CB asked me to wait a bit to cover this story, which she’ll explain in an addendum at the end of the post. The whole situation has become pretty crazy. It all started last week, when the Daily Mail published photos of Good Morning America co-anchors Amy Robach and TJ Holmes on what looked like a very romantic vacation together. The issue was that as far as their public personas were concerned, both Robach and Holmes were married to other people. Robach was/is married to Andrew Shue, and Holmes is married to a lawyer named Marilee Fiebig. The Mail’s exclusive photos are here.
Just before the Mail broke the story of their loved-up affair/holiday, both Robach and Holmes deleted their Instagrams, a sure sign that they both got the heads up that the story was about to break. Then, weirdly, both of them went back to work last week and co-anchored several mornings for GMA. Holmes and Robach’s cover story – or maybe it was the truth – was that they had both split with their respective spouses over the summer, and nowadays they aren’t having an affair, they are just dating out in the open. Robach has been leaking a lot of stuff about her divorce, so I do think that’s legitimately been happening for months before the Mail photos came out. From People:
Amy Robach was waiting to announce her split from estranged husband Andrew Shue before her relationship with her GMA3 co-anchor, T.J. Holmes, was made public. A source tells PEOPLE that the journalist, 49, and Shue, 55, were “about ready to settle their divorce” prior to news breaking about Robach and Holmes’ relationship.
“They were waiting on [the settlement] to tell people,” the source says of the pair, who got married in 2010. “The whole point of why she waited to share the news that her marriage was over: she went to [divorce] mediation.”
“The woman had cancer for a long time. She was very preoccupied with that,” the source continues. “Stuff with her and Andrew was difficult starting early summer this year and they had issues before.”
Shue has not spoken publicly on the matter and has not responded to PEOPLE’s numerous attempts for comment.
So…yeah, cover story or not, I kind of believe that she and Shue were already broken up. Now, was TJ Holmes always the reason why Robach’s marriage ended? And was Robach the reason Holmes’s marriage ended? I don’t know. But here’s a new wrinkle:
Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes will be benched from their anchoring duties at ABC News’ “GMA3′ while the news division weighs the effect their recent disclosure of a romantic relationship might have on the program and the company, ABC News President Kim Godwin informed staffers Monday.
Godwin told ABC News employees during an editorial call Monday that Robach and Holmes had not violated any company policy, according to a person familiar with the matter, but indicated ABC News felt the matter had become “an internal and external disruption,” and “wanted to do what’s best for the organization.”
ABC News declined to make executives available for comment. Gio Benitez and Stephanie Ramos will co-host Monday’s broadcast, this person said, but there’s not a sense at present of how the program will be staffed for the rest of the week or when Robach and Holmes might return.
While ABC News exists as an independent news division (like any network news division), it’s important to remember that GMA and ABC News are part of ABC/Disney. Disney doesn’t want this for their ratings-winner GMA brand. Even if the cover stories are above-board, it’s still way too scandalous for Disney. I do think it’s a little off-side though – I mean, sure, it’s arguably quite sleazy if two married-to-other-people co-anchors are carrying on a torrid affair. But also, they’re consenting adults and no one is saying that they’re actually behaving inappropriately in the workplace?
Note by CB: Andrew Shue co-founded our excellent ad company, CafeMedia. I owe that company so much and I felt really weird gossiping about him! I asked Kaiser to wait a little while to cover this.
LIKE NOT CAUGHT IN 4K!!!???? pic.twitter.com/8SargObsLO
— Kenny (@kennysroys) November 30, 2022
Photos courtesy of Robin Platzer/Twin Images / Twin Images / Avalon, jpistudios.com / JPI Studios / Avalon, Cover Images.
Andrew Shue is finnneeeee.
That’s all.
Her hubby is the actor from Melrose Place? Lol didn’t know that.
He has aged SO WELL. 🤤
Yes yes, that’s my only interest here!
He’s my forever crush <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
Hopefully, he's doing okay!!!!
He is still just as hot!
Andrew Shue will be available?!
I’ve seen him in the street many times, with his and Amy’s kids. He’s always laughing and seems like a good dad, and has matured SO NICELY.
