Holmes says he “immediately started pounding vodka” amid the scandal, “I didn’t stop for several hours. I took who knows how many weed edibles, and that’s how I ended up in the state I was in.”
More than a year after their romance was made public, Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes are telling their side of the story.
The couple’s private romance was leaked in November 2022 while they were still married to other people. The Good Morning America stars were privately separated from their respective spouses at the time, and claim that while ABC acknowledged that they hadn’t violated any company policy with their relationship, they were said to be causing a distraction and ultimately forced out of their roles.
Robach, 50, finalized her divorce from Andrew Shue in March, and Holmes, 46, settled his divorce from Marilee Fiebig in October.
Now, the former GMA3 anchors turned couple are opening up about their relationship for the first time since their firing, in the inaugural episode of their iHeartRadio show, the Amy and T.J. Podcast, getting candid about their exit from the ABC series, and the fallout came when their private romance was ultimately exposed.
Check out the biggest revelations from the tell-all episode below.
1. They say they lost the jobs they love because of their love
Calling themselves the “folks who lost the jobs we love because we love each other,” Holmes said their love is why they’re where they’re at today.
Noting that this is the first time they get to speak about what happened, Robach said the pair have “gone through a year of hell” in the fight for their relationship.
“In the end, all of us are always rooting for love,” Robach. “It doesn’t always happen when 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.”
She added, “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.”
Holmes seconded that feeling, telling listeners he too is the “happiest and healthiest” he’s been in his life.
“Bottom line we have not said this: I’m in love with this woman and she’s in love with me and we are planning a life together,” Holmes shared.
He added, “A lot of you understand that life, love, marriage, relationships can be messy and usually are.”
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2. They were planning to announce their relationship before the photos were leaked
While it was speculated that the pair had stepped out on their spouses, both Holmes and Robach denied ever having an affair during Tuesday’s episode, with Holmes telling listeners, “To be clear, we were outed as being in a relationship, but everyone else thought we were being outed as adulterers — being outed as cheating on our spouses — and it wasn’t the case because the odd thing is, the day those pictures were taken and the day that article was released, we both at that point were in divorce proceedings.”
“We had attorneys, mediators, we were in the middle of divorces,” Robach added, noting that when the first snap of the pair was taken, her estranged husband had moved out of the house they shared together “three months earlier.”
Holmes, meanwhile, said he had been living by himself in his New York City apartment since the summer of 2022.
The duo went on to share that they were planning to reveal their relationship after their respective divorces were finalized.
“We thought in January, we’re going to go and walk in and explain to management that we are a couple… We’d actually even talked about doing it earlier,” Robach recalled. “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.’ But we 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.”
The couple even drafted a press release announcing the news, that they never got the chance to send out.
“I have it in my phone still,” Holmes revealed. “You made a statement about where you were in your marriage, and I made a statement about my divorce proceeding and those statements were never released.”
“If we’d have put out statements about divorces, and then people found out we were dating, they would raise some eyebrows and go, ‘Oooh, okay, that’s still an interesting topic,’ but doing it this way, the story became mainstream when they’re able to say ‘Morning Show Stars Suspended,” Holmes added before admitting that he didn’t think their relationship would rise to the level of a national news story. “That’s now a major story given the brand we were attached to. That’s a big, big deal. And we knew that that was going to be a big deal.”
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3. Robach had to do a wellness check on Holmes in the days after the scandal was exposed
In the days after photos of them together leaked online, Robach revealed she had to do a “wellness check” on Holmes.
Admitting that he was sending Robach texts in the “past tense,” Holmes said he didn’t understand how he was sounding at the time.
“When I was sending them to you, I didn’t know how I was sounding,” Holmes shared “I’m not sure where my head was at that time.”
Calling her correspondence with Holmes “terrifying,” Robach said that the messages read, “I’m sorry, you were the love of my life. I’m so sorry this has happened.”
The journalist said that she asked Holmes to confirm he was OK but got no response, she also was alerted by the GMA3 production crew that they couldn’t reach Holmes.
It’s then she started to panic, even getting her father involved to find out about Holmes’ whereabouts.
“I was so afraid that he had done something,” Holmes said before revealing she was “pretty hysterical” upon arriving to his apartment.
“I remember going down the hall, opening the door, and my dad came in with me. And I saw you and you were just splayed out on your bed,” an emotional Robach recounted. “I ran to you. 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 shared that the situation occurred after he left work and “immediately started pounding vodka.”
“I didn’t stop for several hours. I took who knows how many weed edibles, and that’s how I ended up in the state I was in,” he recalled.
“That combination was terrifying. You weren’t moving and I’ll never forget that night,” Robach said.
Robach also struggled with her mental health amid the swarm of headlines surrounding their relationship, telling listeners she wanted to die.
“You go through cancer, and, yes, you’re afraid to die, but you’re fighting to live,” Robach, who battled breast cancer in 2013, said. “And you’ve got all these people around you, supporting you and cheering you on, and you feel this collective hug from people who are lifting you up when you’re scared and you’re going through all of these treatments. But this year, I wanted to die.”
She continued, “There were days where I wanted to die and that was something I’d 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.”
iHeartRadio’s Amy and T.J. is available wherever podcasts are streamed.
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