Ann Curry Reveals That Her NBC Bosses Weren't Fans Of Her Appearance

We certainly hope Ann Curry‘s natural appearance wasn’t a deciding factor for NBC execs to give her the boot from The Today Show, but it sounds like they had some issues with it.
The August issue of Ladies Home Journal features an interview with the 55-year-old journalist that was conducted before she was replaced by Savannah Guthrie. While discussing aging and the pressure for perfection in the television business, she let it slip that she was mocked for wearing a colorful dress on the air:

“One day I wore a multicolored dress and someone asked if I was trying to be Toucan Sam. But I chose it because I thought, This will perk up America.”

Anchors aren’t supposed to resemble a cereal mascot, but they’re apparently supposed to wear high heels, as she continued:

“I’m encouraged by my bosses to wear these ridiculously high-heel shoes because women say, ‘I love your shoes!’ So if it makes women happy, I’ll wear them. But I’m still going to be me.”

She wasn’t so flexible when it came to hiding her age by dying her hair though and explained:

“I’ve got gray hair because I won’t dye it. I want to be able to honor my family by looking exactly as they did as they got older. Of course I want to look my best. I eat right, exercise, and use skin cream. I try to wear nice clothes. But I don’t want to change the fundamental parts of me because it means changing who I am.”

As if she was unintentionally foreshadowing her future with Today, she continued to discuss displaying her natural hair color on the air by saying:

“I’m going to see how it goes. I don’t know if it’s going to be tolerated. I know women who work on TV haven’t been allowed to go gray in the past.”

Whether or not those grays did had anything to do with her firing, she’s already moved on and is now a highly paid correspondent for the network. However, she still has more modest dreams to pursue and wants to teach, as she revealed:

“I think eventually I want to become a teacher, like my father wanted to be, and hopefully positively influence the next generation. I see how much our young people want to have lives that matter. I’d like to be there, encouraging them. It would be a great way to spend my 100-percent-gray years.”

Just keep doin’ you, gurl! We have so much respect for your outlook on life!
[Image via WENN.]