Dear Matt Lauer,

I was surprised to see the news of your inappropriate behavior. Even more shocking was the fact that you got fired promptly for said behavior. You’re one of the heads of morning news in the U.S., so the thought of you not being on the Today Show or hosting random interviews on NBC anymore is a little strange.

That being said, I have been waiting for this blessed day for a long time.

As a news anchor and human being, you are expected to behave a certain way both on and off the camera. Usually, this involves not pushing the envelope, not crossing boundaries, and not doing anything else that may make others uncomfortable. In my years of watching you conduct interviews, I have seen a complete lack of regard for those qualities.

Now admittedly, I didn’t care one way or the other about you for a long time. I knew who you were, but it wasn’t until November 2014 that I really became aware of your shady ways. Yes, when you were interviewing the four members of One Direction and you asked if now former member Zayn Malik was absent for this interview because he was doing drugs, any and all respect I may have had for you flew out the window.

This outrage isn’t solely the result of how much I loved the band; in fact, that isn’t even a large part of the reason behind it. I simply believe that as a news anchor questions like that are completely inappropriate, especially when the person in question isn’t there to answer them. The boys gave you a reason behind Zayn’s disappearance, and whether or not it was true is beside the point. You should have left it at that.

The other notable instance for me was when you held that wonderful forum during the 2016 election. At first glance, I praised you for your assertiveness toward certain businessmen, but after looking back over the entirety of the evening I realized just how much of a mess your hosting that evening was. Between the large amount of time spent asking Hillary Clinton about her emails and the time spent interrupting her due to time restraints on the other questions, it felt like the odds were heavily weighed against her that night.

Then on comes Trump, and he lets lie after lie fly from his mouth (some of which were contested by Clinton just minutes earlier), and you allow some of them to be absorbed by the American people without even bothering to clear up any confusion. Add that to the fact that you didn’t bother to mention a single one of Trump’s scandals (and believe me, there was a laundry list even back then), you made the forum seem very biased whether you were trying to or not. That is a big misstep in the world of honest, fair journalism.

With all of the chaos you have caused over the years, I have managed to block you out as much as possible. Now that you’re leaving, those interviews will become very distant memories. You’re not the first to fall victim to society’s latest crackdown on predatory celebrities, and you surely won’t be the last. Even though I would like other people to lose their jobs for their lewd behavior, I can easily say I’m not sad to see you go.

Sincerely,

A disgruntled but relieved viewer of too many NBC interviews.