Moments That Make Us: How Robin Roberts Became One of America’s Most Beloved News Anchors

I couldn't imagine not doing what I'm doing right now. I never thought I would be a news reporter and anchor. And it's 20 plus years now I've been in the anchor chair. I can't believe it. Like, Good Morning America. Last year, I started a conversation about life's turning points. This season, we're talking about what comes next, the next day, and beyond. I'm Melinda French Gates. These are The Moments That Make Us. Robin, I'm so glad we could do this today. Thanks for agreeing to this. This is a little different. This is different for me. Hey, come on. I'm not used to being in this role. You do this all the time. I've been looking forward to spending some time with you. Thank you for the invitation. Me too. So I've come out with a book called The Next Day. I love that title. Thank you. And it's about transitions in life that all of us go through. What I want to talk to you about today is some of the transitions you've been through, because I think they're things we can all learn from one another's transitions. I try to think about the next day after a transition, because you know, you're going through it and you don't think you're going to make it to the next day. I wanted to be a pro athlete. Melinda, I can't tell you how consumed I was with that in a positive way. It was early on that I realized I'm a good athlete, but I'm not going to be a pro athlete. There's a little thing called ability. You know, you can have heart and desire, but you don't have the ability. But then I had to make that transition. I'm like, I'm not going to be a pro athlete. And I wasn't excited about my next day. I got to be honest. I wasn't excited about the nexus. That's what you had been dreaming about all your life, right? How did you deal with that? It must have been disappointment, right? And did you know what you were going to next? I have an older sister who's in broadcasting and I really enjoyed what she was doing. Though I didn't want to be in news. News was like a four letter word to me at the time. And I still had this love for sports. And she was the one that was kind of like, well, why don't you combine this passion that you have for sports with its interest in broadcasting? And it's not like today where I can see women sports announcers, casters, anchors. But back then in the 1980s, you weren't seeing that. But it got me excited because it was like, oh, I'm going to still be in sports. So it was a different twist on being a professional athlete. And your sister sounds quite seminal in that decision. Like you went to her and she could see something about you that maybe you couldn't see about yourself. Can you say more about that? And also anyone else in your life that you go to during big transitions? You got what? Your truth council. Some people call it their kitchen cabinet. Exactly. Sally Ann, eight years older than I. And oh my gosh, other than literally saving my life, she was my bone marrow donor, my match. So she was the one that really encouraged me when I was, she's like, I told you to be a sportscaster, not follow me in news. She was the one who really nudged me in that way. But there's just so many people. The woman who was the news director, Mary Perasco, who is a friend to this day. She was another one that encouraged me. She knew I was a good student. She knew I was on the basketball team. And she too was like, why are you in my news department? You should be doing sports. And she was also somebody that just kind of gave me that little nudge. And we all need that little nudge. We do. We need somebody that can see us for who we want to be and what's inside of us. So they have a perspective on us, but they're also willing to tell us the truth and nudge us out there. Why can't we see that in ourselves? I think it's just hard. Yeah, but you said that so well. And I think of all the times I did that for other people. Yes. And I never thought about how people have done that for me. Yeah. So I'm living happily ever after at ESPN, the worldwide leader in sports. I made it to Wimbledon, which was a dream, not as a tennis player, but as a sports reporter. So I didn't have a tennis racket. I had a microphone in my hands, but I felt like, ah, I made it to Wimbledon and I'm getting all these offers to go in the news. And I kept saying no. And I realized I was saying no out of habit. And so somebody who was in my truth council, Billie Jean King, and I went to her because I had to interview her for something. And I was being wooed by GMA, Good Morning America. And I thought, surely she's going to tell me, no, no, no, no, stay with us in sports. So after I do the interview with her, I said, Billie, can I just get some counsel from you? I'm getting this offer to go to Good Morning America, but don't you think I should stay in sports? And it was almost like out of the movie, Moonstruck. Snap out of it. She's like, what are you, crazy? You can take us with you. You have a bigger platform for sports, but don't limit yourself. And I'm so grateful because I had somebody like that that I respected so much, again, who saw your potential and saw what it would mean for you to soar, what it would mean for sports for you to soar into news, right? I couldn't imagine not doing what I'm doing right now. I never thought I would be a news reporter and anchor. Never in my wildest dreams, wasn't on the radar. And it's 20 plus years now I've been in the anchor chair at Good Morning America, right? Yeah. You've also taken that platform as a broadcaster and done many different things with it. How did you come up with this idea of the glam