Same – barely read the rest of the article….”OMG, Andrew Shue is single!” was/is my only takeaway.
Lol i think the audience didn’t appreciate their smugness after the news broke.
They were SO SMUG, omg! This ‘romance’ will burn out fast. I’m curious to see how this affects their careers.
The page six hit piece on TJ tells me they are out for blood on TJ, and why shouldn’t they be. He was unprofessional, sloppy, and callous carrying on affairs with multiple women at his workplace opening up his employer to liability. Then to have the audacity to come on tv unapologetic about it, you can’t be that foolish and not think there would be no consequences. I get the whole he did nothing wrong from a company perspective if no policies were in fact violated, but why would ABC saddle themselves with someone who is so reckless and caused disruption to their prized calf (gma has been #1 for morning shows for a minute). News anchors come a dime a dozen, and all journalists should know better than to let themselves become the story. To make your workplace that muddled with your numerous workplace affairs thinking there would be no blowback is just dumb on TJ’s part. Ultimately credibility is the name of the game, and at this point he has none. They likely can’t fire him, but they could put him on at 2am or something until he takes the hint or his contract ends.
I think Amy (though no less guilty) might have a chance at a way back to the mainstream, which she is angling to salvage by most indications, but her best bet would be to untangle herself from TJ with a quickness. I wouldn’t watch either on my tv screen anymore though personally. Your personal life is your personal life yes, but that doesn’t mean all viewers have to accept and normalize what should be basic human decency to not cheat on your spouse in such a reckless manner. You’re that in love, great. File for divorce. I wouldn’t want someone to do something like that to a family member or a close friend I cared about, so I certainly wouldn’t want it just condoned on tv everyday.
He’s also the Black person in the equation and the consequences and judgments will always be harsher. Which he should have known and clearly forgot.
@ameerah
I was hoping someone would say it
Agreed, Ameerah.
@ameerah
Very true. As a white woman and cancer survivor Amy will be able to garner sympathy while TJ is cooked (not excusing his comportment but just saying).
But yea they were definitely acting up with all the innuendos. The video of them talking about training for the marathon where he joked she ‘sets the pace‘, then she says ‘yes but we both finish’ is something else. 😂
If they were exchanging double entendres about the affair on air, Disney-ABC was completely justified in taking them off the air.
@Layday
I don’t know where they would put him other than fire him. He was already an anchor on World New Now during the wee hours of the morning (2-3am?) for several years. In fact, that’s where he came from before GMA3.
I think he’s on his way out. On Twitter, colleagues are saying what an a-hole and screamer he is to other staff and producers.
A shame they’re going after TJ harder than her. They should both held to the same standard. They both acted pretty unprofessional.
Full disclosure, I’ve never liked her and she’s always given a pretty entitled & smug attitude.
Until this broke I was oblivious to these 2 and only recall Amy from when she went public with her breast cancer diagnosis. At least the media is keeping their kids out of it. How humiliating.
As long as there is a clear line drawn between their personal and professional lives, I don’t see this as being a problem. Keep it classy.
I agree. Their personal lives shouldn’t result in professional repercussions as long as no policies were violated.
I don’t watch GMA, but do they have a more conservative audience that would morality police the hosts?
I tend to agree with both of you on this, but I get the feeling that ABC News’ reaction has more to do with the post Me-Too world we’re living in. Maybe they want to avoid a situation where next time there will be two co-workers involved in a non-consensual relationship. If the organization discourages all entanglements at the company, then they position themselves better.
It is absolutely none of their business what their employees consensually do in the romance/sex department. NONE. Disney is disgusting and needs to keep their noses out of their employees’ bedrooms.
I agree that they should not be disciplined if they have not violated any company policies. However, this is not the first affair that T.J. has had with an ABC colleague and I can also see how someone sleeping with multiple colleagues can be disruptive…
He has had several affairs at ABD so that is a problem. Also, like many news anchors, there have a morality clause in their contract. It’s not a Disney thing but an industry standard. I don’t for a minute believe the timeline they are trying to create. They are trying to keep their jobs. Looking at the training video from March and other images of them at public events they were messing around for a while. Between what they said in that video and the body language there and other images, it truly says it all. But Amy’s people are already putting out stories reminding people that she had cancer but let’s also remind people that she did this same thing with her first husband. There was overlap with her first husband and Andrew Shue. TJ seems to have had the same pattern. Unfortunately, there’s kids involved(again) while these adults are flaunting their affair around and sitting on the set with a tea kettle to “sip their tea” around the gossip. Disgusting!
