An Unlikely Foursome with Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Hi Amber, Hi Lola. Welcome to an Unlikely Affair.

00:00:09
Speaker 2: All right, hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Unlikely Affair. I'm sitting the right or actually I'm sitting to the left.

00:00:16
Speaker 1: You're to my right of your right hand today, baby, yeah you are.

00:00:20
Speaker 2: And I'm so excited for this podcast. Today we are here with Amy and TJ. Hi, guys, Hello, happy to be here.

00:00:28
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness. It's a nice setup. This is great. This is what it's like to be on you guys podcast. We will come all the time, don't us.

00:00:36
Speaker 1: With a good time. This is lovely. Amy and TJ. We're at our Unlikely Affair party, and we were talking at this round table, which, by the way, thank you guys so much for coming. I know you guys, thank you. Blew in and had like the longest day. But Amy said to us, you guys have such a crazy story. I was like, so do you We we should talk about it.

00:01:02
Speaker 4: That takes one to know one.

00:01:07
Speaker 1: So we're very excited to have you guys on.

00:01:10
Speaker 3: That was last night in thet another thing that party. We found each other and it looked like all of us were trying to find the exit at the end of it. You all called us and we were trying to leave. We called yoah and everybody was ready to go.

00:01:22
Speaker 2: And I think I said, you guys should probably leave now.

00:01:24
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:01:25
Speaker 4: We took the hint.

00:01:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like, you guys have been up and you have to wake up at one thirty in the morning like you.

00:01:30
Speaker 1: Mama Bear came out and said, Okay.

00:01:32
Speaker 4: That's funny, but yes, that was good advice and we took it.

00:01:35
Speaker 5: Well.

00:01:35
Speaker 1: We're thrilled that you did, because I mean, I you both have children older. How old are your kids even?

00:01:43
Speaker 4: I have a twenty three year old daughter and a nineteen year old daughter.

00:01:47
Speaker 3: Wow, and we have the My little one is twelve.

00:01:50
Speaker 4: Okay, sheep saying twelve. She just turned thirteen in.

00:01:53
Speaker 1: Jayeary wow, Oh my gosh. I know part of my language, but bit you look good, thank you.

00:02:01
Speaker 4: I will take that language do Yeah. And you know what's cool because I know you all have some shared children experiences. We'll get into that, but we my daughters grew up baby sitting sabine, so they all knew each other very well before we even became romantically involved. Let's start from the beginning.

00:02:23
Speaker 1: Let's start from the beginning.

00:02:24
Speaker 3: What the beginning.

00:02:26
Speaker 4: We actually aren't sure.

00:02:27
Speaker 1: It's a little foggy, doesn't it kind of even disassociated. You're like, I don't know. I'm not claiming I can do that.

00:02:35
Speaker 4: Tell me to do that.

00:02:36
Speaker 1: We have that.

00:02:37
Speaker 4: Experience for sure.

00:02:39
Speaker 1: So you you said this is the third go around for you both, you're correct, Yes, okay, Well third time is the charm. My dad always said he only made it to a second wife. So I don't know. I don't know how it feels about that. And you said that your kids grew up watching your child. I have to imagine then that you guys knew each other's spouses at the time. Yeah.

00:03:08
Speaker 3: We I mean, you just naturally have to. But there wasn't a lot of We didn't spend a lot of time no together.

00:03:13
Speaker 4: There was no relationship with the others spouses at the time at all. We would run into each other, I would say, maybe in the span of the eight years that we were just friends. I bet you we crossed paths at social functions. I could count on one hand. That's how little people made a lot more about like, oh somehow we were all we were not TJ and I were always the friends.

00:03:37
Speaker 3: And to your point, about the wondering about the kids. Her kids would just come over and babysit. It wasn't like I was going over there, So no I needed a babysitter much. I was one two at the time when they started babysitting.

00:03:48
Speaker 4: My kids were teenagers, and so it worked out.

00:03:50
Speaker 1: Here you go, were you at ABC together?

00:03:53
Speaker 6: Yes?

00:03:53
Speaker 2: Okay, so just okay, that makes sense, and you know that. I feel like there are times where you.

00:04:01
Speaker 1: And again I've I can count on one hand how many times I have been in a relationship or even leaned in that direction. But the friendship part and then the comfortability I find is when shit gets real. Obviously that's what you guys have.

00:04:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, we just you know what, We were two people who always found each other in a crowded room and I was like, oh, there's my guy. And he was just always that friend who I knew I could go. You know, when you have to make small talk with people and you're in these functions, and even when we would go we would get a sign to go cover things together, it was like, oh, thank god, it's TJ. Because we just got each other. We love just hanging and we knew we could trust each other. On the air, and that's very rare in media. Usually people are trying to one up each other steal the spotlight from another. So if you've got two people on a story, it oftentimes becomes competitive. Wow, and he and I never had that. We always were there to make the other look better. And it was just such a rare chemistry that we had where we just trusted each other and we made each other better. And so we just and we liked each other, which is also I think kind of rare sometimes in the business we were in.

00:05:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm sure at some point both of you guys closed and said, you know, like, Wow, that person just makes me feel like myself or I feel so like, did you consciously recognize the difference you felt when, say, you were with another like a co host or co anchor or even back at home.

