Al Roker and Craig Melvin were targeted Thursday by a man who snuck into the “Today” show and was ultimately arrested after lunging at the latter and shouting racist slurs.
The Daily News has confirmed that the suspect snuck into the NBC morning show, where he then swung at 47-year-old Melvin.
The intruder also asked for Al Roker and used the N-word multiple times before he was ultimately apprehended by a New York Police Department officer on a paid detail.
No criminal charges have yet been filed.
At the time of publication, the intruder has not been formally identified, though TMZ — who first broke the story — confirmed the individual was white and unarmed.
Law enforcement sources told the outlet that the man snuck past security after entering through a stairwell. Once he was near a backstage dressing room, he failed to find Roker, 71, and proceeded to seek out and lunge at Melvin.
Both veteran correspondents appeared on air about 15 minutes later, wholly composed, without any indication as to what had transpired.
Per TMZ, an image from within the studio shows multiple people crowded around Melvin after the disturbing incident, which occurred around 9 a.m.
The intrusion comes amid an ongoing investigation into the abduction of “Today” show correspondent Savannah Guthrie’s elderly mother, Nancy.
Though neither suspects nor motive have been identified in the Guthrie kidnapping, Savannah herself has wondered whether her prominence may have inadvertently put her mother in the way of bad actors.