I agree, they’re both consenting adults with no power differential (boss and employee for example), disappointed Disney benched them.
It’s been cracking me up how twitter has been saying how good they look together, their chemistry is undeniable!
Have to agree and Disney had better tread lightly. They have no cause to bench them and had better not let them go without a ginormous payout, or they’ll face an even larger lawsuit. If they were smart THEY’D keep calm and carry on. Let it blow over because it’s only a blip.
Exactly!
They’re consenting adults. Disney might want to fire them just to wash their hands of the messiness but really, do they have just cause? It’s a shame in the sense that there are probably thousands of qualified UN-messy anchors who would be great for the job, but there are procedures that must be closely followed in this situation, lest Disney find themselves getting sued for wrongful termination. Curious about what’s in their contracts….
I’m sure they probably have a section of their contracts that lists all the behaviors that would result in termination – and I’ll bet there is language that would cover “PR Nightmares/scandals..” TV networks are not dumb…(well, they are dumb, but their lawyers are probably not).
Wow the videos and level of spying on them is so intrusive. They dont seem like an undercover couple hiding to see each other. I dont know why but this story doesnt feel like anything else than a new couple forming after being done with a other relationships. Not sure about TJ, but hope Amy wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t.
Those Daily Mail photos are very suspect. How did a photographer know where they were going upstate in enough time to stake it out, and know exactly how/where they would park to get those money shots? Did they tip someone off? Did they want this to come out? Same with the interior bar photos. Fishy.
I clicked on the twitter photos & read some of the comments. People are speculating that TJs wife, a lawyer, hired a PI, which would make sense.
I really wondered about this. Did they really not know? They do look guilty and suspicious in the street photos.
But someone followed them out to a remote location 2 hours from NYC. If they didn’t know the person was a total pro and maybe a PI not a paparazzo. Then whoever hired them sold the pictures.
pays for the cost of the PI right there. and sends a message…
We’ve already been through this with Joe and Mika, although they kept it more low key. It’s nobody’s business until it hits the tabs. Then it’s hard not to acknowledge the 🐘 in the room.
I think the difference though was Morning Joe was a political show and they could get some mileage from the whole conservative/liberal romantic pairing.
GMA wants to keep it as vanilla as possible.
When this story first broke, I thought fair enough, this stuff happens, maybe they found love. Good luck to them. But then the news broke that he apparently also had a 3-year affair with the executive producer and another co-worker as well? Not sure if there are any unequal power dynamics at play (ie Matt Lauer), but even if all affairs were consensual and all amongst adults with equal power, it’s not a good look at all. Serial cheater with co-workers? Yikes. Doesn’t bode well.
And agree that Andrew Shue has aged very well!
There’s a lot more to this story—the information in here, other than the benching from GMA, is just what came out through last week. Since then, there are the reports of TJ’s three year long prior affair with another GMA producer, which he discussed with Robach, and which may establish a pattern of workplace behavior. At this point, he’s almost certainly the subject of an internal investigation to make sure he hasn’t opened them up to liability with other female ABC employees and goes to the issue of potential hostile work environment.
Then there’s the additional gossip ickiness that Robach’s daughter babysat for TJ’s kid and the horrifying Instagram anniversary “tribute” to TJ’s wife and whether he was gaslighting her into thinking they were working toward reconciliation.
But setting that all aside and assuming these two were both actually cleanly separated from their spouses and had only engaged in consensual affairs with non-subordinate work colleagues: they made the cardinal mistake of making themselves the story. That works if a) the story is sympathetic, e.g. you have cancer, or b) you are marquis talent and the network has so much money invested in you that it’s in their economic interest to back you up rather than walk away. Witness how long NBC stuck behind Matt Lauer. The behavior of these two may have been relatively mild by comparison, but they’re just not that famous. They may well have overplayed their hands.
