

In his first interview since he was suspended, Brian Williams blamed his erroneous reporting on his “ego-driven” lifestyle and desire to be “sharper, funnier, quicker than anybody else.”

“What happened is clearly part of my ego getting the better of me,” the disgraced anchor admitted Friday morning on the “Today” show. “This came from clearly a bad place, a bad urge inside me … a desire to better my role in a story I was already in. That’s what I’ve been tearing apart and unpacking and analyzing.”

“To put myself in a better light, to appear better than I was, that’s the process here,” he told colleague Matt Lauer.

Williams’ pre-recorded mea culpa came just a day after NBC announced that he was being replaced by Lester Holt as anchor of “Nightly News.” An internal probe into his far-fetched fibs found that the 22-year veteran had lied on news stories.

I was not trying to mislead people, [and] that to me is a huge difference … I told stories that were not true. Over the years, looking back, it is very clear I never intended to. It got mixed up, it got turned around, in my mind. - Brian Williams

“It has been torture,” Williams explained. “Looking back, it has been absolutely necessary. I have discovered a lot of things. I have been listening to and watching what amounts to the black box recordings from my career. I’ve gone back through everything — basically 20 years of public utterances.”

“I told the story correctly for years, before I told it incorrectly,” he said. “I was not trying to mislead people, [and] that to me is a huge difference … I told stories that were not true. Over the years, looking back, it is very clear I never intended to. It got mixed up, it got turned around, in my mind.”

The demoted Williams, 56, had previously said in a statement that he was sorry for “saying things that weren’t true” when he was reporting.

“I said things that were wrong,” Williams told “Today.” “Looking back, with such clarity now, it is so clear to me, I said things that were wrong. I told stories that were wrong. It wasn’t from a place where I was trying to use my job and title to mislead. I got it wrong. I own this, and I own up to this.

“What happened is the fault of a whole host of other sins,” he added. “It had to have been ego that made me think I had to be sharper, funnier, quicker than anybody else … I would like to take this opportunity to say that what has happened in the past has been identified and torn apart by me. It has been fixed, has been dealt with. And going forward, there are going to be different rules of the road.”

Williams is now set to be a breaking news anchor at MSNBC for what sources say is “substantially less” pay.

Williams was suspended in February after it was revealed he had greatly embellished a story about a 2003 mission in Iraq. When asked by Lauer if he had any say in the matter, he admitted that the decision was out of his hands.

“Was it my first choice? No,” he said. “Obviously I wanted to return to my old job. I thought we’d had a great 10-year run and were on top for most of that time. I pushed back at first. Enough time has passed, I accept the decision.”

The ensuing probe into Williams’ tall tales was led by NBCUniversal general counsel Kim Harris and conducted by former New York Post reporter Richard Esposito, who leads the investigative unit at NBC News.

Williams also is believed to have lied that he witnessed bodies floating in New Orleans’ French Quarter after Hurricane Katrina. He also claimed he was confronted by hostile horsemen in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, and is believed to have exaggerated an on-site report after the earthquake in Haiti in 2010.

He previously made a meek apology when he said he had “misremembered” the events of the 2003 Iraq mission, in which he said the helicopter he was flying in was fired upon.

He had blamed the falsehood on the “fog of memory” that accumulated over the years.

NBC said in a statement about the probe: “The extensive review found that Williams made a number of inaccurate statements about his own role and experiences covering events in the field.”