Al Roker doesn't understand why people care so much about what happened in his pants.
"I'm just kind of amazed that this is such a big deal," he laughed during Tuesday's Take 3 segment on TODAY, after a clip from his candid Dateline interview went viral this week.
In the interview, the anchor opened up to Dr. Nancy Snyderman about an embarrassing moment after undergoing gastric bypass surgery, when he felt he had to "pass a little gas" at the White House.
Instead, he revealed, "A little something extra came out."
"You pooped in your pants," said Dr. Nancy.
"I pooped my pants," he nodded.
The exchange exploded online on Monday afternoon when it was posted by websites like TMZ, leading Roker to become a Twitter trend as the Internet lit up with unfortunate jokes and puns.
Even Savannah got a round of groans during the segment, suggesting that the story should have been titled as Take 2 instead.
But Al shrugged off his viral popularity, explaining he included the anecdote in his book about his weight loss journey because he wanted readers to understand what having gastric surgery really means.
"I put that in the book, 'Never Goin' Back,' because I wanted people to realize that there are consequences to gastric bypass surgery, or any kind of gastric surgery," he said. "Some of them embarrassing, others can be life threatening or fatal."
And despite his brief status as an Internet sensation, Al said the incident hasn't affected his relationship with the White House.
"Look, the good news is the book title does not refer to the White House because I have been back a number of times without incident," he said.
"Maybe not now," Willie joked.
"It could be rescinded," Al agreed.
President Obama has yet to comment.
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Al Roker: I'm never going back to fat
Video: Al opens up about White House incident