Guests come on GMA to promote their projects. Execs don’t want GMA to be about these two low-weights flirting with each other, complete with non stop tabloid coverage of their respective divorces. Easier to find the next Colgate smile.
I strongly feel employers should stay out of the bedroom, but you make a good point about there being a pattern of behaviour on TJ’s part that could warrant closer inspection. Robach shouldn’t also be benched/punished for his past.
@Emily, I agree, for the most part. I don’t want employers turning into the morality police. I don’t think it’s my supervisor’s business who I sleep with, as long as I’m not creating workplace liability. Even an argument that personal business that “becomes a distraction in the workplace” is a different matter is a dangerous slippery slope, because that can be weaponized, for example, by abusive spouses and partners.
It’s a greyer area with front-facing media jobs. If “the story” around GMA becomes the story of these two to the detriment of the twenty or so featured segments every day? That’s a money decision. You have to be pretty damn blithe to not be careful of your reputation when that’s the calculus you’re presenting to your bosses, and you are absolutely replaceable. You want to take that risk with one of what, less than ten jobs like this in America? That’s just stupid.
@JW- I agree. For the vast majority of jobs and professions, the personal lives and relationships of the employees have little to do with their work performance. …Until your name, face (and to a degree, your personal life) IS the company. It IS the brand, and Disney or ABC has a lot of money invested in protecting that.
Regular work expectations don’t necessarily apply to on-camera talent. I’m sure those folks have morality clauses, physical parameters, and other expectations built into their contract.
This story is more complicated than what is written here. HOlmes is a serial cheater. His wife was blindsided. I hate that they play the cancer card to gain sympathy for Robach. If you read her book, she is nobody’s victim. Plus, they are so smug. On Friday, Holmes was saying what a great week it had been. Really, dude? The execs at ABC could not have appreciated THAT comment. Also, I’m not buying that she and Shue were separated when this affair started. There is nobody to dispute this, though, expect for Shue who is keeping it classy.
Holmes comment on Friday sounded like sarcasm, it wasn’t a great week and they were addressing the elephant in the room without naming it.
The relationship must have been destructive in the work place if as reported Robin Roberts ask them to cut it out. Senior management was not blindsided by any of these since, again it was reported that rumors have existed for a while. Neither of them should have to lose their job over this. It’s a big company different roles can be found for them.
The irony is that the people making the decisions probably had or are having affairs themselves. If the previous women Holmes had affairs with are not complaining that it was abusive who are we to judge. There is a tendency to deal harsher with the black man who is having an affair with a white woman
@Athena: Agreed, Robach’s cancer gets her extra sympathy points, however unfairly, and both implicit bias and explicit racism work against Holmes in the general public eye. But then, so does his apparently growing resume of infidelity and disrespect of his wives.
I do hate the argument that “everybody does it” with the infidelity, though. No. Not everybody cheats on their spouses, and that’s not coming from some holier than thou married person. I’m happily divorced. I’m sex positive. And I’ve never cheated on anyone. No, not everybody does. Not everybody who cheats gets to make themselves feel better by telling themselves that “everybody does it.” We don’t. If we want to screw other people, we get single first, then we have all the fun we want. It’s great.
Frankly, I don’t watch GMA and don’t care if Holmes and Robach keep their jobs as long as there were no harassment violations or similar. I just think they’re incredibly, indelibly dumb.
CB: I recall you saying it took a VERY long time to find an ad company that aligned w your principles! I know that’s important to you, and kind of you to hold off, though surely he knew what someday could happen by doing business w a gossip site. PS I click on ads here intentionally all the time … and avoid such exposure anywhere else … glad to know that support goes even farther now.
Makes Andrew Shue even hotter, TBH.
Yawn. Now ABC has a bedroom patrol? 2 adults here. Nobody’s business but the participants. Betcha money there are other employees also in romantic associations. Puritanical nosiness here. Somebody is jealous?
Next tell us which network execs are banging their neighbors, friends’ wives, secretaries, kids’ teachers, etc.
Exactly! Let’s delve into everyone’s personal life and see how well they do. All of this is a very slippery slope , I don’t think people are getting this. This is why other countries think Americans are nitwits, we always want to play morality police.
