Survivor host Jeff Probst is explaining himself after Katie Couric revealed to Howard Stern on his SiriusXM radio show May 29 that she went on a date with him but it didn’t go so well.
Couric told Stern that when they went out but "He had puka shells on. That was kind of a weird thing."
Probst, who’s been married to Lisa Ann Russell since 2011, then wrote an e-mail to Us Weekly to explain what happened during their date.
"Katie and I were set up by a mutual friend several years ago. In fact, I don't know if Katie remembers, but that same friend originally tried to set us up way back in 2001," he wrote in the e-mail. "I remember because we were filming Survivor in Kenya which is cool enough -- add to that a date with Katie Couric -- it had the makings of a pretty epic summer. But the timing never worked out and so we never met."
He went on to explain that a couple of years later they were set up again, "The next time I was in New York we would have dinner,” he remembered.
Probst then said about the date with Couric, who has two daughters; Ellie, 21, and Carrie, 17, with her late husband Jay Monahan, “What I remember most about the date is how nervous I was and how little I offered to the conversation. It was like I forgot how to go on a date. Like I was 14. We talked a bit about her kids and the challenges of being a parent to teenagers, and we talked a bit about our careers and lifestyles but we never got much beyond the surface."
He said he didn’t ask her out again, although he would’ve liked to but he didn’t have her number. He said, “it never had a chance to be a romance. Who knows what might have been? But it's a date I definitely remember! I mean, come on, it's Katie Couric!"
Other famous men Couric has been on dates with are Larry King and Full House star Bob Saget.
image: NBC