00:05:30
Speaker 3: Oh my god, dear lady, we were begging and pleading with them to let us work together like we were please please, will you all please allow us to work because we became I would say, in the last three years at least before we started dating, we were best. We were each other's best friend, like legit best friend. She helped me through some of the worst hell, I've gone through in my life as a friend and got me on a good path. So that foundation of friendship was there now, and we didn't realize how how valuable that was in a relationship because I've never had that in a relationship. But I am saying I argue with before we even start dating. I said, sweetheart, this, I cannot lose our friendship. So we have to make a decision now if we're gonna date, I cannot lose you as a friend. So if you think this is going to cost us the friendship, I don't want to date you.

00:06:22
Speaker 1: Wow.

00:06:22
Speaker 3: I absolutely had that conversation. That's true.

00:06:25
Speaker 2: Yes, it's so important to be friends first. And I think that's what I'm realizing now going out and dating.

00:06:31
Speaker 1: I think I told you this before.

00:06:33
Speaker 2: It is like I go out and I look at the person that I'm sitting across with, and.

00:06:37
Speaker 1: Can I actually be friends with this person? Not romantically?

00:06:40
Speaker 2: Can I just can we be best friends? Do I see that like comfortability with each other? And I realize it's so important. It sounds like you guys have that from the beginning.

00:06:48
Speaker 3: What's the thing you like, what's the thing you like to do most?

00:06:51
Speaker 4: Right?

00:06:51
Speaker 3: We eat, we go to movies, we watch netflixs you lay in back if you don't. Whoever, if I ask you, who do you want to do that with and not your partner, there's a problem.

00:07:01
Speaker 1: There's a huge problem.

00:07:02
Speaker 3: That should be the number. All that stuff, a basketball game I want to watch, go to or anything. She's number one. I got my boys, she's got her girls. And yes there are moments for that, but all the best fun, adventure, vacation, you name it, get drunk off my ass, you name what's the thing you want? Who do you want there? It's her. That's a friend thing. That's not a romantic thing. I want my friend there.

00:07:27
Speaker 1: And it's true. Right now I'm sitting going, oh my god.

00:07:33
Speaker 4: I don't think people believed us, and I think it's fair to say, and we've talked about this. There were always rumors that something was going on between us because we got along so well, and we were always like, absolutely not. It was the truth. We were just friends who really liked each other. I never even let my head or my heart even consider him as anything other than my friend. It just I was in that lane. That was just where I was, and so I was bifurcating. I wasn't even acknowledging how important that friendship was. And I did know that in other relationships I never had that, but I always thought that was normal. I'm like, I have my girlfriends, those are my best friends. That's why I tell everything too. And I used a lot of times, not used, but I leaned on my girlfriends and those friendships to distract from not actually having a relationship that I wanted to be in or I wanted to so that that should have been a huge red flag, but I didn't know anything different. And it wasn't until it all clicked with TJ where I was like, wait, this is actually incredible. The person who I like being around maybe actually could be the best romantic partner ever. And it took us a little while. It was weird at first. We were such good friends. It was weird. I think the first time I brushed my teeth in front of him, he was like, I don't even know what's happening right now, and it sounds silly, but maybe my teeth all the time in there. But it's like, we're just friends who hang. This is way too intimating right right. And there was a lot of nerves because we actually he told me he loved me before he ever even held my hand. So we had such an emotional connection where there was nothing physical between us, and so it was an I've never had that experience where it's like now when it was time where we actually could be physical because we were in a romantic relationship, it was scary. He was like, I this is strange.

00:09:33
Speaker 1: Was there? Were you intimidated by that? Because sometimes when you have such a beautiful thing happening and you're like, now I got to perform in the bedroom.

00:09:43
Speaker 4: Yes, and now he's got to see me naked, like, oh, is he gonna still feel the same?

00:09:47
Speaker 1: That's super vulnerable.

00:09:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I'm in my late forties at the time.

00:09:51
Speaker 1: So how are you feeling, TJ? Were you worried or you're like, I'm ready to go. I can't wait to look a look because matter just they're not sitting there and being like, I wonder how she's gonna feel about.

00:10:03
Speaker 4: This whole time? Does he see that?

00:10:09
Speaker 1: Do you notice that my left boom drinks more than my right?

00:10:12
Speaker 6: I don't know.

00:10:13
Speaker 1: That could be that could.

00:10:14
Speaker 4: Be a deal breaker, exactly exactly. Well, No, I didn't have that.

00:10:18
Speaker 3: I don't know. Maybe you said, guys, just don't think about that. So that was a concern. But as crazy as it sounds, we ran together for so long. I sit next to her at work. She's wearing tight outfits, she's wearing running pants. I had a pretty good idea.

00:10:37
Speaker 1: In the whole time.

00:10:39
Speaker 4: I'm just.

00:10:41
Speaker 1: I'm just saying no words in my mouth.

00:10:43
Speaker 4: I was aware.

00:10:44
Speaker 3: I mean, I would suggest you are wearing an outfit today that would lend to letting people know what your figure is. She's wearing a larger jacket. I'm saying I had more.

00:10:54
Speaker 1: Don't make me take off my clothes.

