Matt Lauer and his wife Annette Roque may have been married for nearly 20 years, but they've hardly had a semblance of a union for many of those years.
A new report in the New York Post's Page Six said the two have essentially lived separate lives for years. In fact, the report says she tends to stay at the couple's Long Island home in The Hamptons full-time, while he usually spends his weekdays at their ritzy Park Avenue apartment in New York City. They would usually only see each other on the weekends.
"If she goes out to dinner, it's always with Matt and one other couple," a source in the restaurant world told Page Six. "I've seen her in Manhattan only once or twice, and she's painfully frail."
Over the years, the disgraced "Today" host has immersed himself into Hollywood circles while his wife spends of her time on a horse farm that was constructed near their home. Even while Matt and Annette dated, she was essentially a ghost.
"We'd say, 'This woman is a phantom. She doesn't exist,'" "Today" colleague Elizabeth Vargas told People magazine shortly after Matt and Annette's 1998 nuptials. "We teased Matt."
The couple began living separate lives more than seven years ago once stories surfaced that hinted at Matt's alleged playboy behavior during the Vancouver Olympics in 2010.
"They play happy families at their Hamptons home on weekends, and then she lets him run off to New York to do 'Today' — and goodness knows what else," a source told RadarOnline in September.
In the Hamptons, Annette, a Dutch former model, is seen as mystery, a local store owner told The Post. "While Matt is always out and about with his kids and very pleasant, he is never with Annette," the source said, describing Annette as "a sad wife."
Annette has not been seen publicly since Matt's scandal broke. Some reports suggested that she left the country, but a source said she's still in her Long Island home.