Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes are finally telling their side of the story. The former GMA3 co-hosts launched their new podcast on Tuesday — one year to the day they were yanked off the air amid news of their romance. On iHeartRadio’s Amy & T.J. podcast, the journalists broke their silence and insisted their relationship was hardly as scandalous as headlines made it seem.
“I am nervous, and we’ve been doing this a long time,” Robach began. “December 5 last year, exactly one year ago today, was the day we were told not to come into work.”
ABC News president Kim Godwin informed staffers that Holmes and Robach would be sidelined temporarily as the network worked through what was best. However, the embattled journalists never returned to Good Morning America or the spinoff they hosted together.
“We never got a follow-up call to say ‘come back,’” Holmes added, calling the podcast launch date a “helluva coincidence.”
“We’re the folks who lost the jobs we love because we love each other,” he declared.
‘We were outed’ but ‘we were not caught’
The couple wanted to make one thing very clear: They did not cheat with each other while married. Holmes and Robach took listeners through the chain of events that happened on Nov. 30, when the Daily Mail published an article (with plenty of photos) showing that the GMA3 hosts appeared to be in a romantic relationship.
“Everyone else thought we were being outed as adulterers, as cheating on our spouses,” Holmes explained. “We had both, at that point, been in divorce proceedings.”
Robach was married to actor Andrew Shue, but confirmed on the podcast she moved out of the family home in August. Holmes said he, too, was separated from wife, Marilee Fiebig, and had been living on his own. He even said one of the photos the Daily Mail published was of him leaving his apartment where he lived solo.
Holmes said one of the ideas for the name of their podcast was “Scandal-less, because this was a scandal that wasn’t.”
Robach had to do a welfare check on Holmes as he was in a ‘pretty dark space’
Holmes was in “a pretty dark spot” one day after tabloids published photos of their alleged affair. Robach remembered getting an apology text from Holmes in which he was using the past tense, which made her extremely nervous. (“You were the love of my life,” he wrote in one message.)
“I call, he doesn’t answer. I FaceTime him, he doesn’t answer. … he’s not answering anybody,” she recalled.
Robach went over to Holmes’s apartment with her father. “I remember going down the hall, opening the door … you were just splayed out on your bed,” she said. ”I said, ‘T.J.’ and you didn’t move. And I remember it was the most awful thing having to touch your body to see if you were warm. I was so afraid. You were just incoherent.”
Holmes revealed he started “pounding vodka” when he got off work the day prior and “didn’t stop.” He also took marijuana edibles.
Robach addressed her own mental health struggles too
“I’m a breast cancer survivor, and I just celebrated 10 years. So I used to always say that 2013 was the worst year of my life, the hardest year of my life. When you go through cancer, yes, you’re afraid that you’re going to die, but you’re fighting to live,” she recalled, explaining this past year was much worse. “I wanted to die. There were days I wanted to die. That was something I never experienced before in my life. I just didn’t want to get up. I didn’t want to see what new headline was going to be out there.”
They claim the story was dropped until ABC inadvertently revived it
Holmes and Robach alleged that they told the real story to multiple mainstream news organizations, all of which agreed not to cover the story when it was revealed the two had left their marriages. But then ABC suspended the anchors and the narrative took on a life of its own.
“We each got a phone call from our bosses saying that they had made the decision — and they made it again a point to say we hadn’t violated any company policy — but because we had become a distraction that they thought it would be best if they temporarily took us off the air to let things quiet down,” Robach said. The veteran journalist knew that decision would fan the flames of the tabloid narrative even more. “I said … ‘Now this is going to be a story if you take us off the air, please don’t do this.’”
“That was the morning we knew we would not be going back to that network,” Holmes added, of the Dec. 5 call. “We knew that phone call sealed it, because you can’t come back from that.”
Robach said she was sick to her stomach because they knew what was coming once that announcement was made.
Holmes and Robach admit they mishandled the situation early on
“Right before the pictures came out, we thought, ‘Should we tell them what’s going on?’ And we thought, ‘Let’s just get these divorces cleaned up and then let’s do it,’” Robach said, noting they “had every intention of doing it and we didn’t believe, and I don’t think we still do believe, we were doing anything technically wrong.”
Holmes chimed in: “If we’d have put out statements about divorces, and then people found out we were dating, they would raise some eyebrows and go, ‘Ooh, OK, that’s still an interesting topic.’ But doing it this way, the story became mainstream when [the press] is 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.”
Both Holmes and Robach said throughout the podcast that, while they knew they were famous, they had no idea the amount of attention their relationship would receive.
“That’s just a sexy freakin’ story,” Holmes admitted. “And I just don’t think we thought about it in that way, that anybody would give a damn what we were doing.”
Holmes said Robach was like a ‘sister’ before romance.
The two acknowledged that early on that there was speculation at ABC that the anchors were more than colleagues. However, Holmes dismissed the rumors and said he viewed Robach as a close friend.
“They used to call us brother, sister,” he explained. “When they would make any kind of joke about, ‘What’s going on with you two,’ we would almost go, ‘Ew.’”
The two grew even closer traveling together and hosting GMA3. Holmes said that even now he is sometimes startled when Robach calls him “honey.”
“Because we were friends for so long. I mean, truly, genuinely friends for a long, long time,” he said. Holmes said that Robach has helped him through a lot of troubles over the past several years, and that has made them even closer.
‘We are planning a life together’
Holmes and Robach make it very clear where their relationship stands — and that they are in it for the long haul.
“In the end, all of us are rooting for love, and it doesn’t always happen when you want it to happen, where you want it to happen. And it’s undeniable when it’s real and it’s something you have to navigate and it’s not easy,” Robach declared.
“Relationships are hard. They’re messy, they’re not perfect. We have fought for love, and I can say I have never been happier. I am with my best friend, I’m not going to get cheesy. … We have gone through, I think it’s fair to say, a year of hell. But we have had each other through it all and had a lot of support through our family, through a tight circle of friends and we have hopefully gotten through the really tough stuff,” she said. “And we have more work to do as all relationships require, but it has been the most beautiful relationship I have ever had in my life.”
Holmes said he’s the “happiest and healthiest that I’ve been in my life.”
“Bottom line … I’m in love with this woman and she’s in love with me and we are planning a life together,” he said.
If your or someone you know is struggling with self-harm, call or text the National Alliance on Mental Illness hotline (NAMI) at 800-950-6264 or call or text 988.
If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, call 911, or call the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.
Laura Davis is an entertainment aficionado who delves into the glitz and glamour of the entertainment industry. From Hollywood to Broadway, she offers readers an insider’s perspective on the world of movies, music, and pop culture.