00:10:58
Speaker 3: It was simple as that to wear. Of course, worse that wasn't a concern. But we were very familiar with each other.

00:11:05
Speaker 4: We actually had a very specific conversation because I was nervous. Look, I'm a breast cancer survivor and I had a double mastectomy and I had reconstructive surgery. But it is not the same, and you do not look the same, and you have scars. And I actually broke down and cried redemption Bar at redemption bar because he said, are you nervous? As we were talking about taking the next step, and I started to I started to cry, and I just said, I'm just afraid because I'm not I'm not who I used to be, and I just am afraid because I felt like I had damaged goods and I didn't know how he was going to take that, if that was going to take away from any interest he had in me physically because I looked different, and so I was nervous about that one. My doctor cancer is nerve wrecking sometimes.

00:11:55
Speaker 3: And I'm sitting here with you, well, I haven't thought about it this way before, and it's a little upsetting to think the how everybody views our relationship. Like early on, at least people thought these two are involved in this hot affect, don't g please. We were the as far as morning show anchors go, We're the hot ones. We were the and all.

00:12:13
Speaker 4: Seriously, I mean, we're just the younger.

00:12:15
Speaker 1: When you guys got together, I'd be lying if I said I didn't masturbate to it. I'm sorry, I'm just gonna put that out there.

00:12:21
Speaker 3: What other morning show anchors.

00:12:23
Speaker 5: That's my point, right, that's my so with that in mind, what I'm saying, we get that people think, oh, yeah, they got hot and they had a hot night and they did this and they threw away their marriages.

00:12:36
Speaker 3: That conversation. You make such a good point. It was so deliberate, like she took and we took time, and something that serious about breast cancer and what she looks like in the deliberation we took before we took a step to have a relationship together. That is important. This is so special to us. And to think that anyone thought that we were just blowing up our lives or we were out of marriage just before that conversation even took place.

00:13:02
Speaker 5: That shit.

00:13:03
Speaker 1: But that doesn't make for an interesting headline exactly.

00:13:06
Speaker 3: And you said that, as a woman who has been there and done that, you know how it can.

00:13:10
Speaker 1: People take control of the narrative. They don't care that you're two people who are in love and with children. It does not matter what is going to get the most clicks. It's not over.

00:13:21
Speaker 4: We know that, and we know you do.

00:13:22
Speaker 1: You know better than anybody. But it is very hard when people who don't know you in the slightest take control of your narrative and then you never get it back. You never get it back. You will always be and I hey, I'm I think you're both great, but I'm telling you when you see your names, you guys are the anchor. It's almost like your careers, which is not okay. This is not okay at all. And I hope that I'm not offending you by saying this. But once something is out there you you can't change it.

00:13:56
Speaker 4: Oh, I have a scarlet letter like oh. I mean it was relate to that shame, shame, shame, you know, like Circe in the Game of Thrones. And that's how it felt a full year every.

00:14:08
Speaker 2: Day after that, after all of these headlines, how did you guys stay so intact.

00:14:23
Speaker 4: As a couple.

00:14:23
Speaker 2: I felt like now hearing your story from the beginning, it's like your guys foundation was so strong there was nothing that could possibly break it. But if I'm wrong, please no.

00:14:32
Speaker 3: I think it had to be. I met God. I shuddered to think if we were not already solidly friends, you can't survive. That's evidence of how good we were. There's no way the ship we went, there's no way you could survive that. I know with just somebody you're starting a relationship or not that it breaks people.

00:14:51
Speaker 4: Yes it does, because I think they would individually go after TJ in a different way. Than they would go after me, and so then they almost are calling you apart, and that can be incredibly damaging. We had to stick together as a team and face it as a team. But we were I know, you guys know what this feels like, but I felt like we were under assault. We had folks camped out and just chasing and looking for a weird facial expression. If we were smiling, we were flaunting our love and our ex's faces. If we were cold and had a look on our face, we were fighting and things were about to end. And it didn't matter what your face looks like, what you were doing, what you were wearing. They found a way to make it negative and it just became where you got so freaked out by it. We ended up being hermits in our apartment, unable to leave, and then if we did leave, it was hell because.

00:15:42
Speaker 1: It's affected at all.

00:15:44
Speaker 2: I mean in terms of like walking outside of their apartments.

00:15:46
Speaker 4: Really, I'll tell you an interesting story. I know you guys know the paparazzi, but there was a point where I was trying to pick up my car. I had a parking garage next to my apartment, and both of my daughters were out and there was a paparazzi out there just taking pictures, taking pictures. My older daughter thought stupidly that she could go talk to him and say, hey, you got your picture, please leave, like this isn't fair. My sister's sixteen years old at the time, she's a minor, please stop taking pictures of her. And he just looked at her and didn't react. So she came back over. He starts taking pictures even more so she puts up her hand like stop. They used that picture and blurred her hand to make it look like she flicked them off. That is exactly the kind of stuff they do. And I told her, I was like, you just learned what happens when you engage. They will come back and double down and make it even worse.

00:16:32
Speaker 1: Wow, that's disgusting. I'm so sorry.

00:16:34
Speaker 4: That she had to go through that.

