The scandalous affair between former GMA3: What You Need to Know hosts Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes has opened the doors to the sex-crazed inner workings of ABC and Good Morning America. Current and former employees have opened up about their romantic relationships with Holmes and the unhealthy work environment cultivated by the network.
In a recent profile by The Cut, a former digital news associate at ABC confirmed what we all suspected was true: Holmes is a bit of a creep. The then-27-year-old alleged that Holmes began flirting with her after asking for assistance with setting up his Instagram account. At one point, he dropped the cringey line: “I’m learning a lot about you. I might actually like you,” via email.
The former talk show host reportedly started showing interest in her personal life – despite being married – and invited her to a hotel room near the network’s headquarters, all of which made her feel “validated” as a low-level staffer given the network’s “rampant culture of sex.” Another source, a former GMA employee and current ABC producer, stated that the behavior was normal at the network.
She said, “It felt like everybody was sleeping around” and referred to the show’s staff as “a bunch of horned-up high school students,” who “learned how to do news in the ’80s when people were still doing blow in the bathroom.” After Holmes’ affair with Robach went public, he was accused of having affairs with an ABC intern and a former GMA producer.
Despite this “adulterous” behavior being normalized at the workplace and in the industry at large, one former GMA staffer expressed that it was frustrating to see people being rewarded in relation to their scandalous behavior. The former employee stated that was concerned that she didn’t get offered promotions because she hadn’t slept around with senior colleagues.
But what about now – especially since Holmes and Robach were ousted from their show? A current ABC employee claimed that the newsroom has become less scandalous since ABC News President Kim Godwin came on board in 2021, which tracks given her unbudging response to the former GMA3 hosts’ affair.
After Holmes and Robach were taken off air last December, Godwin issued a memo to network staff stating that the anchors would remain off the air pending the results of an internal review. She called the matter an “internal and external distraction” and asked staffers not to “gossip” about the matter while at work. While they were off air, the network cycled through a series of replacement hosts.
The current employee told The Cut, “Kim has gone out of her way to create a sort of zero-tolerance policy here. There has been cultural change.” Although, multiple sources alluded that they didn’t feel much justice in Holmes’ firing, with one equating him to being a “sacrificial lamb,” and another stating that the network seems more concerned with its reputation than its culture.
