Brian Williams, who remade his career as an MSNBC host after being fired from his job as NBC “Nightly News” anchor for lying about a wartime story, made the stunning announcement that he’s resigning from the network after 28 years.
Williams said in a note to colleagues that “following much reflection,” he had decided to exit when his contract ends in December.
“This is the end of a chapter and the beginning of another,” Williams wrote. “There are many things I want to do, and I’ll pop up again somewhere.”
Willliams, 62, said he will take a few months off to spend time with his family.
Williams was NBC News’ top anchor from 2004 until 2015, when he was suspended for falsely claiming that he had been in a helicopter hit by enemy fire during the Iraq War.
A subsequent investigation found that the helicopter fabrication wasn’t the only lie he’d made up.
For years, he had made other inaccurate statements about his experiences covering events. He lost his job after the controversy.
He was later welcomed back to the network and given the 11 p.m. hour at MSNBC, which he turned into a fast-moving entertainment newscast summing up the day’s news.
Breaking end-of-an-era news out of MSNBC: Brian Williams, a 28-year veteran of NBC, is leaving the company when his contract ends next month https://t.co/05Qp6CLPHu
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) November 10, 2021
The Associated Press contributed to this article