Matt Lauer’s firing from the “Today” show remains his family’s biggest scandal, but his 20-year-old daughter, Romy Lauer, isn’t doing their surname any favors. She was involved in a hit-and-run in the Hamptons that already sounded like a scene straight out of a comedy mocking privileged nepo-baby behavior. Now, a new detail has added another farcical element to her accident.
According to Page Six, Romy crashed her Jeep Wrangler in the Southampton hamlet of Water Mill. Prior to the accident, she had been partying with pals at the Japanese eatery Kissaki during the Fourth of July holiday. Her celebration of her country’s independence seemingly ended on a low note in the wee morning hours of July 5 when she ran into a fence and a sign. A local heard the crash and called the police, who didn’t find Romy’s vehicle at the scene. What they did discover among the wreckage was her license plate, which made it easy to determine who was likely responsible for the damage.
@romylauer1 ♬ GENTLEMEN START YOUR ENGINESSS – fierydeltav_
Romy was all smiles in a TikTok filmed just hours before the accident. She and her friends were seated around a table, and the sound that they chose for their video was a real face-palmer: Kevin James’ famous Daytona 500 intro. “I’ve just got three things to say: God bless our troops, God bless America and, gentlemen, start your engines,” he says in the recording. Making a racing reference before crashing your vehicle isn’t exactly a good look.
The supportive daughter is getting some high-profile legal help
Fleeing the scene of the accident earned Romy Lauer a summons to appear in court, and she hired an attorney whose name you might recognize from another headline-making vehicular incident that occurred in the Hamptons. As noted by Page Six, her lawyer, Edward Burke Jr., was also retrained by Justin Timberlake after he was charged with a DWI.
Before Matt Lauer and Romy’s mother, Annette Roque, got divorced, the Lauer family shared a home in the Hamptons, but locals told People that Matt spent most of his time in New York when they were married. The Hamptons were also Romy’s home, but she’s now enrolled at the University of Miami, where she studies finance. She often documents college life on her TikTok, where she cracked a joke about her degree in October 2023. Describing what she planned on doing with it, she wrote, “Get somebody to support me and best friends financially lol what.”
Romy was supportive of her dad after accusations of sexual misconduct made him one of the few celebs who arguably did get canceled for their behavior. She even tried to help him do a little image rehab in 2019 by dancing with him in since-deleted TikTok videos. Per ET, Romy made light of Matt’s scandal in one of her creations, which included a snapshot of an article about his “Today” axing. “Hey yo, famous relative check,” she said. So, yeah, she doesn’t have a history of exercising great judgment on the app.
