Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes answered some burning questions on Tuesday’s podcast, and as promised, “nothing was off-limits.” The journalists discussed everything from who made the first move to whether marriage is on the table and if they felt former ABC News co-workers, like Robin Roberts, supported their relationship.
Here are the buzziest moments.
Robach and Holmes reveal dating timeline
The world found out about their relationship in November, but Robach and Holmes had been together for several months. They realized their friendship “was evolving” into something more in summer 2022.
“We were very close to entering divorce proceedings,” Holmes said on iHeartRadio’s Amy & T.J. podcast. “We didn’t share that with each other because I am sitting over here going, ‘Lord, this has been a great best-friend friendship, I don’t need to screw this up by saying to her that there’s something I’m feeling for her that’s beyond the friendship.’ So we kinda tiptoed around it.”
“I didn’t want to say anything,” he continued. “You didn’t want to say anything, but then as we proceeded through last summer, things definitely changed and we started having conversations.”
Robach knew her feelings were evolving as they were “spending so much time together at work.” She said they didn’t look forward to weekends because they wouldn’t be around each other. “I remember us both saying, ‘Oh, Fridays are a bummer,'” she recalled.
Who made the first move?
“It was you,” Holmes told Robach rather confidently. “I’d argue it was you.” However, he admitted to saying “I love you” first.
“Did I lean in first?” Robach asked.
“It’s not about a leaning in, it’s about a move — somebody who initiated something physical that was beyond what the friendship had been, I think that was you,” Holmes said. “I’m sure it was you.”
‘Did Robin Roberts abandon y’all and cut contact?’
One person was curious about whether their Good Morning America colleagues were supportive of their relationship, and singled out Roberts in the question. Robach said they received “initial support” from colleagues.
“We initially received nothing but support, and when we first went back to work those first two days, my dressing room was filled with love and support,” she shared. (Robach and Holmes hosted GMA3 after their relationship was outed in the press, but two days later were told not to come in — and they never returned.) “Not everyone abandoned us, and we got a lot of follow-up texts. I don’t know how people feel about being aligned with us now… I actually feel like I want to be careful who I say continues to support us, but we have a lot of support from our former co-workers.”
“I think that’s a damn shame,” Holmes added, saying it’s “absolutely ridiculous” that they are “worried that if somebody is affiliated with us, that will hurt them.”
Robach’s daughters were ‘shocked’ to learn about Holmes romance
The veteran anchor has two daughters, Ava and Annalise, from her first marriage to Tim McIntosh.
“Even when my daughters found out about this, because of the tabloids, they were shocked and thrown a punch that I think a lot of people felt when they found out about us,” Robach said. “I remember my oldest daughter said to me, you know, she thought it was such a quick decision, that it was just an abrupt thing I just leapt into. And I said that, ‘No, I thought about this.’ I sat with this. I knew how I felt. I knew how he felt about me. I knew how I felt about him and I really carefully considered what I wanted to do before I did it.”
Robach explained how surviving breast cancer helped put life in perspective, as she knows how “rare it is to find something like this and how we have one shot at life, one shot at love.”
“I wasn’t living my truth,” she added, declaring that sometimes “living your truth means making a change.”
This wasn’t some ‘tawdry’ affair
Robach and Holmes married Andrew Shue and Marilee Fiebig, respectively, in 2013. They say their marriages ended in 2022. (In a turn of events, Shue and Fiebig are apparently now dating.)
Holmes wishes “people had a better understanding” of his and Robach’s friendship. He explained they had eight years of “foundation” built before they got together.
“Something we were so careful about, so deliberate and took so much great care in was being thrown out as just something salacious and tawdry…,” Holmes stated.
“An affair, some sexy, like, affair, which it was the last thing that this was,” Robach interjected. “T.J. told me he loved me before he ever held my hand. I don’t think I’ve ever had that experience before in my life where it was an emotional connection that we acknowledged before anything physical ever happened, and that was pretty amazing.”
The pair joked that people at ABC clearly saw their chemistry, as they kept getting assignments together. “It just took us a little bit longer to realize it,” Robach joked.
Marriage is ‘on the table’
When asked if they plan to tie the knot, Robach said “it’s under consideration.”
“Here’s what I would say. We did not enter this relationship for fun or for ‘Let’s see what happens.’ We entered this relationship because we intended on spending our lives together,” she shared. “So whether or not we have some sort of legal, you know, I don’t know, button on it, I don’t know. We both have two marriages under our belts, and so it’s not something we’re racing to or rushing toward. But there is something… this thing that I can’t even explain why there’s this desire, but I want to spend the rest of my life with you, I can say that.”
“But you don’t want to marry me necessarily?” Holmes asked.
“It’s on the table,” Robach replied.
“I want to marry you… in part, because you’re 50 and I’m 46. And I’m very sick of introducing you, a 50-year-old woman, as my girlfriend. That just sounds stupid,” Holmes said, laughing.
“Thank you for noting the age difference,” Robach quipped.