fam and explain what that is on social media? And why was it important for you to do that? Glam fam, Elena and Petula, two wonderful women who've been in my life, my inner circle for more than 20 years. They do my hair and makeup, but they feed my soul. Other than the way they make me look, which thank you very much, because I did not wake up like this. Before I'd go out, we'd have a morning message and prayer with each other. But we just did it in the dressing room. We didn't do it on our phones. And so we just slowly did like a thankful Thursday. We'll just do it like one day a week. And the response, Melinda, was so like, oh my gosh. It feeds my soul as much as it does those people who are listening. But the glam fam has even expanded to the people who are now connecting to each other. There was a meditation teacher who taught me that if you share your joy with someone else, it doubles it. They benefit from it and you benefit from it. I like that. And this notion of gratitude, like that you're putting out things you all are grateful for on a Thursday, was it scary to think, oh God, the next day, what's the reaction gonna be like? That's very apropos to say the next day. I was like, and the next day, are we still gonna have a job? I don't think I could have done it when I was younger as a journalist. I've gotten to that magical time in life. And I know you can relate to this now. I know, I know, I know. Bring it on. But you do become, it's not that you're not fearful anymore. It's not that. No, no, it's just that you push through it like you wouldn't do before. I still get scared, I do. But I don't want it to stop me as much as I did before. I wonder what it is we get, I say we sort of get more comfortable with the version of ourself that we are in our 60s. But I think it's important for people to know you still have to push through fear. You still have to push and have courage. I'm the same way, right? Because people look at you and go, she's done this for 20 years. Oh, that must have been easy, right? But I think every time we make a transition and if we can pay attention to that space in between, between when you've made a decision and then what I call the next day and before you move to the next thing, there's a lot to learn. And the more you practice it a little bit, at least for me, the easier it becomes to push through the fear. And that learning process. And I love how you, when you keep referring to joy. I wrote a book, Brighter By The Day, and I talk about joy versus happiness. And happiness is, oh, I got that raise, or oh, you know, it's conditional. Joy? Joy is like knowing I'm gonna be on the tennis court in a couple of days. Because I love playing. It just, and it fills the gap. It fills the gap until you can get to that next. Definitely. You see your child's face and it just brings you joy. You hear your favorite song. And looking for those moments to help you get to the next. We lose so much and we lose so much of ourselves and people lose out because of that gap as you so eloquently put, between making the transition and that next day. There's that gap. Hang on. There's a reason why you decided to make this transition. And I think if more people realize how fearful we all are, the majority of us are, and we're just trying to figure it out. And it does, as I just love maturing. Not aging, but maturing. Love that. I'm gonna take that phrase over. Please do, but it is. And it's something, don't you find that you give yourself grace? Absolutely. More grace. I mean, you are graceful with it, but when you apply that to yourself, and so many times my wife, Amber, I will come home and I'm like, I'm just beat down or whatever. And she said, why don't you listen to what you just said this morning? Like sometimes you need to listen to what you've said for other people to do and yourself. And sometimes I have to be reminded and go like, oh yeah, okay, I can do this. When do you fit that in? So when she gives you a piece of feedback like that, which I'm always so appreciative when people give me honest feedback, right? Oh, right. So then when do you do that? You get up at 3.34 in the morning to start a broadcast. How do you find that time for yourself? You make an appointment with yourself. I mean, I made a time to be here. I made a time to be on Good Morning America. I do Pilates at a certain time. Why can't I schedule time for me? And I do that with my two daily meditations, one right after Good Morning America before I joined you here this morning. And we had a really hectic morning. I still made sure that I got my 20 minutes in and I'll do one again this evening. I'm so grateful for the three Ds that my folks, Lucy Marion and Lawrence Roberts, it was about discipline. It was about determination and it was about the Lord. So those three Ds. Discipline, determination, the Lord, which for you now is spirituality. Yes, exactly. And it was because of the discipline. So that's, I'm disciplined to find the time for myself. And also my mama, oh, I wish you had met her. Some days I do this. I remember when she was still here with us and I said, mama, I'm having a horrible day. Oh my gosh, nothing's going right, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm at home now and I'm calling her. And she goes, you're having a bad day? And I said, yes, ma'am. She goes, go to bed and end it. Why are you staying up if you're having a bad day? And I'm like going, and that's her way of saying the next day. So I would go like, why am I prolonging this day? And there's something about the dawn of a new day. Totally. That you're like, whew. Totally. It doesn't erase everything that you're feeling, but