Anne Hathaway stopped for a quick red carpet chat with Matt Lauer on NBC's pre-Golden Globes red carpet special Sunday night.
The two, along with "Today" co-host Savannah Guthrie, made polite chit chat about Hathaway's nominated "Les Miserables" performance. Afterwards Lauer offered Hathaway a "thank you" as she made her way down the gauntlet of press.
The seemingly innocuous interchange was somewhat surprising after Hathaway was put off by his interview on "Today" just a month ago.
Referencing her wardrobe malfunction of two days previous, Lauer quipped: “We’ve seen a lot of you lately.”
Lauer was referring to a moment Hathaway was trying to forget, when she hopped out of a car at the “Les Mis” premiere and flashed photographers sans underwear.
“I’d be happy to stay home,” an embarrassed Hathaway said to Lauer. “But the film…
"It was obviously an unfortunate incident," she continued. "It kind of made me sad on two accounts. One was that I was very sad that we live in an age when someone takes a picture of another person in a vulnerable moment and rather than delete it--and do the decent thing--sells it. And I’m sorry that we live in a culture that commodifies sexuality of unwilling participants, which brings us back to 'Les Mis,' that's what my character is, she is someone who is forced to sell sex to benefit her child because she has nothing and there's no social safety net.
“Yeah so let’s get back to ‘Les Mis,’” the actress concluded.
Hathaway’s creative turn of Lauer’s question didn’t go unnoticed, and though she seemed somewhat unfazed by the tough question, her fans immediately came to her defense. Viewers seemed to widely agree that Lauer took it too far both with his question and his joke.
“Props to Anne Hathaway for standing up to Matt Lauer and his inappropriate line of questioning,” one user wrote on Twitter.
“Who treats Anne Hathaway like that??? She’s a lady. She [should have] slapped Matt Lauer…” another fumed.