isn’t a fan of Roker’s weather reporting, either. “You're never going to hear anything that's truly insightful,” he said. “That's not what he's there for.”

Listen to Bush talk about Roker in the clip above.

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