Childhood & Early Life
Amy Robach was born on February 6, 1973, in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. She spent half of her childhood in St. Louis, Missouri, and the next nine years in Georgia. She also grew up in South Carolina, Washington, D.C., and New York City. She stayed in Atlanta, GA, just before high school.
She went to Brookwood High School in Snellville, Georgia, and graduated from the University of Georgia with high honors in Broadcast Journalism.
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Career
In 1995, Amy Robach started her career as a general assignment reporter at WCBD-TV, the NBC-affiliated television station in Charleston, South Carolina. She covered the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch from Honduras, and reported from Iceland to cover the transport of ‘Keiko,’ the killer whale, while he was being taken to his native waters in a Charleston Air Force cargo plane.
She also reported live from the locations of hurricanes Bertha, Fran and Bonnie as they devastated the North Carolina coast. As a crime reporter, she also witnessed the death of a man, who was convicted of triple murders, by lethal injection. He had been sitting on death row for over 20 years. She left WCBD-TV in 1999.
In 1999, she moved to Washington, DC, and joined WTTG-TV, a Fox owned-and-operated television station, where she worked as a reporter and morning and noon anchor. She reported live from the Pentagon while covering the war with Iraq. She also covered the aftermath of 9/11, and contributed to the Edward R. Murrow award-winning broadcast, covering the Serial Sniper attacks. She departed WTTG-TV in 2003.
In 2003, she joined NBC News, where she worked for nine years. She was an anchor for MSNBC from 2003-07.Eventually, she climbed up the ladder and became the co-anchor of ‘Saturday Today’ in 2007, and also an NBC News National Correspondent. She also filled in as ‘Weekday Today’ co-anchor, ‘Weekday’ newsreader, and anchor for NBC ‘Nightly News with Brian Williams’.
During her nine years at NBC, she interviewed major political figures like Barack Obama in 2004, Senator John McCain, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Speaker Newt Gingrich. She also interviewed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At NBC, she covered the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections, and travelled to Iowa to interview the candidates. She also interviewed American attorney and best-selling author Elizabeth Edwards after the scandal regarding her husband John Edwards’ extra-marital affair.
In 2008, she traveled to Beijing to cover the Olympic Games. She interviewed Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich in 2009, after he faced impeachment and criminal charges. In 2010, Amy did exclusive one-on-one interviews with Britain’s Prince Harry in Barbados.
She traveled across the globe, reporting for ‘Where in the World Is Matt Lauer’ with live broadcasts from Kuala Lumpur, and the Seychelles. She quit NBC in 2012.
In May 2012, she switched over to ABC News. Initially, she worked as a correspondent on ABC's ‘Good Morning America’ program. In March 2014, she became the news anchor of the show.
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In December 2013, she hosted a two-hour primetime special ‘Secrets of the Castle: Beyond Downton Abbey’, for which she traveled to the English and Scottish country sides to cover the behind-the-scenes footage of ‘Downton Abbey’ and explore the British aristocracy.
In 2014, she traveled to Nigeria to interview Malala Yousafzai, the 17-year-old Pakistani girl, who was a part of the campaign to free hundreds of captive schoolgirls. She covered the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and reported from London on the birth of Prince George. In November 2015, she interviewed Susan Schneider, an American artist, and the third wife of the late actor Robin Williams. It was the first time Schneider gave an interview after her husband committed suicide.
In 2015, she wrote a New York Times bestseller titled ‘Better: How I Let Go of Control, Held On To Hope, and Found Joy in My Darkest Hour’, about her struggle with breast cancer.
While working at ABC News, she traveled widely to national and international territories, covering major news events. She reported from Brussels on the terrorist bombings in Belgium, and from Orlando, Florida on the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub. She traveled to Dallas, Texas, to cover the shooting ambush of police officers, and reported on the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting from Newton, Connecticut.
Her network-wide coverage on Election Night 2016 from Trump headquarters, and from the Washington Mall in Washington, DC for the 2017 Presidential Inauguration, were highly appreciated.
She traveled to Iceland with ice climbers to report on climate change, taking viewers live into an ice sinkhole over 100 feet deep with the help of a drone. She reported live from Tanzania on the poaching epidemic and its impact on the globe. She also reported live from South Africa on the shooting of Oscar Pistorious’ girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Personal Life
Amy Robach was the 3rd runner-up in the Miss Georgia pageant in 1994. She won the Miss Grinnett County title the same year.
In 1996, she married Tim McIntosh, a New Zealand cricket player, but the marriage ended in divorce in 2008. They have two daughters—Annalise and Ava.
She is currently married to Andrew Shue, an American actor. Andrew had starred on ‘Melrose Place’ as Billy Campbell. They got engaged in September 2009 after they met at a book launch party and married the following year. Actress Elisabeth Shue, who starred in ‘Back to the Future’, is her sister-in-law.
Together Amy and Andrew are raising their blended family which includes her two daughters, and Andrew's three sons—Nate, Aidan, and Wyatt—from his former marriage to Jennifer Hageney.
Cancer Battle
In November 2013, Amy Robach revealed on ‘Good Morning America’ that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Prior to the announcement, on October 1, 2013, she had a mammogram on live television. She took some time off from broadcasting to undergo a bilateral mastectomy.
The cancer was classified as Stage IIB, as during the surgery, doctors found a second malignant tumor in her other breast, indicating that the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes. She underwent eight rounds of chemotherapy, radiation, and reconstruction surgery. As of 2017, she is healthy and cancer-free.
