Katie Couric left no stone unturned in her new memoir, Going There, shedding light on many experiences throughout her long-standing career in journalism and in her personal life.
“I couldn’t imagine writing something that wasn’t honest and radically transparent,” Couric, 64, told Today host Savannah Guthrie while stopping by the studio in October on her press tour.
“I didn’t want to do a victory lap or my greatest hits,” she explained. “I think I’ve had an extraordinary life. I’ve had incredible opportunities … I’ve had huge successes. I’ve had some pretty public failures, too.”
The TV personality said she felt compelled to keep it real in her 500-page book, and that meant including chapters that were likely to evoke an emotional response.
“I wanted to share the messy parts, what real life was like,” Couric added.
In her tell-all memoir, the Virginia native reflected on her reaction to the sexual assault scandal involving her former Today coanchor Matt Lauer in November 2017, as well as her first meeting with Prince Harry and her own past struggles with an eating disorder.
In hindsight, the broadcaster said being a regular fixture on television “made my dreams come true,” according to an excerpt from the book’s prologue. “But it is not the whole story, and it is not the whole me. The book is.”
The Katie Couric Media founder wrote about how her rise to fame impacted her first marriage to husband Jay Monahan, noting it caused a shift in their dynamic when she became a permanent coanchor on Today in 1991.
She explained how the extra attention “took up residence in [her] marriage [to Monahan] like an overbearing houseguest.”
Couric not only shared revelations about her career, but also detailed “the shock and trauma of losing her husband to stage 4 colon cancer when he was just 42,” leaving her a widow and mom to their two daughters, Ellie and Caroline.
The death of Couric’s sister Emily from pancreatic cancer just three years later was another hardship she experienced soon after losing her husband.
Find out some of Katie Couric’s biggest revelations in Going There below.