In a Vanity Fair interview, former MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews admitted that his behavior at the network was “inappropriate” and that his accuser Laura Bassett’s claim of sexual harassment is “very credible.”
Bassett wrote in a February GQ column that Matthews had been in the chair next to her when she was in the makeup room getting ready for his show in 2016. He said, “Why haven’t I fallen in love with you yet?” She went on to say his “sexist” behavior “undermined” her job performance. Matthews resigned three days after the column went live.
“I didn’t argue about it, I didn’t deny it,” Matthews said. “I accepted the credibility of the complaint in [Bassett’s] article. I didn’t want to challenge the person that made the complaint and wrote the article. I thought it was very credible and certainly within the person’s rights to write that article, of course. That was highly justified.
“Basically, as I said, to repeat myself, it’s inappropriate in the workplace to compliment somebody on their appearance. This is in the makeup chair, and I did it.”