00:16:36
Speaker 1: How what was their reaction during all of all this? I mean your yeah, the kids were did you sit them down and talk to them like what your ex's reactions like?

00:16:48
Speaker 4: We didn't have the opportunity to. We were blind here, you.

00:16:50
Speaker 1: Were just outed. You're completely I.

00:16:52
Speaker 4: Was giving a speech in DC and he was on the set of Good Morning America when it all came out.

00:16:58
Speaker 3: Look, you asked about our daughter or my daughter, how she was affected. She this all happened and came out November thirtieth of twenty twenty two. Right, My daughter was aware of the divorce in August of twenty twenty two because I moved out the house. She knew the divorce was happening. So this wasn't a big that that part wasn't a shock.

00:17:22
Speaker 1: That was. It was what the media did that was intense.

00:17:25
Speaker 3: We was and well, we've talked about this and we were blindsided. But I don't know if we didn't take the threat seriously, but we were. We were threatened. We knew this was someone threatened specifically to do this to us, specifically threatened to do what happened in the media as a part of I guess, is it blackmail or extortion? It wasn't.

00:17:44
Speaker 4: Is it extortion? It was it was black They want it. They wanted us to admit that we were dating, and we just weren't ready to yet. We knew obviously we were coakers on Good Morning America. We had a conversation about it. Should we go tell ABCPR and our thoughts or at the time, let's get our divorces finalized and then go And so we were not like hiding, but we weren't broadcasting that we were dating and we want We actually had a plan right after the Christmas break, We're going to go into ABC and say, hey, just want to let you know. But everyone around me, like my close friends, my family, and my daughters all knew I was in the middle of a divorce. We this is in the summer, at the end of July, like my ex moved out of the on my apartment. So to have it be that many months later for them to pretend or act as though they caught us having an affair was so unfair. It was completely absolutely not true. But it was intentional.

00:18:39
Speaker 3: It was the plan was this was a targeted, a specific plan and make this be the case.

00:18:45
Speaker 1: Was the plan to get you too off the air.

00:18:47
Speaker 3: The plan was to humiliate and possibly yes, to get us to lose job. But wow, absolutely this was a part of a plan to get us to behave a certain way. We didn't and we lost. The threat came November fourth, or so I think it was two days later. Was the first picture that was taken of us. So they made good on the threat.

00:19:04
Speaker 1: How that is? How do you stomach that? I mean, how do you go out into the world after that and believe in humanity when people are capable of doing that? I mean that had to have been just such a shock to your system where you're looking around so disoriented. You're the happiest you've ever been in your life. Yes, and at the top of our careers and at the top of our careers, and then someone comes in with the fucking bulldozer to shit all over it, knock it down. I mean that is heartbreaking.

00:19:39
Speaker 4: Yes, I will say this I had never before TJ. TJ, and then my daughters, but like in terms of being in love, the only the love of my life other than my daughters was my job. It was the one thing that I knew I was good at, that I loved and I was proud of. It was my it was my identity. And so someone who wanted to do harm knew that. And TJ, I would say, probably the same for you, right, this was your passion.

00:20:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, this was we were finally healthy and happy. As crazy as that sounds, that when you all and the country saw was having the worst moment of our life, it was happening because we were having the best moment of our life. We were finally out of marriages we shouldn't have been in. We were finally getting ourselves healthy and happy and stable and getting kids settled. We were as happy individually as we had ever been in our lives.

00:20:39
Speaker 1: Found you found your other one hundred percent to make the two hundred you had, you know, fought the battle of your life correct.

00:20:47
Speaker 4: I mean, and honestly I will say this, This is not being dramatic. My cancer actually played a huge role. We, like TJ was saying, we made a decision to be together. This wasn't some lustful night where we just said, fuck it, let's just see what happens, let's get drunk. And this was so intentional. We had so many conversations. We had to acknowledge that we were feeling a certain way about each other and then say what are we going to do about it? And then we said, we both have to go back and figure out what we're doing. We have to we have to move forward in a respectful, correct way. And that is how we managed everything. And we actually, I wanted to be able to look in the mirror and say we did the right thing we did right by everyone, and so to have been managing all of that and dealing with divorce. I knew this was going to be difficult for my children, and we knew it was going to be difficult for Teach's child. But I told myself, if you knew your cancer came back, and I have I have a friend who I watch fight every day and live her best life because no one is guaranteed tomorrow. But when you've gone through cancer, you know it can come back, that threat of recurrence. And I thought, if I walked in for my blood test and they said it's back, how would you live differently? What would you do? And I was like, I would be with tj oh an impact on the decision that we made, because it's hard. It's hard to make all the choices that we made, but we were trying to do the right thing and live our best lives and show our daughters that you can be happy and you can do it the right way.

00:22:15
Speaker 3: For those decisions, it's it's great. Those decisions were made after we both had made individual decisions to get divorced. I didn't know her divorce was going to happen. She didn't know mine was gonna happen. No, wow, though she didn't know. That was no planning. Okay, you go first, and then I'm we.

00:22:32
Speaker 4: Didn't know we were gonna be together.

00:22:33
Speaker 3: I'm not going to get out of a marriage for the sake of maybe I'll start dating.

