Billy Bush went from hired to fired at Today in the span of just months in 2016 due to his involvement in Donald Trump’s Access Hollywood scandal. Now, nearly nine years later, Bush has opened up about the emotional turmoil of that time.
“I did everything I could think of to keep myself from jumping off the building,” he told Rob Lowe on a new episode of the actor’s Literally! podcast. “Rob, I was about to get a huge paycheck, my first really big paycheck. I’m at The Today Show. They still have money. They’re the last thing in linear television with real money on the news side. And I was like, ‘Wait! Wait!’ Bang, and right back to the bottom of the hill — or, let’s say, [midway] up the hill — and then you have to keep going back up again.”
In May 2016, Bush was hired as a co-host of Today’s third hour, but that October, he was fired from the position after a 2005 recording from his time on Access Hollywood resurfaced. In that recording, Bush can be heard laughing and joking around with Trump as the future U.S. president talked about kissing and groping women without their consent.
Bush previously discussed the firing in a 2017 interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “I could not put two thoughts together,” he said of the Access Hollywood scandal. “Things were happening way too fast.”
THR reported Bush spent that weekend in October 2016 “desperately trying to save his job” and that NBC News originally planned to have Bush apologize on air the following Monday. “I would have welcomed addressing the audience,” Bush told the publication.
And in 2018, Bush elaborated on his mindset in a People interview. “I was ashamed and embarrassed,” he said. “And then I went through stages of grieving because I lost my career. For a man, that’s the ultimate degradation.”
The TV personality encountered another setback within months of his Today firing, separating from now-ex-wife Sydney Davis after nearly 20 years of marriage.
“I was a happy-go-lucky guy,” Bush told People. “Everything is going great, and I was like, ‘Hey, this is awesome!’ And then, kaboom.”
Bush eventually returned to TV in 2019 as the host of Extra. He announced this May he’ll leave the show after the end of the current 31st season to focus on his Hot Mics podcast.