According to the Post from NBC's Today, which released an excerpt from reporter Brian Stelter's book on the morning show wars, Top of the Morning.

The Morning show is bruised and battered and it tries to recover from its firing of Ann Curry. Every time the show tries to put its head down, the scandal is dredged up again. To say that Stelter's excerpt will cause headaches at 30 Rock is to put things mildly.

The excerpt does not do much to radically alter the known narrative about what happened, but, in his telling, everyone's dislike and distrust for each other went much deeper than has previously been reported. For instance, he writes that Lauer-who, yet again, is placed at the heart of the decision to oust Curry-told a production assistant, "I can't believe I am sitting next to this woman." (Lauer denied this.)

In August of 2011, then-executive producer Jim Bell gave a statement to The Huffington Post saying that everything was fantastic on his show, and praising Curry to the skies.

"It says a lot about the strength of the entire team at 'Today' that we have had another smooth, seamless anchor transition," he said. "We all knew that Ann was the perfect choice."

Since her firing, her old boss Jeff Zucker, who recently took over at CNN, had reportedly offered her a top spot at their cable news network.

It is no secret that according to media rumors and reports, Curry and her then co-host Matt Lauer were not the best of pals. Once again, Lauer is being cast as the villain in the ongoing scandal saga. Stelter writes that Lauer told a production assistant, "I can't believe I am sitting next to this woman."

While the behind-the-scenes-drama was unfolding at NBC, the show's executive producer at the time, Jim Bell told the Huffington Post in August 2011 that Currry was the perfect co-host choice for the show. "It says a lot about the strength of the entire team at 'Today' that we have had another smooth, seamless anchor transition," he told the publication. "We all knew that Ann was the perfect choice."

Meanwhile, outside the ears of the press, Bell reportedly called Curry's promotion a "mistake" and started the ouster campaign. According to Stelter, Bell named his plan "Operation Bambi," after he was told that firing Curry would be like "killing Bambi."