Watching this all unfold last week and into this week has been wilde! It’s crazy how out in the open this affair was. Then the news about how TJ had a three year affair with a GMA/ABC producer?!?!? He may have Lauer’d his career.
ABC has been around for 70 years or so, there must be a past precedent for dealing with these things. Not sure why Robach is being punished. If Holmes needs to be suspended while GMA figures out if he broke policy, ok. Is the producer he used to sleep with suspended?
As Chump Lady wrote on her blog, the synchronicity is too strong with these two just happening to have marriages conveniently ending. I have heard they were suspected of having an affair a year ago. I don’t buy her cover story and I think it’s messed up she’s been leaking stuff that paints her ex in a bad light
And TJ – wow with his serial cheating allegations he is just ugh
And Chump Lady knows cheating on your spouse is Intimacy Abuse, exposing your unsuspecting partner to STD’s and heaping lies on lies to get away with it. Cheaters only admit to what they are caught doing and not more. It’s not puritanical of ABC to pull them, it’s simply not a good look for a company to promote their relationship right now. Team Fiebig. Team Shue. Team Kids, always.
Love the ChumpLady! She helped me get through my divorce with my cheating ex-forever grateful for her words of wisdom, sparkly wit, and fiery snark!
Andrew Shue looks just as yummy today as he did on Melrose Place, yowza. That’s a blast from the past. Hopefully they were actually in the process of a divorce, that’s really shitty if not.
I thought that’s where i remembered him from and yes he does!
I wonder if GMA/Disney has any morality clauses in their employment contracts. If so, uh oh…
Cheating on your spouses, esp blindsiding them is gross. Honor your vows or file for divorce!
TJs wife allegedly got suspicious and hired the PI – was blindsided bc she thought they were working on their marriage. Amy was allegedly “friendly” with both the producer and TJs wife. I think it was the lack of remorse or shame by either of them when they were on the air last week that was the final straw.
They most certainly had a morality clause in each of their contracts in which they agree to not do anything to put the company in a bad light. This is pretty standard for all broadcasting contracts and anyone suggesting Disney doesn’t have grounds to fire them doesn’t have experience reading or signing a contract like that. The company can use anything like a ratings dip, previous workplace relationships, any alleged or appeared impropriety and these two are gone. Contracts protect the company, not the employee.
I don’t know if I buy the wife angle, I could totally be wrong but I don’t know if she’d want the father of her child to loose his job. I’m thinking more professional payback. Lainey had a good piece talking about how savage it was to leak this to the DM instead of an American outlet.
But definitely the ex spouses would be the usual suspects and easy scapegoats
It wasn’t that long ago that Amy & Andrew were on the show talking about how well they blended their families. I feel bad for their kids even if they are older.
I remember that interview!
As smarmy as this is , this personal business, not our business. Let the spouses take a bite out of their hides, not public.
In a different line of work I’d tend to agree with you, but front runners of a morning show need to be at base level likeable, and also be trustworthy. This kind of stuff takes a bunch of their like ability and trustworthiness down several notches for the public.
Nope, to me it’s still puritanical pearl clutching. Look, I’m not looking at anyone on TV for trustworthiness, I take the network as a whole. These people aren’t personally going out and selecting the news and writing it, they’re just parrots. I’m totally against getting into personal lives of consenting adults just because I see them on TV.
Totally agree Mel. All they need to do is keep their mouths shut and host that morning show. Imo
I’m not sure why so many people are up in arms about them being benched? The story is a huge distraction to what’s going on in their workplace, these two cover the news and they ARE the news right now. They can’t pretend to operate with a “nothing to see here” with all the photos and videos of them together becoming public knowledge. As far as the public knew until last week, these two were both happily married to their own spouses.
They’re both putting out the narrative that they officially left their spouses in August but Andrew Shue and Marilee Fiebig might have different stories to tell and so far we don’t know their side. There was probably a lot of emotional cheating going on beforehand. There’s lots of stories circulating that many people working at GMA assumed they were having an affair a year ago and that they were always flirty and incredibly close and it made employees uncomfortable. And it’s come out Holmes has had affairs with two other GMA employees while married to his wife? It’s not a good look and there’s no way ABC could allow either of them on camera while an internal investigation is being done, it would probably be a breach of some kind of ethics clause.
