NBC has tracked down and fired the employee responsible for leaking the video of MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell's infamous meltdown, during which he cursed at his crew and yelled about hearing random noises in his earpiece during a live broadcast of his show.
Multiple sources said a male editor for the "Today" show compiled and leaked the eight-minute video to Mediaite last month of O'Donnell yelling at his staff during the Aug. 29 broadcast of his show, "The Last Word," according to Page Six.
In the clip, an increasingly perturbed O’Donnell slams his fist on his desk, rants about "insanity in the control room," and demands someone "stop the hammering!" and what he calls "f—king out-of-control s—t."
The video was slipped to Mediaite as a broadcast-quality digital clip, and so only a handful of people are believed to be capable of accessing and transmitting such a file, sources connected with the leak told Page Six. The leaker, whose name has not been released, left a clear digital trail that allowed NBC to track him down.
NBC declined to comment to Page Six.
O'Donnell has not mentioned on his show that the leaker had been caught, but he did tweet, shortly after the video went viral, that "a better anchorman and a better person would’ve had a better reaction to technical difficulties."
A better anchorman and a better person would've had a better reaction to technical difficulties. I'm sorry.
— Lawrence O'Donnell (@Lawrence) September 20, 2017