T.J. Holmes to Amy Robach: We had very perfect-looking families and lives
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For their June 10 episode, Amy and T.J. were once again live at NYC’s Soho House. The last time they were there, it was set up as an intimate fireside chat. This time, however, they did it live in front of a crowd. And because they like to repeat the greatest hits, they talked about – try not to be shocked – their relationship and all of the drama that it’s brought. They addressed keeping it a secret at their then GMA gig, what was going on in their marriages at the time, and the embarrassment they felt at how everything played out.
Y’all know how much I love to point out that T.J. and Amy tend to conveniently forget that what happened to them was a result of their own actions. Well, this time, they’re taking part of the blame for their drama. You see, if only they hadn’t tried to pretend to the world that they were both happy in their respective marriages! If they didn’t feel like they had to plaster happy family faces all over social media, then it wouldn’t have been such a big deal when their affair was revealed. So it’s not entirely their fault, it’s also Instagram’s fault!
“We weren’t exposed for being together, we were exposed, initially, for not actually living the lives we were portraying to the world,” Robach, 51, shared. “Because we weren’t living those lives we were showing everyone, we weren’t able to actually expose our relationship.”
Robach and Holmes’ secret romance became public in November 2022 amid their splits from their respective spouses — Robach’s second husband, Andrew Shue, and Holmes’ second wife, Marilee Fiebig. The controversial romance cost the former GMA anchors their jobs, but at the end of 2023, the couple began to put their relationship on display on red carpets and decided they would share things from their perspective on their podcast. Robach is the mother of two adult daughters — Ava and Annie — from her first marriage to Tim McIntosh. Holmes, meanwhile, shares an 11-year-old daughter, Sabine, with Fiebig, as well as daughter Brianna and son Jaiden from his first marriage to Amy Ferson.
“Between the two of us sitting on this stage, there are now four divorces,” Holmes shared during the podcast. “We had very perfect-looking families and perfect-looking lives, and we were guilty at times of putting out an image of our lives that we knew were not true.”
For Robach, she recalled one moment in particular, back in 2022, when she knowingly posted a photo to Instagram that depicted a happy moment with herself and Shue — but only because a friend had texted her asking if their marriage was OK, as she hadn’t posted family photos recently.
“I didn’t want anyone to think anything was wrong, so I posted that picture,” Robach explained. The problem is, everything was wrong. When I posted that picture, I was almost sure my marriage was over. But I didn’t want anyone to know. I wanted my life to actually be what it looked like on Instagram so badly.”
For Holmes, the effort he put in to hiding the fact that his marriage was ending was even more strenuous. Holmes said he made sure to don his wedding ring specifically for when he was on air, but would remove it in his dressing room after the broadcast.
“I didn’t want anyone to know that I had another failed marriage,” Holmes explained. “I wasn’t ready for anyone to know that.”
He even refused to update his address with the show, so that when the network sent a car to pick him up in the early morning to take him to the studio, the car wouldn’t go to his current address but to his marital home.
“For months, I didn’t update my address. I would walk out of my new home at 3:45 am, and I would walk downtown for 15-plus minutes to the place I had moved out of,” Holmes recalled. “I would sneak behind cars or behind buildings… trying to make sure [the driver] didn’t know something was up.”
One element that made their divorces particularly difficult was the fact that they both have children — who would be immediately impacted by both the new living situation and the public fallout surrounding their celebrity parents.
“Anyone who’s been through a failed relationship, and especially a failed marriage, knows that when children are involved it is a completely different ballgame,” Robach explained. “Part of it is ego, wanting to keep it private, but so much of it is also protecting your children and not wanting them to be exposed to the publicity that ensues. Ironically, it all blew up in our face because we weren’t transparent in what was actually happening in our relationships before this relationship started. So everything got completely blown out of proportion.”
I love this quote from Amy, “We weren’t exposed for being together, we were exposed, initially, for not actually living the lives we were portraying to the world.” LMAO. I totally get the balance that famous people everyone has when it comes to balancing our private vs. public lives. But babe, you were exposed because you were two television personalities and colleagues having an affair that was made public after a tabloid posted pictures of the two of you macking it on vacation.
I bet the fact that they were having an affair contributed to the extreme lengths both went to in order to maintain public appearances. Amy and T.J. can spin it by claiming Amy was unhappy and T.J. had already moved out by the time the affair went public, but that does not change the fact that it began while they were both still actively married. Notice how they never actually say the date that they first got together? If it had happened when both were in the clear, then they would have made their anniversary date public. The closest timeline they’ve publicly given is “summer of 2022.” Also, I don’t doubt that they were both unhappily married before their affair began. And while they by no means owe the world an explanation, they did owe it to Andrew and Marilee to be honest about their feelings. That probably would have saved a lot of heartache, drama, and maybe even their jobs. They’re lucky that Andrew and Marilee (who are still dating) are a lot more private and not out there spilling their sides of the story.
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