Amy Robach Says Fourth of July Is Tough for Her...

The Fourth of July is not typically the happiest holiday for Amy Robach as it serves as a reminder of a very important safetylesson she learned when she was young

Published Time: 03.07.2024 - 20:31:04 Modified Time: 03.07.2024 - 20:31:04

The Fourth of July is not typically the happiest holiday for Amy Robach as it serves as a reminder of a very important safetylesson she learned when she was young.

On the July 3 episode of her and T.J. Holmes’ Amy & T.J. podcast, the former GMA3 anchor reflected on a “very traumatic” experience she had when she was a teenager on the Fourth of July – one that changed the holiday for her ever since.

Her family used to celebrate Independence Day together and had a bunch of “traditions,” she said, but those “kinda fell off because of one Fourth of July when I was 14.”

“It's actually really serious,” Robach, 51, said before sharing the scary story of when her “parents got struck by lightning and my uncle did too," which she said ultimately "changed the Fourth of July for us.”

"I'm reacting a certain way because I've heard this story 50 times," Holmes, 46, said as he jumped in, noting that everyone else listening was thinking, "What the hell is going on?"

“So the Fourth of July is always…. I am aware of thunderstorms. It always makes me a little nervous, because it was a very traumatic thing. But my parents, yeah, my mom and dad got seriously injured," she recalled.

"They were in the hospital for weeks. My mom was in the hospital for weeks. My dad was in the ICU, but their tennis shoes got blown off of their feet. Their clothes had to be cut off of them. T -

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hey were — my dad … had to have CPR performed on him. And my uncle Jack, actually, ultimately died. He was up against the tree that the lightning hit, and my parents were blown standing next to him and he just crumbled.”

Robach continued, warning listeners of the dangers she learned so young. “Lightning kills and the Fourth of July is one of those holidays where everybody's out and about, and it tends to be a thunderstorm-heavy, holiday.”

“Things in my house changed after that,” she said, adding that she “got into a habit of traveling around the Fourth of July” and she hasn’t been “in the country during the Fourth of July for many, many years.”

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This year, Robach confirmed that she'll be in the United States for the holiday "for the first time" in a while. Holmes noted that they aren't exactly sure where they will be for the holiday weekend, though they'll be with his 11-year-old daughter Sabine, who he shares with his ex-wife Marilee Fiebig.

Robach's daughters, however, will be "continuing the tradition and are gonna be out of the country on the Fourth of July," she said. She shares daughters Ava and Annalise with her ex-husband Tim McIntosh.