Brian Williams tried to leave NBC News before his controversy exploded.
The disgraced Nightly News anchor really, really, wanted to be a late-night talk show host!
According to an exposé in New York Magazine, Williams first lobbied for Jay Leno's chair on the Tonight Show on NBC, and when that failed he made a bid to replace David Letterman on the Late Show!
New York Magazine's Gabriel Sherman says, "Last year, as he was looking to re-sign his contract, he looked, he talked with CBS CEO Les Moonves about replacing David Letterman, and that didn't work out. So, you can see Brian was trying to get out of news and into the comedy world."
Williams, who once hosted Saturday Night Live, reportedly told friends he felt "embraced" by the entertainment community, more so than his colleagues at NBC News.
In fact, he was apparently "haunted" by his predecessor, Tom Brokaw.
According to New York Magazine, he once called Brokaw a ghost who "is still walking the building."
Sherman told INSIDE EDITION, "Tom Brokaw traveled the world, he had been a reporter. Brian Williams came out of local news. He always felt he wasn't a grizzled reporter who had been out in the field and so I think he felt that pressure to pump himself up to more than who he was which is perhaps why he embellished those stories."
