Known For being the anchor of ABC’s ‘Good Morning America’, Robin Roberts is one of America’s finest television broadcasters. She is also one of the very few TV personalities who came out as queer way before it became a common thing in the mainstream media.
While that makes one of the bolder homosexual women in the entertainment industry, she has had her fair share of struggles with the stigma. Having been out publicly since 2013, Roberts recently discussed how her journey has been of accepting and acknowledging her sexuality.
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Robin Roberts Talks About Her Fear Of Coming Out As Gay
While speaking during an interview with ‘The Jamie Kern Lima Show’ podcast recently, Robin Roberts stated that although her coworkers on ‘Good Morning America’ knew of her sexual orientation before she came out, she was afraid that coming out as gay would have a negative effect on the show.
“It’s not the Robin Roberts Show, it’s Good Morning America, and there are so many people whose livelihoods depend on the success of our show,” Roberts said. “And so, if I do something that hurts the show, that hurts them.” The anchor said that while she was never hesitant with introducing her wife Amber Laign to folks in everyday life, she “wasn’t ready” at the time to “fully” come out.
“I would walk down the street with Amber and if somebody saw us, I would introduce her. I wasn’t trying to hide,” she said. She further revealed that her resistance to the idea of being public about her sexuality stemmed from her Christianity.
“I was afraid,” Robert said. “People, they think you can’t be gay and a Christian, and I am. I was so fearful that I would be shunned,” she added.
However, when Roberts finally came out, she was met with a lovely surprise: “a beautiful letter” from the National Office at the Presbyterian Church and was stunned to discover that they were “fully supportive.” She said, “And then I think about all those years I wasted, worried — needless worry. And we all are guilty of this. Think about all these things that we worry about that never come to fruition. And we just spend all of this energy on that.”
“But also,” Roberts continued, “I had to believe this was right on time. This was the time in my life that was right. It felt good. And I can’t even imagine now people not knowing everything about me. And you know what’s so freeing about it also? It’s like, ‘Bring it on. You know everything about me. And I have nothing to hide.’ And to still be embraced, I am blessed and highly favored. I’m so grateful.”
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Who Is Robin Roberts’ Wife?
Robin Roberts has been in a loving relationship with now wife Amber Laign, a massage therapist from the San Francisco Bay area. During an interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Robin Roberts had shared that Laign “doesn’t really like the spotlight,” but that “she’s very, very supportive, and she’s been right there beside me every step of the way.”
In her memoir Roberts released in 2014, she writes about her relationship with Laign, explaining, “Amber and I have been a loving couple for almost ten years now, but we choose not to live together. Maybe that’s why we’ve lasted almost a decade!”
Roberts met her now-wife on a blind date in July 2005, and they recently tied the knot in September 2023.
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