Sex toys were to help Lauer’s marriage: therapist

A therapist says she gave disgraced TV anchorman Matt Lauer the bag of sex toys that he kept in his office — because he told her he was having marriage “struggles” and was too embarrassed to go to the store himself.

The toys came up in 2016 on an episode of the since-canceled “Meredith Vieira Show,” and the segment was reported on again last week after Lauer was fired amid sexual-misconduct allegations.

Sex therapist Dr. Laura Berman told “Inside Edition” about her conversation with Lauer in 2007, as she was preparing for an appearance on his “Today” show.

“We were in the makeup room, and he sort of asked the makeup artist to leave,” she said. “He asked me about sexual aids and devices. He confided in me about some of the struggles he was having in his married relationship.”

Lauer told the sex therapist he didn’t want to be spotted shopping for X-rated toys in public, she said.

So “I brought him a shopping bag filled with toys from my line that were designed for couples, spicing things up,” she said.

On Vieira’s show years later, Lauer was a guest along with Savannah Guthrie. Vieira, who at one time co-hosted the “Today” show, ribbed him for the “huge bag of sex toys” that she once found in his office.

The anchor insisted they were from a sex therapist who appeared on the program and gave each host a bag of toys.

But Berman said Lauer was actually “mortified” when Vieira found them in his dressing room.

“She was in the closet of his dressing room about to jump out and scare him or something — I don’t know — and she found the bag and was totally heckling him about it, and he was mortified,” the sex therapist said.

According to a Variety report, Lauer once gave a colleague a sex toy — and attached a racy note describing how he wanted to use it on her.

“I’m sort of crestfallen if any of those toys were used to harass any colleagues or any women,” Berman said.

Lauer married model Annette Roque in 1998. Roque filed for divorce in September 2006, but the couple later reconciled.