A former Today show staff member just came out about an alleged affair she had with Matt Lauer 17 years ago, saying she is coming forward because she wants to empower others to do the same and make better choices in the workplace.

Addie Zinone revealed her story to Variety, and this week appeared on Megyn Kelly’s hour on the Today show.

Addie said Matt and her went out to lunch, which led to him hitting on her: “I realize that sounds very naive and silly of me because I walked over there to do that,” she said, revealing that he ended up inviting him to his dressing room. “But in that moment, I didn’t have anybody to share my fears and confusion with except for him, because what am I going to say to people? I’m not suggesting that he — well, he kind of lured me, but I’m not suggesting that I’m not owning my part in this,” she continued. “I went and met him over there.”

“These are very hard things to talk about,” she admitted. “My family is shattered by this. They are afraid for me. This all trickles down to a lot of people that are affected, so having these conversations is really important, but also there’s a lot of shame attached to what I did. My goal was to get him to see me as a human being, so it does seem odd that I would continually go see him,” she continued. “But every time it was an opportunity like, ‘Will you see me as a human being? Can we finally have a conversation?’”