it just gives you that, okay, I can't. I have fresh energy, right? Yes, exactly. And I don't know about you, but I will say for me towards the end of the day, and I noticed this when I was raising my kids, that the doubts and the anxieties or the fears came up more as you got more tired in the day, you know? I just talked to my therapist about that. Did you? I did, that very thing. Yeah, because they start to come in, right? And so you are better off just trying to shift and just go to bed or do whatever it is you need to do to settle to go to bed. My mom would say, go to bed and put the covers over your head. That's what she would say. And I would do that and I would feel better. But I still wish that I had been a little easier on myself in my younger self. Yes, it helped here, but could I still have gotten here without doing that? And I don't know, but I'd like to rewind and find out because I miss so much. Do you ever feel that way? Definitely. I was so goal-driven in my 20s. I achieved a lot of those things, but I definitely lost some things along the way of not enjoying certain things. Once I sort of started to figure out how to live, they talk about living in the moment. Okay, how do you do that? And how do you find joy? Once I started to figure that out and to accept myself as I was with all its messiness, things just got easier. And then I wasn't quite so goal-driven either. It was more like, okay, kind of let things flow. Yes, I have places I'm gonna go and things I wanna do, but I let things flow more. Yeah, we're so similar in that. I mean, I had, even on my whiteboard, when I was in high school and I put keys to success and I even misspelled success, only one C. And my mom, who's an English teacher, was like, oh boy. But I was like, oh, I'm gonna do this, this, this. I mean, part of it is being an athlete and so you set goals for yourself. And many things that I put on the board and many things that happened, but what's so great, I didn't even have Good Morning America on the board. I bet you didn't. I know, but I know. So it's great to be goal-driven, that's great. But give yourself a little flexibility to be able to make the transition, to pivot. And I'm so grateful that I was able to find the combination of the two. I mean, again, when I'm sitting here, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm the anchor of Good Morning America for all of these years and to know that this little pigtailed girl in Mississippi didn't even have it on her board. That's what I love to tell young women is anything is possible. And even though you may not yet see women like you in these different careers, you didn't see women doing what you now do, right? You really can be anything. And so don't let society tell you, especially when you go out into society maybe after high school or college, you can't be this, you can't do this. No, find the people who surround and support you and see what you can be and have that perspective on you. And I find there are a lot of young women, I see them and I'm like, dang. No kidding. Oh my God, isn't it? I'm just like, you are brilliant. And they've got the chutzpah to do it. All of it, all of it. You know, and I wish that there were more, but you have to put yourself in position for good things to happen. Proximity is power. It was then, it is now. You can wish, hope and pray all you want, but if you don't position yourself, whether it's with good people, just, you know, just going for it. All right, let's talk about another really hard thing, transition you went through, which is you've had a cancer diagnosis. You had two major difficult diagnoses. Talk about how you dealt with that time because here you are healthy and then you find out, oops, maybe I'm not as healthy as I thought and will I return, right, to good health? How did you, how in the world did you deal with that, Robin? I was embarrassed. Embarrassed? Yes, and I remember talking to my sister about that and because it's like I'd always projected myself as being healthy and, you know, I don't, I drink in moderation, I don't smoke, I'm an athlete and all this and I, you know, and my sister said, are you, do you feel shame when someone else says that they have cancer? And again, if you have to have someone in your council and I go, no, she goes, well, why do you feel that way about yourself? So once I was able to get past the embarrassment I was feeling, had I done something wrong and all these things, my dear mom, make your mess your message. I remember her saying that, make your mess your message because I was like, mom, what am I gonna do? I was 46 at the time. It was triple negative. They were gonna have to throw the kitchen sink, extensive chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, the whole bit and I remember at first not sharing that with folks when you're going through a diagnosis like that and once we had the battle plan set, I went public and dear Diane Sawyer was holding my hand. We called ourselves sometimes Thelma and Louise. We felt like we're going over the cliff some morning, held our hands and expressed what I was going through and encouraging people about, because it was detected early, the chances of my survival increased dramatically. Do you know how many people told us that that day they scheduled their mammogram because they had put it off but they saw Diane and myself talking about it, making my mess my message about early detection and so that was extremely helpful because it got me outside of what I was going through and the same thing when years, five years later, the very medication that saved my life put it in peril and myelodysplastic syndrome, a