Robin Roberts
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TV Broadcaster

b. November 23, 1960

“It’s about focusing on the fight and not the fright.”

Robin Roberts is an award-winning broadcast journalist and co-anchor of ABC News’ “Good Morning America.” She became an outspoken advocate for cancer research, after being diagnosed twice with the disease. She won a 2012 Peabody Award for her reporting on the issue. 

Born in Alabama, where her father was a Tuskegee Airman, Roberts was an athlete who excelled at school. She was a standout on the Southeastern Louisiana University women’s basketball team. The University retired her number in 2011, and she was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012.

Early in her broadcast career, Roberts predominately covered sports for Southern television affiliates and radio stations. She joined ESPN in 1990. As a sportscaster, she became well known for her catch phrase, “Go on with your bad self.” 

ABC named Roberts co-anchor of “Good Morning America” with George Stephanopoulos in 2005. The show has since earned four Emmy Awards for Outstanding Morning Program. 

Roberts made headlines in 2007 after going public about her breast cancer treatment and again in 2012 when she was diagnosed with MDS, a disease formerly known as pre-leukemia. 

After a bone marrow transplant from her sister, she collaborated with the Be the Match registry to publicize the need for bone marrow donors. Since then, more than 56,000 people have registered to donate bone marrow.

Her courage and advocacy have been recognized with numerous honors from organizations like The Congressional Families Cancer Prevention Program and The Susan G. Komen Foundation. She received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPY’s in 2013. The same year, she came out as a lesbian on Facebook, saying she was grateful for her “longtime girlfriend Amber Laign.” 

In 2014 Roberts received the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism and was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame.