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A new expose has pushed the scandal-plagued NBC back onto center stage as sources claim the network knew far more about Matt Lauer then it let on.  

The peacock network is under fire once again after sources told Esquire that NBC was a 'boys club' and 'had to have known something' about Lauer's behavior.

They include former Today show assistant Addie Zinone, who had an affair with Lauer in 2000 after he repeatedly sent her flirtatious messages at work.

Esquire's expose paints a picture of a network that was willing to protect its golden boy until the he threatened to be the biggest of a growing number of NBC scandals. 

NBC is under fire once again after sources told Esquire that the peacock network was a 'boys club' and 'had to have known something' about Matt Lauer's alleged sexual misconduct 

Esquire's expose paints a picture of a network that was willing to protect its golden boy until the he threatened to be the biggest in a growing number of NBC scandals. Lauer is pictured here in December 2017, shortly after the allegations came to light 

A senior NBC source revealed to Esquire that several executives 'directly' confronted Lauer on 'different occasions' before the scandal broke.   

'We sat down with him, looked him in the eye and said "Is there anything you can think of that even you don't consider to be harassment that might fall into this category?"' the source recalled. 

'And every one of those times he said "There's nothing"'. On a couple of occasions, he said, "I've been racking my brain". Those were his words.' 

And Ken Auletta, a journalist and media critic, who has covered NBC for 25 plus years, said 'people knew' about Lauer's behavior for years.  

'People [inside the network] know a lot more than people outside do and gossip a lot more and resent a lot more (a) because they think it's wrong or (b) because they're jealous or (c) because how the f**k is this guy getting away with it?' he said.

The allegations against Lauer came to light amid news that NBC had dropped Ronan Farrow's story about Harvey Weinstein.

That same month, MSNBC's Mark Halperin was fired after several women accused him of sexual harassment while he was at ABC.

So when a colleague - whose identity has not been released - alleged Lauer had drawn her into an improper sexual relationship, the network's reaction was swift.

Among the sources are former Today show assistant Addie Zinone (pictured in December), who had an affair with Lauer in 2000 after he repeatedly sent her flirtatious messages at work

NBC revealed in November 2017 after one of Lauer's colleagues alleged he drew her into an improper sexual relationship. The news was announced on-air by Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb (pictured after the segment) 

Lauer admitted to the sexual relationship - albeit denying that he was coercive - and  NBC News chairman Andy Lack fired the Today show host at his $7million Manhattan apartment that same night.

Thirty-six hours after the woman reported Lauer to the network, Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb announced his termination live on-air. 

'We received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer,' the statement read.   

'It represented, after serious review, a clear violation of our company's standards. As a result, we've decided to terminate his employment.'   

'While it is the first complaint about his behavior in the over twenty years he's been at NBC News, we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.' 

The statements effectively ended Lauer's 20-year career as a co-host of Today and cost him the remaining $30million left in his contract. 

But NBC's words surprised insiders who had heard whispers of Lauer's behavior for months as three major news outlets began working on stories regarding the allegations. 

Variety would go on to report claims from three different women who said they were sexually harassed by Lauer and had all complained to management. 

One woman accused Lauer of exposing himself before reprimanding her for not engaging in a sex act.

Another said she was gifted a sex toy by Lauer, who included an 'explicit note about how he wanted to use it on her'.  

Lauer admitted to the sexual relationship and NBC News chairman Andy Lack (pictured) fired the Today show host at his own $7million Manhattan apartment that same night

Then there was Zinone, who began a weeks-long affair with Lauer after he began messaging her on the network's own IM system. 

'I hope you won't drag me to personnel for saying this, but you look fantastic,' Lauer wrote Zinone, who was 20 years his junior. 

Lauer's wife Annette Roque filed for divorce after the scandal broke. It was later revealed Lauer had an affair with Zinone in 2000, two years after he and Roque tied the knot 

'OK...NOW YOU'RE KILLING ME. YOU LOOK GREAT TODAY! A BIT TOUGH TO CONCENTRATE!' another one read in all caps. 