00:22:38
Speaker 1: I really want what you guys have. Yeah, and I didn't think I did. I had sworn off men. I was like, I'm going to be single for the rest of my life. They add so much drama.

00:22:48
Speaker 4: And I don't know.

00:22:50
Speaker 3: I don't as far as I don't know if we got lucky. I don't know. I really really don't. The advice I give to people now is it's okay to find out, Like figure it out now, it's okay, Like why are we wasting time with something you know is not going to work out? It's okay to just my mom just told me it's better to find out in five months and five years. That's some of the best advice I've ever got.

00:23:11
Speaker 1: That is genius advice, something so simple, it is so profound.

00:23:16
Speaker 3: I was in college, it's better find out now that cry. Don't cry long, but go ahead. Congratulations you got out of that shit.

00:23:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you can tell when you guys are together. It seems very effortless.

00:23:28
Speaker 3: That's friendship.

00:23:29
Speaker 1: Man.

00:23:29
Speaker 4: We just know each other.

00:23:30
Speaker 2: I feel it.

00:23:31
Speaker 1: You guys don't even have to say anything.

00:23:32
Speaker 4: You guys know each other. But I will tell you that year, and again this is not me being dramatic. That year twenty twenty two going into twenty twenty three, that was That was the hardest year of my life, including the year I went to chemo, had multiple surgeries, had the breast cancer diagnosis. That year, that assault, that emotional assault, the assault on our reputations, on our credibility. That was the hardest year of my life. Because our daughters, even and mine, were older, so I think it was more difficult because they were more aware. My youngest was in high school, my oldest had just started NYU. They're walking past the New York Post, They're walking past these tabloids. They see the headlines, they hear everyone talking and social media. They were devastated. They were devastated, they were hurt. And we had not told our daughters. We say that was our biggest mistake of not being transparent about our relationship with our children. We just I wanted to give them a little bit more time. You know they were getting used to the new normal. Anna, Lisa and I were living alone together in our new apartment. Ava had her apartment at NYU. But I just wanted them to get settled for a few months. And I think that's fair, that's our right as private people to be able to give our kids a couple months to breathe before we said hey, by the way, And because they knew TJ and Sabine knew me and we all knew each other, I was just like, let's just give them a little bit of time to get used to this new normal. And that's really why we were trying, for our kid's sake, to keep it quiet, just for a little bit, to give them space because they were in the middle of divorces.

00:25:04
Speaker 3: Also, why are we making an announced Please keep in mind here, we didn't know we were going to end up together. There was no reason for us to make an announcement that we were dating, because it's like a why are we hard launching a month in? There was no reason for that, right right.

00:25:18
Speaker 1: We're still figuring it out, we're finding our groundwork.

00:25:22
Speaker 3: And Yea also hadn't made announcements about our divorces. We this is the other mistake. Yeah, we didn't realize that. Apparently, as public figures, people give a shit need to hear about everything going on in your life. So if we didn't have made an announcement that she was getting a divorced and my vote, divorce came later and people found out two months later, they're dating.

00:25:40
Speaker 1: Now, Okay, Yeah, it doesn't count because you didn't let all of.

00:25:44
Speaker 4: Us know exactly, even though even though yes, the people who were important in my life already knew. I mean, I had I had draft, I thought my divorce was going to be finalized by December. It was quick, it was ready to go. We had lawyers, every thing was done. I think you had lawyers too at the time. Yeah, of course, we go through the divorce with months. The frustrating thing about what ended up happening to us professionally was that it was it. It took it. We could prove it. Not that we had to, but we could. We could easily prove, like, hello, we're not in this affair cheating on our care spouses. We actually have the proof. You want to talk to my divorce attorney. Do you want to talk about when I hired her? It was not even a question we had you were living in another apartment. I mean it was I was moving. The day it came out was the day Annie and I were moving into our new apartment with all the paparazzi changing. So, I mean it everything was scheduled and happening. It wasn't like it happened because we got photographed together. Everything was already like far along in the proceedings.

00:26:53
Speaker 1: It's just someone, Yeah, someone was out out to get you. Yes, I'm sorry, No, I just hearing you say that, Amy.

00:27:01
Speaker 2: I just realized we are so focused on the wrong things in this country. And I know, I'm I will speak for myself only it's just so twisted. There's so many criminals and with all the Epstein file shit that's going on, and all of the political I mean everything that's going on, not in in within the United States, in the world, and they choose to focus on two people that are with children trying to get their lives together. You guys were trying to do right and then you get you get fired, you get fired, bye bye by It's just.

00:27:35
Speaker 1: What was that? What was that like when they brought you guys in, did they bring you in together separate, seately, they probably had to.

00:27:44
Speaker 4: It was a Friday night. I got called to the Empire Hotel. Who did you you went somewhere else? They had Did you know what was what was coming? No, because when they pulled us apart actually on Friday and had us talk and they asked us very specific questions about the timeline everything. They then told us we're gonna support you. Like I left Friday night, do we have a job you? I didn't hear that. I did I I heard? I said, what do you think? They're like, look everything, it sounds like this is fine, Like we wish you had told us ahead of time, but we understand now things are making sense. And then so I was like cool, and we were supposed to be on the air, and we had been on the air after it happened, I think on a Wednesday, came out.