I had never heard of these two until last week but wow this is messy! I’m sure it was conflicting for CB to cover but at least Andrew Shue is not the one in the hot seat and I hope he’s doing okay.
Yeah it seems like there have been additional women he’s had affairs with at work. What is going on here? It’s getting messier.
so what I am hearing is that Andrew Shue is single?
^^ This is the correct reaction.
I was hoping this story would be covered here (sorry but I’m so over the constant Royals coverage here and miss the fun, juicy gossip stories like this!). I think they are both shady but kind of want to see how this plays out!
I hear ya Luna. As much as I am team H&M it’s nice to have an old fashion hookup/cheating scandal.
Bring back hot guy Friday!
Honestly I haven’t been following this much. But if–IF–they were split from their respective spouses, then I think it’s freaking cute and a worthy daytime soap. Otherwise, adultery is icky.
The timeline being tossed around is spring 2022 while they were “training for a marathon together.” Supposedly they split with the spouses in the summer. That’s the story right now.
That’s suspicious. That’s weird.
Cheating isn’t cute, damn.
Messy. He seems to have a habit of this. I think there are 4 so far they are saying? Most stories say this started in March and both marriages ended in August?? Yikes. I don’t like the smugness of them joking about it on air when there are children involved. I also think it is trashy on per part to literally have written a book with her ex about blended families and Andrew’s sons but only comments that she is worried about her daughters and TJ’s daughters. 12 years and you don’t worry about his kids at all now?
Kudos to Hotness Shue and the ex wife for keeping quiet about all this and not commenting. Your children will see this. She is gorgeous and those two should end up together Shania Twain style.
And I do think the company should do something. It is so public and messy and there seem to have been others. I used to work at a company where a guy slept with pretty much every woman there (and was married with kids) and everyone knew and it was so much drama. Internally it must be a mess there.
This is random but did anyone read Taylor Jenkins Reid the story of the affair?
Her books really hook me in and this one was no different. I took away from the book that some people think affairs are ok, when it feeds their ego. And that love – messy connection- is too much for some.
Anyway – It seems like, with his history, this man is narcissistic. His instagram post dedicated to his wife had me feeling stabby.
And this woman – her history hasn’t come out as much, but apparently that she was a confidante while her friend, a show producer, had an affair with this same man, and she still chose to go there??
I don’t see how she made the calculation and decided it was worth it, but that’s life, and a reminder that wisdom does not always come with age.
This is the second marriage ending in divorce for each of them, already had blended families, etc. He is rumored to be a serial cheater.
IMO, if you are going to cheat, file for divorce first.
Why destroy 2 families and blindside the spouse by cheating?
All the kids will see this on SM, for years.
Believe me, the older kids are gonna get so much heat from other kids, bullying, snotty comments, etc. You spend 12 years with the Hubbys kids and act like this? BS. Grow up and act like an adult.
I don’t give .02 about either of these millionaire tv news anchors.
I do think they could have handled their affair in a quieter way.
Do not BS me with “the paps” were after them. No they were out and about together in a big city, handsy, butt patting, laughing drunkenly in bars in full view of others in public, etc.
If they did not expect to get heat, why not each announce their marriages were over in Aug?
C’mon! You work in a nationally aired network show, you know you are in the public eye.
And every one and their dog has a camera phone these days.
I personally don’t care that they had an affair but it won’t end well for TJ as he’s black. Amy is white she’ll bounce back from scandal a lot easier in comparison.
I just found it ironic he covered the Ime Udoka story and we know more about this scandal than the Udoka one.
Am I the only one who can’t stand a woman who smiles up in your face while f*%}*+g your husband behind your back??? They went on married couple double dates, her daughter is his babysitter!!!!!! ….ughhh
Don’t @ me, he’s a ho and he’ll get what’s coming to him. There won’t be another amazing black woman with ‘black woman super power’ coming his way. Ain’t nobody trying to deal with that.
You are not alone. I don’t understand women who can do that to other women.
living out a “Morning Show” plot 😀
I don’t understand why this is a big deal.
It is a big deal because they are famous and they are doing something cataclysmic and painful to their spouses
What happened to my “💤” ? lol