The hosts of NBC’s “Today Show” got a scare during this morning’s broadcast after a deranged Brooklyn man lunged over a set of barricades and tried to approach them, the network said.
Screaming and yelling could be heard while hosts Meredith Vieira, Al Roker and Willie Geist were outside the NBC studios at Rockefeller Center.
The program immediately went inside the studio where anchor Ann Curry began delivering the news as if nothing had happened.
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When the show resumed a short time later, Vieira, Roker and Geist, filling in for Matt Lauer, returned to the airwaves and explained what happened.
The man had jumped over the barricades and said, “I’m God’s gift to music,” according to Roker.
“And then he hurled himself over the barricades,” added Vieira.
Roker said he looked around after the man emerged and that Vieira and Geist had run off.
“I was gone. … We are lucky we have security and the police department,” said Vieira.
Police sources said cops arrested a man, identified only as a 33-year-old from Brooklyn, shortly after the incident.
No one was injured in the fracas.