In a story in which irony took a seat right over there, NBC anchor Chris Hansen, who has spent many years shaming people with hidden-camera justice on Dateline and To Catch A Predator, has been shamed by a hidden camera that allegedly caught him cheating on his wife with a woman who is 21 years his junior. The National Enquirer says that it has secretly filmed Hansen on a date with a Florida news reporter he’s said to have been meeting with for the past four months, leaving his wife and two sons behind to pay her frequent visits as he continued to send her flowers and otherwise maintain their illicit long-distance relationship. Actually, we have the chat logs right here:
Or no, we don’t have the chat logs. But they would no doubt be damning, especially if they were read aloud in an incredulous voice then followed by a pitying smirk. Of course, no one besides the most reactionary is suggesting that Hansen is guilty of hypocrisy or OMG PEDOPHILIA for dating a 30-year-old woman, and fortunately the Enquirer’s cameras failed to catch him with anything truly embarrassing, like a trunk full of wine coolers and condoms. But considering Hansen built his career around catching people in embarrassing situations with hidden cameras, it seems like this could, I don’t know, maybe take some of the fun out of that. If only he’d paused in Florida to have a nice glass of lemonade and asked himself, “So… What am I doing here?”