MSNBC host and former “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams will be leaving NBC News by the end of 2021, NBC News reports.
- MSNBC President Rashida Jones said Tuesday Williams will leave the network to “spend time with his family.”
- He said his exit comes after “28 years, 38 countries, eight Olympic games, seven Presidential elections, half a dozen Presidents, a few wars, and one SNL,” according to a farewell sent to his co-workers, per NBC News.
- “Good friends were in great supply at NBC. I was fortunate that everyone I worked with made me better at my job,” Williams wrote.
Williams is leaving the network by his own choice, hoping to retire at the top of his game, sources told Variety. He does not plan to seek opportunities on other networks.
Williams faced criticism in 2015 when he said “a Chinook helicopter he was traveling in while on a reporting trip to Iraq was hit by enemy fire and forced down” during the Iraq War, according to Variety.
- But “Williams and his crew never faced enemy fire and landed safely while traveling in the country,” according to Variety. “The account was challenged by soldiers who were aware of the true nature of the incident and had begun to complain.”
After the controversy, Williams returned to television as a news anchor on MSNBC, per The New York Times.