00:28:26
Speaker 1: Can I ask one thing very quickly? So the person who were obviously not saying their name, the person who you feel was blackmailing or out to get you, had nothing to do with the news channel.

00:28:36
Speaker 4: Correct, got it? Okay, keep going? It was correct. So we actually were back on the air for the first two days. We had phone calls with people at ABC and they they at the time were like, you know what, You're right, You've technically done nothing wrong. You're in the middle of divorces, your your own you know, private citizen. What you do on your own time is what you do on your own time. And so I felt pretty confident that we were good. We came back Thursday and Friday. Then night they took us and had us do some more investigative questioning. Right, so we were like, okay, but it all went well as far as my experience went, how did you.

00:29:09
Speaker 3: Oh, it was fine, But I didn't walk out of their feeling I had support of any kind.

00:29:12
Speaker 1: You didn't feel supported at all? You left feeling supported?

00:29:15
Speaker 3: I did?

00:29:15
Speaker 4: Oh.

00:29:16
Speaker 1: Not.

00:29:16
Speaker 3: In the there was never a moment from the time that article came out that I felt support from ABC or Disney. That's so interesting, not once from anybody. Now. They're not supposed to I'm not This is not a criticism. What I'm saying is they're looking out for ABC, they're looking out for GMA, they're looking out for their brand, they're looking out for shareholder, they're looking out. Fine, they're supposed to not support me, But it was pretty shocking how quickly that nobody even asked, well, what's going on or what happened or how are you doing? There was none. It was soom, why are they.

00:29:45
Speaker 1: Not supposed to support you? You didn't do anything wrong.

00:29:47
Speaker 4: But no, I get it. It's a big business, it's a big machine.

00:29:52
Speaker 1: Yes, at the end of the day, when they love you, they love you. But when you no longer serve your purpose, goodbye.

00:29:59
Speaker 3: But again, see that's the thing. We were serving a great purpose. But Twitter was talking about us in a way that Disney didn't like it.

00:30:05
Speaker 1: So you okay, well there you go.

00:30:06
Speaker 4: The frustrating thing, though, is if if I and I believe this, if ABC and Disney had been able to say and by the way we both look and I'm not I'm not naive enough to think, oh I was so loyal to them, they should be loyal to me. But we were their go to workhorses who would fly anywhere, go anywhere. I didn't miss one day while I was on Chemo. I we loved that job, we loved that company, we loved that show and we still do. And so I felt like, and this is my naive part, that we had the receipts we could prove that we did nothing wrong. So I was of the belief, well, the truth is on our side, so we're gonna be okay. Right, Something happened over the weekend and Monday morning I was we were getting up to go into work, get a call. Don't come into work. We're taking you off the air while we effective immediate investigate. This isn't you being fired. This is just us giving it a beat. Lets it die down. I said, please, don't do this, because at that point only the tabloids had reported it. The New York Times, the Washington Posts, any reputable organization had not reported on it because it was just it was it was fun.

00:31:12
Speaker 3: Let us say this that weekend. After the thing went down, we went on the air two days that weekend. We spent the weekend with crisis managers on the phone with a lot of news outlets, and the mainstream news outlets refused to do the story.

00:31:26
Speaker 1: Because it felt smucky because.

00:31:28
Speaker 3: You're getting divorced and now you're dating. Okay, who gives a fuck?

00:31:30
Speaker 1: Right right?

00:31:31
Speaker 4: Irrelevance all passed.

00:31:32
Speaker 1: TMZ loved it, though, I'm sure you know.

00:31:35
Speaker 4: They all passed.

00:31:36
Speaker 3: As soon as a network now has suspended to anchors. Now it's a story, a story.

00:31:44
Speaker 4: And that's what I begged. I begged, I said, please don't do this now, you are going to make it such a much bigger story if you all just said we did the investigation. Turns out both of them are in the middle of divorces and had been for months. We support were whatever they choose to do that, whatever, but just say we and and that was very refiable. And so I don't understand why they wouldn't have given us just that, because if they had done that, none of the rest would have happened, none of it, none of the main we to then when that happened, when they took us off there, Now we're on every single news channel to see your face, to see oh my god.

00:32:25
Speaker 1: And then that it looks at it and it's like, well now it's huge, and it's like you did that.

00:32:32
Speaker 3: And some of the bosses at the time, who aren't there anymore, did get criticism for that, for that being a bad move, for now handling this the right way. Look, that is all either. I mean, it's all said and done. It we had to get over, we had to get past it.

00:32:45
Speaker 1: But that really hard.

00:32:46
Speaker 2: It was hard want to show up and do you know do your job now, because it's like, obviously you haven't lost that love for storytelling or journalism.

00:32:55
Speaker 4: We're doing it on our terms. We're working our asses off, but we're our own bosses now, and we love iHeart and we have just, honestly the iHeart family. I could get emotional because when you feel like everybody turned.

00:33:07
Speaker 6: Their back on you the moment you aren't of use to them, they just completely discard what you've done and how hard you've worked to build a certain credibility and career.

