Former “Good Morning America” hosts Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes have addressed their ouster from the ABC News morning show for the first time — on a new podcast that debuted a year to the day after the network suspended them.
“The best way to sum us up, Amy and T.J., is that we’re the folks who lost the jobs we love because we love each other,” Holmes said on the premiere episode of the podcast, “Amy & T.J.”
Robach — who conceded on the podcast that she was “nervous” in speaking out — said that the couple have “gone through a year of hell” since they were dismissed from “GMA.” “Relationships are hard, they’re messy, they’re not perfect,” she said. “We have fought for love, and I can say I have never been happier. I am with my best friend.”
Holmes shared that he’s the “happiest and healthiest that I’ve been in my life” and said, “I’m in love with this woman and she’s in love with me and we are planning a life together.”
On Dec. 5, 2022, ABC News suspended Robach and Holmes, who had co-anchored the “GMA3” block of “Good Morning America,” after the revelation of their off-camera relationship. While the couple had not violated any company policy, ABC News felt their relationship had become “an internal and external disruption,” ABC News president Kim Godwin told staffers in a call at the time. The two anchors were officially terminated in January.
According to Robach, the couple had planned to discuss their relationship with ABC News management in January 2023 — but that after word of their affair made headlines, they were let go. She said they were told by their bosses in December that “we had become a distraction.” Holmes commented that at that point, “we knew we would not be going back to that network… you can’t come back from that.”
Holmes said the way their exit from “GMA3” went down, “the story became mainstream when they were able to say, ‘Morning Show Stars Suspended.’ That’s now a major story given the brand we were attached to… and we knew that that was going to be a big deal.”
Until now, Robach said, “Other people have had our story. They’ve told our narrative — and I shouldn’t say ‘our,’ they told ‘a narrative’; it isn’t our narrative. And this is the first time we actually get to say what happened and where we are today.” Holmes added, “There is no one who knows what has been going on between the two of us and the conversations we’ve been having. I’m not accusing some publication of lying, maybe they depended on a source who wasn’t really a source.”
On the podcast, Robach and Holmes recounted instances when people recognized them in public and expressed words of support. Said Robach, “I think, in the end, all of us are always rooting for love. And it doesn’t always happen when you want it to happen, where you want it to happen.”
In late November 2022, Holmes and Robach said, when news broke about their relationship, they had already initiated divorce proceedings with their respective spouses. “We were outed as being in a relationship,” Holmes recalled. “But everyone else thought we were being outed as adulterers, being outed as cheating on our spouses, which wasn’t the case.”
In retrospect, Holmes said, “We failed at being good crisis managers. We failed at… understanding some level of celebrity that neither one of us thought we had.” He said there were some people he hadn’t talked to “in years” who were “calling and texting me every single day when this went down, every day,” while there are others who “I talked to and saw every single day that ain’t heard from since.” Robach said, “You know who your friends are, and you definitely find out who your friends aren’t, in these types of moments,” giving a shout-out to her family and Sara Haines, co-host of ABC’s “The View,” as among those who have supported her through the crisis.
The duo announced the “Amy & T.J.” podcast in partnership with iHeartMedia last month. Per iHeart’s description of the show, executive produced by Robach and Holmes, they will “explore meaningful conversations about current events, pop culture and everything in between. Nothing is off limits.” In addition to hosting and executive producing their own podcast, Robach and Holmes will also collaborate on a slate of upcoming programming for iHeartPodcasts. The podcast is available on the iHeartRadio app and other major podcast platforms.
Holmes had joined ABC News in 2014 after working at CNN, BET and MSNBC. Robach had also served as co-anchor of “20/20” with David Muir. Before joining ABC News in 2012, she had been a national correspondent for NBC News as well as co-host of the “Today” show Saturday edition and an MSNBC anchor.
