{"id":62949,"date":"2025-07-13T19:10:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T19:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/62949\/"},"modified":"2025-07-13T19:10:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T19:10:11","slug":"billy-bush-stopped-himself-from-jumping-off-the-building-after-today-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/62949\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Bush stopped himself from ‘jumping off the building’ after ‘Today’ exit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Billy Bush<\/a> is reflecting on his darkest moments after being dismissed from the Today<\/a> show.\n<\/p>\n

In an episode of Literally! With Rob Lowe<\/a>, the former Extra host reflected on losing his Today job in 2016 after the leak of his misogynistic 2005 conversation<\/a> with Donald Trump<\/a>.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

“I did everything I could think of to keep myself from jumping off the building, ’cause I’m like \u2014 Rob, I was about to get a huge paycheck, my first really big paycheck,” Bush said. “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.”\n<\/p>\n

Bush also said that his brother, tech entrepreneur Jonathan Bush, was his strongest supporter in the fallout of the controversy. “My brother is my best friend, and when his marriage and world fell apart, I was there for him,” he explained. “And in this case, he was there for me. And I would never have survived without him.”\n<\/p>\n

Bush also noted that he received support from his pastor, and said that he “walked on rocks with Tony Robbins” in an effort to remain positive.\n<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the interview, Bush noted a number of other notable figures who had his back after losing the Today gig \u2014 including several key figures from Modern Family<\/a>. “Julie Bowen<\/a>, love her. We went to boarding school together,” he said. “Eric Stonestreet<\/a> and Steve Levitan, the creator of Modern Family, and the list goes on.\n<\/p>\n

Billy Bush at SiriusXM Studios in New York City on Aug. 22, 2016.<\/p>\n

Craig Barritt\/Getty for SiriusXM<\/p>\n

Bush said that he also received encouraging letters and phone calls from Michael Strahan<\/a>, Cindy Crawford<\/a>, and Suzanne Somers<\/a> \u2014\u00a0 but the most extreme show of celebrity support came from Dennis Quaid<\/a>.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

“[He] wrote me the most passionate letter,” Bush recalled. “He was like, fuming. Dennis Quaid. You can see Dennis \u2014 he’s got some energy, and he was just like, ‘These motherf—ers!’ But I loved reading it, of course.”\n<\/p>\n

Bush also said that “the silence” from those who didn’t voice their support was challenging, but said that he understands why some people didn’t reach out.\n<\/p>\n

“Many, you forgive because sometimes you don’t know \u2014 whether someone has cancer or something they’re going through \u2014\u00a0 do they wanna hear from me?” the TV host said. “What do I say? I don’t even know how to say this. I feel badly.”\n<\/p>\n

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly’s<\/a> free daily newsletter<\/a> to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

The audio of the Trump conversation came from unreleased recordings from the day that Bush interviewed the future president on Access Hollywood about his cameo on Days of Our Lives in 2005. Both men released apologies after the Washington Post<\/a> broke the story, and Bush was dismissed from Today several days later.\n<\/p>\n

Bush was later tapped host Extra in 2019, and he held that post until May, when he stepped down from the show.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Watch the full clip of Bush reflecting on the aftermath of the Trump tape controversy above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Billy Bush is reflecting on his darkest moments after being dismissed from the Today show. In an episode…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":62950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[171,173,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-62949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114847509514183468","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}