Matthew Todd "Matt" Lauer (born December 30, 1957) is an American television journalist best known as the host of NBC's The Today Show since 1994. He was previously a news anchor in New York and a local talk-show host in Boston, Philadelphia, Providence and Richmond. He was also host of PM Magazine (or "Evening Magazine" 1980-1986) and worked for ESPN in the 1980s as a sideline reporter. In the early 1990s, Lauer hosted segments of HBO Entertainment News.

Matt Lauer was born in New York City, New York, the son of Marilyn Kolmer, a boutique owner, and Jay Robert Lauer, a bicycle-company executive. His parents divorced during his youth and his father died in 1997. Lauer had become co-host of The Today Show not long before his father's death. In 1999, both Lauer and his cohost Katie Couric initially resisted participation in Today's proposed series about their family roots. The series turned out to be a hit, and Lauer was moved by what he learned about his immigrant ancestors. "My dad was Jewish. My mom is not. So I was not raised anything. I do feel a desire now to find something spiritual. Getting married and wanting to have kids has something to do with that."

Lauer was married from 1982 until 1989 to a television producer named Nancy Alspaugh. The marriage ended in divorce. From 1989 until 1996, he dated Kristen Gesswein, a television newscaster. They were briefly engaged. In 1998, he married Annette Roque, a Dutch model known as "Jade." She appeared in one of Revlon's 1991 ads "The Most Unforgettable Women in the World Wear Revlon" along with Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover girl Daniela Pestova and supermodel Elaine Irwin, who is married to John Mellencamp. During Roque's pregnancy with their third child, in 2006, she and Lauer separated. Although Roque filed for divorce in Manhattan Supreme Court on September 13, 2006, the couple subsequently reconciled.