00:33:19
Speaker 4: And so iHeart came in and said, we got you, and we believe in what you can still do and what you can still produce, and you have value. And that was everything in that moment, because I can only speak for myself. I felt so devalued and I had a lot. I had to go back to therapy like and just figure it out. And it's all been good for me because you shouldn't have your job be your identity. You shouldn't get your value from what you do. You should get your value from who you are and how you treat people. And so it was just a total I've been on a course correct because of it, and I think we're at a place now where I can't say that I'm glad it happened, but I do think there was a reason why it and I'm a better person because of it. And I'm just so happy that we are where we are and our kids and our girls and our families full support of us, full support. And and we did lose friends. I did lose friends.

00:34:14
Speaker 3: You should have lost some of those fuckers. Seriously, there are the should Yeah, that's okay, which to you. I don't think I lost any Seriously. I'm a certain type of clan and I have very few people that I am close to. And you know it, I lost a friend. I hadn't thought about this. Did I lose a friend in this mess? I don't think I did. Some colleagues I don't still deal with us. You just see every day.

00:34:40
Speaker 4: But you knew they were probably never friends to begin with. That wasn't that shocking.

00:34:44
Speaker 2: I didn't know in the beginning that I was going to be gaining a friend at some point, but I did in my divorce.

00:34:49
Speaker 1: You're talking about me, yeah, bitch.

00:34:51
Speaker 4: I'm talking about it.

00:34:52
Speaker 2: I love that there's no one I mean, yeah, It's amazing how life does that. You just never know you don't, and I such a testament to who you guys are and your values, both of you and your children, and the strength like.

00:35:07
Speaker 1: I'm just completely blown away.

00:35:10
Speaker 4: What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

00:35:12
Speaker 1: It's true.

00:35:13
Speaker 4: Thank you, Kelly Clark. Yeah, yeah, I mean no, but seriously, like we both had moments, I mean not and we can kind of laugh about it now, But there were days where I had never ever had thoughts of wanting to just for it to all be over. I've never had a feeling like that before in my life, and I did on multiple days in low moments, I actually and that scared me so much. I was like, I have never felt like I just want the pain to stop. I just wanted to end. I can't live with this pain, because when it's one thing, if you get a divorce is hard enough. Losing your job is hard enough, losing your reputation is hard enough. Having it all be public is hard enough. Having it all happen at the same time, and having your children, my adult children being upset with me about how it all happened, like how could you let this happen? How could you get how could you not know someone was taking a picture of you like those kinds of things. We're like, are you kidding me? Right now? I cannot deal with this. But it all happened at one time, and it just it almost it almost broke me.

00:36:13
Speaker 3: The part of that that got me is that it was happening and it was false and there was nothing say everything you saw, everything that happened was ae hundred percent lie that was specifically manipulated and done intentionally to do what it did. We lost. I mean they won, I mean for the folks, for the one the folks out there listening. You beat us. You won, and we have your name, We have the emails, the documentation at our attorney's office. We could blast that out anytime we wanted to, but we have chosen not to because we don't want this to all get started up again. We don't know, well, you don't want impact to our daughters again, which it certainly would be, and we don't. We just not there.

00:36:53
Speaker 4: But would that help us?

00:36:54
Speaker 3: And they go, oh, okay, we feel better about Amy and TJ now that we know this, Well, we should have put that out three years ago.

00:37:07
Speaker 1: Well tell me this, do you feel that you know this happened in twenty twenty two? Or in twenty twenty six, do you feel that obviously things have calmed down, because that's what happens with time, But do you feel that people have come around to like really see you again and appreciate you.

00:37:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you'll probably realize as well. We think the whole world is after us and hates you because you read a headline or something like that. But you go out in the world and there's the nicest people and everybody embraces you, and it's just a totally different So we were just caught up in that thing for a second, or did not be caught up in that Yeah. Once we actually got out and started interacting me again, we're like, oh, we're not.

00:37:46
Speaker 4: But it took a long time for us to get out.

00:37:47
Speaker 2: And you guys didn't leave in New York, which is shocking. I would have been like, get me out of the city. The city's you know, toxic.

00:37:52
Speaker 4: So everyone was telling us get out of the city. I'm like, that sounds great. But I have a daughter who's a junior in high school, and TJ had a daughter who was in elementary school. I can't leave, but I can't go somewhere. Did I want to go and maybe go to my parents' house in Atlanta and go just bury my head. Yes I did, but I couldn't because I was a mom. Wow.

00:38:11
Speaker 2: But it also showed that you're like, I'm standing in my truth and I'm not leaving you know that.

00:38:16
Speaker 4: I didn't feel strong like that at all. I felt like I was under the sheet.

00:38:20
Speaker 2: But now looking back, you have to be so proud of yourself and like the woman that you are today because of that experience. And we talk about it all the time, like you there's the growth doesn't happen, like when you get the pot of gold, right, the growth happens. And in those moments where you're in the closet and you're like, I can't fucking take another phone call, I don't want to cry anymore, and you're just you feel defeated as a human, like I would rather for me personally, rather not be on this earth. Every time my headline came out with Laala and our ex I and the kids, and it was just like it's a pain.

00:38:53
Speaker 4: In your heart that there's no words to describe. You just want the pain to stop exactly. And I don't think people understand and you can't know, like even us as journalists who saw this and knew the media business fairly intimately, I still can tell you until it happens to you, Until the cameras are pointed at you and the accusations are being lobbied at you, and the headlines you're reading are complete utter lies, you can't know how destructive that is, not just to you, but to everyone who loves you.