form of I needed a bone marrow transplant and fortunately Sallyanne, my sister, was a match and again it was make my mess my message and going my sister, a family member is only a match 30% of the time, so 70% of the time you need someone on the registry. My doctors had already checked the registry. There was nobody for me and had my sister not been a match, I would not be here. So my sister and I made it our battle cry and the way we have been able to increase the registry, again, it's like make your mess your message so I encourage folks, whatever that you're going through and like Mama said, everybody's got something, it's not divorce, it's not losing your job, it's not losing your health. It's like if I don't, why was this placed in my path? What am I supposed to learn from it and then share with others who may walk a similar path one day? Right, because you have a platform to amplify and think about how many families go through somebody having cancer, either themselves or a family member. And don't have the resources that, and your health should not be dictated by your zip code. Depending on where you live, depends on what kind of care you're gonna get or your circumstances and so part of what Mama was saying to me is like, look, you're with the company, you're not gonna lose your job, that's not that way for everybody so continue to be their voice, continue to talk about how health care needs to be affordable and accessible to folks and so again, I was trying to find that way to be a messenger for those who didn't have a voice at the time and I'm just very grateful that my mom really, really encouraged me to do that. Wow, your mom and your sister? Yeah, so talk about that. You lost your mom, right? While you were going through the bone marrow transplant? Oh, you're going there. You wanna go there, it's up to you. I do, I do, I do. I just know she was so special in your life. I'm glad that you are because I was ready for my transplant, I was gonna be in isolation. My mom had had a situation that put her in the hospital for a time but she was able to come home and my other sister, Dorothy, was, you always have that sibling that's the caretaker and she was the one there for mom and I'll never forget, Sally Ann and I were up in New York, her healthy stem cells had just been collected, I was going to take my medical leave and then have the, it was really a transfusion is what it is and Dorothy called and said, y'all need to come home because mama's heading home. We're like, heading home? They're like, no, she's heading heavenly home. So we're able to get home in time. We don't know how long she is going to be in the state and I was like, I'm not having this transplant because if I do and mama passes, I can't be at the service because I have to be isolated. So I am not having this done. Everybody leaves the house, the caretaker is there, I'm in the room with my mom and the caretaker, this young woman, is talking about how my mother would become coherent during the night and would share all these stories and she was sharing stories that only my mother could have told her and then the young woman said, your mom wonders if she was a good mother. Oh my gosh. Melinda? Yeah and I said, I said, what? And I started speaking like, no, I said, she didn't have cookies waiting for us when we came home. But she, just speaking just about her, do you know after I finished saying that, my mom was in the bed, she took her last breath. Oh. And she passed away. It's almost like she needed to hear. She did. But also, it was like, she also knew that I would not leave her and if I didn't leave her, I wouldn't get that transplant. She made way for you. My sibling said it was her last gift to me. It was. And so she, wow, you're, Oprah, is that you? You're getting me to cry. No, it's just. No, no, but it was, but I have to tell you this and why I like, why I don't mind sharing it with you is that people wondered would I get off the mat. They had seen me like, go over to breast cancer and Hurricane Katrina and I would come back and come back strong. They knew how close I was to my mom. They knew I was having this life-saving procedure and they was kind of looking and the fact that I was able to just share with them my vulnerability and I know that your publisher has said this to you as well about sometimes when we're writing our story and sometimes you wanna take something out because you feel so vulnerable and they're like, that's the thing that's gonna resonate with folks. And that's so true and so by sharing with them my pain but then how I was somehow able to get past that and I had a woman the other day, sends me an email and she said, I'm watching you this morning. You look great. I'm a couple of years past cancer and I hope that I can be as happy as you are one day and you're giving me hope that I too can do that but right now I'm not there but I'm gonna do my best to get there. And it made me feel so good that just my presence that morning just gave this woman who has walked a similar path going, wow, okay, that could be me one day and so that's my purpose I feel. Some people talk about a purpose-driven life or a calling that you didn't even know you had and I think when we go through health challenges, we need to have somebody again that can hold the hope out for us and the perspective and so you were literally, she could watch you that morning and be hopeful about her own situation, right? You reversed roles with your wife Amber because then she had a major diagnosis. Talk about that role reversal and how you felt on the next day when you realized, okay, now it's my turn to care for her. When I was a