The messages came just two years after Lauer tied the knot to his second wife Annette Roque, who filed for divorce after the scandal broke.

Zinone recalled to Esquire how, shortly after receiving the messages, Lauer invited her to lunch. 

'You became such friends with everybody else but not with me,' he told Zinone, who was leaving the network to become a newsreader at a West Virginia affiliate. 

'And it gets into, "Oh, I'm such an old guy". He turned it on so that I would sort of be like, "Oh Matt, come on, you know that's not true". I was like perfect prey.' 

Minutes after they returned to work Lauer messaged her again on the network's system, pleading and insisting that she get intimate with him in a room at the studio.

Zinone said that, in another instance, Lauer asked her to come to his office and tried to become intimate right then and there in the middle of work.

'He pushed the button to shut the door. And then I was like, "Matt, [she] is out there"', Zinone recalled, speaking of his assistant. 

'But it's like it didn't matter. I mean, nothing happened. He tried. But I was like, "Oh, no. No. No. Like, are you kidding? There are people right outside"'. 

Zinone became convinced that people at NBC knew about the affair after a segment was squashed, years later, about her work in Iraq with the Army's media unit.

She learned that a producer had not only rejected the segment, but began speaking poorly about Zinone for 'no apparent reason'.

As stories began to unfurl about Lauer at the end of 2017, a 2012 clip from Andy Cohen's Watch What Happens resurfaced in which Katie Couric said he 'pinches me on the a** a lot'

And another video showed a moment during a Today commercial break in which Lauer told Meredith Vieira to 'keep bending over like that. It's a nice view'

'[They] had to have known something,' she said. 'Why not just say, "Nah, that's not a story I'm interested in?'" 

As stories began to unfurl about Lauer at the end of 2017, many called to light a 2008 Friars Club roast in which his sexual behavior was the subject of numerous jokes. 

'The whole theme was that he does the show and then he has sex with people, with employees,' MSNBC's Joe Scarborough recalled on-air after Lauer was fired.

'So was this whispered behind closed doors? No. It was shouted from the mountaintops and everyone laughed about it.' 

A 2012 clip from Andy Cohen's Watch What Happens also resurfaced in which Katie Couric quipped that Lauer 'pinches me on the a** a lot'. 

And another video showed a moment during a Today commercial break in which Lauer told Meredith Vieira to 'keep bending over like that. It's a nice view'. 

NBC only raised even more eyebrows when it was revealed that the company had hired its own legal counsel to investigate the allegations surrounding Lauer and how much the network knew. 

The final report claimed that NBC had only received information about 'three additional women' who were harassed by Lauer 'within two weeks' of his firing. 

It claimed that no senior executives at the network had received 'any complaints about Lauer's workplace behavior prior to November 27', conceding only that the anchor 'could be flirtatious' and openly engaged 'in sexually-oriented banter in the workplace'. 

Lauer has fled to his home in the Hamptons since the scandal broke. He is pictured here picking up his son's lunch from a local deli in December 2017

Ari Wilkenfeld, the lawyer for the NBC colleague who accused Lauer in November, was baffled by the network's decision. 

'Anyone who was afraid to talk before the investigation is not likely to speak up when attorneys from inside their company try to interview them,' he said. 

Meanwhile, other NBC sources said that, in the days after Lauer's firing, the network was solely focused on making he didn't tarnish their reputation.

'That was all they cared about,' one source said, noting how one of the first things NBC did after the scandal broke was remove Lauer from all promotional materials. 

'No one for one second thought to ask us how we were doing.' 

Veteran broadcast correspondent Mark Feldstein, who worked at NBC for two years, said all evidence suggests a 'really troubling culture' at the network.

'Truth...is what a news organization values above all else,' he said. 'Truth in owning up to sexual misconduct. Truth in reporting what it knows about.' 

'All of this shakes the public credibility of NBC News as an independent journalistic institution.'