00:39:28
Speaker 1: Right, it's a waterfall. It's a waterfall effects well when you see the same thing over and over again. And obviously my situation was on a massively smaller scale, but there were moments where I would look in the mirror and I'd be like, I don't even know who I am, what do I want, what do I represent? What do I care about? Like I just relay on a much smaller scale of looking in the mirror when those headlines and even though you know how the media works, like you said, when it's pointed at you, you lose your identity and sense of self and it is beyond disorienting, and you are in survival. You disassociate, you're on autopilot. And then being a parent, it is like you're just doing enough to like get your kids fed and where they need to be and being like, that's a win for the day.

00:40:18
Speaker 4: I'll catch it tomorrow.

00:40:20
Speaker 1: I'll catch you tomorrow. I said, I love you, and I fed your three meals. We're done here.

00:40:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, And you know, we actually had to be very mindful then after that, like we I it wasn't a year. A full year went by before I physically saw Sabine. We kept everything separate. We just wanted to give the girls space. We kept everything separate. So our first Christmas, first two Christmases together, we spent a part because we spent them with our respective children, because we just wanted to give them the courtesy of them deciding when they were ready. Right, And now we have family vacations, we have Christmases together. Now we can't get rid of them. It's true we're going somewhere next week and Annalsa's popping by, But it also is just a reminder if anyone's going through something, even as a parent, and your kids are upset with something you did or they don't like, even maybe a new relationship or how it all happened, they come around. I had someone tell me, I had someone very kind who went through something similar, say, your kids will come around. They will accept it and they will accept you. If your love is real, they will they will see you happy and they will support you. And sure enough they did it. Just you have to be patient and that that was a lesson for me. I wanted to force everybody just like it's been so painful, can we just all be together? And you have to you have to respect where they are. And we did that, and I think with Sabine it was really I was proud of us. We waited a full year before I and you asked her it was your birthday.

00:41:48
Speaker 3: Sabine led the way. She was never forced to be around anything. None of the kids were. So that was and Sabine came around to a point. So now I asked her to do things and she'll ask if Robot's going to be there, and if not, she'll say, oh, I'll pass them.

00:42:01
Speaker 5: Right.

00:42:02
Speaker 4: It's just that we have a thing.

00:42:03
Speaker 3: We've gone on so many vacations internationally, We've the three of us traveled.

00:42:07
Speaker 1: I guess it always works out the way it's supposed to.

00:42:10
Speaker 3: It works out. It's it's worked out. I cannot believe we're sitting here and where we are and how we are, but it's something has worked.

00:42:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I want to say, because you said that they won, and now I'm going to get emotional, damn it.

00:42:27
Speaker 4: No, please, I never apologize for tears. They're powerful. And I know I hate when I cry too. I hate that I just cried.

00:42:32
Speaker 1: And I do it all the time, and I'm like, stop it, but you care.

00:42:35
Speaker 4: But it's someone.

00:42:36
Speaker 3: You sit down with people and you you find each other. And that only a few people. Everything we've said, you all look like, oh okay, I get it, walk and so many people can't relate to what we're saying and being in those positions. But I can understand why almost everything out of our mouth. You all have been there, done that to a certain degree.

00:42:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's probably easy for me to say because I wasn't in your shoes, but I don't. I don't feel like they won. I think it is really hard to find the love of your life, and love always wins.

00:43:08
Speaker 4: It is, it's, it's and it's not. It's not always been easy. This is this is a tough and by the way, we went from wanting to hang out with each other to now never ever not being with each other. It's I've never spent this much time with another human in my life. But thank god it's him.

00:43:26
Speaker 3: I don't know I said that about because it did they their goal. They reached their goal. I mean, they did what they set out to do, embarrassed, humiliate, and maybe even get us to lose job. But it like that plan worked. We were threatened at what happened.

00:43:46
Speaker 1: Now, I don't mean to discredit that.

00:43:48
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, no, no no, but I'm saying I need to be on board what you're saying.

00:43:51
Speaker 4: You are correct.

00:43:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I just imagine that they're like they set out to do what they wanted to do, and now where the fuck are you? And you guys are together living this like very beautiful happy life and it costs a lot, but I mean I'm out in these streets, you guys, and finding your person is hard, and you guys are a testament to like you fought, you sacrificed, and I'm just so happy that you guys, you know, worked it all out, your kids are involved in happy, you have iHeart allowing you to do things on your terms. Yeah, this was just I really enjoyed having you guys on this podcast. Yes, thank you guys so much. Thank you.

00:44:34
Speaker 4: We have loved starting to get to know you, but we're going to find out a lot more about you here in just a moment, right. So, we have had a blast being on y'all's podcast, but you all are going to be on our podcast. It's correct.

00:44:51
Speaker 1: I love a good swap, So you guys, thank you so much for listening to another episode of an Unlikely Affair. You can catch Amber and myself on Amy t J and I'm so excited we're going to get into it. So we will catch you guys next week. We'll catch you another pod. Bye bye

00:45:09
Speaker 6: M