patient, when I was on that side, I didn't shed a tear, didn't shed a tear. As a caregiver, I was a puddle. That was what surprised me. I cried more as a caregiver worrying about Amber than I did about myself because as a patient, I was like, okay, these are my marching orders. I gotta da, da, da, da. As a caregiver, it's like, what do you need and you feel so helpless. Amber gave me a good roadmap. As I gave her a roadmap on how to fight cancer, she gave me one as a caregiver. She said, get the tribe. Get the tribe around you. She said, you've gotta take care of you. I'm like, but I'm supposed to take care of you. You feel as a caregiver so selfish if you take time for yourself. It was very important that I realized I needed to do that and know that I wasn't being selfish. But I have to say, what really surprised me I'm usually a pillar of strength and I felt so weak. I felt so helpless. But Amber was very good in instructing me and going, it's okay. Take care of yourself. Right, because she knew. And then you can take care of her because you're her primary person. It's tough. I always had an appreciation for caregivers, always. Even more so now having been one and fully understanding what that takes, my hat's off to them. No kidding. And boy, do we need them in our lives. Because we are at some point. All of us. All of us will either be one or receive caregiving or both. You and Amber made a big decision a few years ago to go ahead and get married. Talk about how that decision came about and literally what was it like for you the next day? Did it feel different than the day before you got married? It did feel better. It felt different the next day. How? We, okay. It felt like we were playing house for 20 years. Because we've been together, we're coming up on 20 years. And it felt like we had been just playing house. And now we're married. The marital bond is something that cannot be explained. But it was COVID. As horrible as that was, and there was no silver lining to something that we all went through, Amber and I spent more time together than we had in our entire relationship prior. Wow. And we really loved each other. No, we really liked each other. And it was that feeling of when I had to go back into New York and she was staying in Connecticut, I'm like, I don't like this. And so we were at our favorite little restaurant and we kind of looked across from each other and we're like, you want to get married? And we didn't have any rings. So we had, there was calamari rings. So we just put a little calamari rings. You know, we've been together for so long. So it's like, whatever. How sweet. And to see the joy it brought our families. But yes, it really, really felt different the next, the very next day. Were you afraid to take that step at all? That's a fair question. I'm very fortunate that when I came out, I was going to write my book. Everybody's Got Something after my transplant. And I was going to talk about Amber for the first time. And I didn't want the book to be the first time people learned about it because my life has a lot of chapters and not just that. I know, and I'm a journalist. I know that they're just going to focus on that. And I don't want the meaning of the book to be lost. So prior to the book coming out, this innocent little Facebook posting like, I'm thanking my doctors. So it was an anniversary of some sort of my recovery and my longtime girlfriend. And you know, people responded. And, but Melinda, I had been more fearful of coming out than I was in getting married. I was more fearful as a Christian, how would I be viewed? It is not the Robin Roberts show. It's Good Morning America. Would I impact the show and hurt my colleagues? Would ratings fall? All these things have been playing in my head. And even though I was out to everybody that I worked with, Bob Iger at Disney, everybody, my parents, family. No, I wasn't being truthful to the world. And you talk about being free. It's like, you know, honey, bring it on. What you got to say? Really? It's just like, it's that feeling of like there, I have really bared everything. Having done that and when we were, had the trepidations about marriage, I'm like, well, we were afraid about that. Let's do this. And I'm so glad. I'm so glad that we did. And again, who knew that in the end you would be a role model for people? Because it is still hard in society, right? It shouldn't be, but it is. That's the truth. When we were in the New York Times. Yep. The New York Times, this beautiful wedding picture of us and this absolutely gorgeous article. And it was nothing about same-sex couple. It was like two people in love, how they found themselves. It was talking about our love story. I remember I was speaking somewhere and this woman, it was down South cause I like to speak down South. Yeah, of course. And I was doing a little meet and greet after. And this beautiful woman came up to me and she said, thank you. She said, thank you. She said, my daughter came out. I'm gonna talk with Southern accent. My daughter came out and my friend because of you and how much they love you, they now have accepted her. So it's just wonderful to be able to be an example like that. Robin, thank you for this conversation. And besides being a journalist, I know you're already a published author, but my hope is that you will do another book because I think you have so many lessons from your life that you can teach other people. So I also hope you become a published author yet again. Well, thank you. Thanks for doing this. I appreciate you. Thanks for your big heart for all you do. Thank you. Back at you. You're good at this. Thank you. A little too good.