Before he was kicked to the curb by ABC News following a “heated screaming match” with a Good Morning America producer, star meteorologist Rob Marciano had been suspended by the network for at least a month and forced to take anger management classes after making inappropriate comments to a female producer in 2022.
According to four sources familiar with the matter, during a contentious interaction with a GMA producer two years ago, Marciano made sexist remarks during the exchange, only to later claim he was actually referencing his soon-to-be ex-wife and not his female colleague.
Marciano was then pulled off the air for weeks and made to take an anger management course, the sources say. GMA’s executive producer Simone Swink, however, refused to let Marciano back on the show following his suspension due to this outburst and complaints that he might make other staffers uncomfortable. Marciano was eventually allowed to reappear on GMA and deliver weather updates to the show’s audience—but only from other studios or the field.
Page Six first reported last year that Marciano was “banned” from the network’s Times Square studios after “he made a colleague feel uncomfortable” in 2022. The tabloid, however, noted it was “unclear what exactly transpired” but that sources said he was “dealing with some anger management issues” at the time owing to a pending divorce from his wife, Erin Marciano.
Now, The Daily Beast can exclusively reveal that Marciano was forced to undergo anger management training after the network took him off the air for a month in 2022.
An ABC News spokesperson declined to comment. Marciano did not respond to a request for comment.
ABC News fired Marciano earlier this week following another angry outburst with a GMA producer, sources told The Daily Beast. In the wake of the tirade, chief meteorologist Ginger Zee—his chief rival, network sources claimed—heard about the altercation and reported the incident to leadership. These sources also said that Zee urged the producer to go to management with their complaint.
The network decided the incident was “the last straw” for Marciano and let him go.
At the time of his 2022 suspension and subsequent ban from GMA, Marciano had a tendency to “overshare” information and details with female staffers about his ongoing bitter divorce battle, insiders told The Daily Beast. According to these sources, this helped create an uncomfortable and awkward work environment for some women at ABC News.
Swink, who was brought on to run GMA after former boss Michael Corn left in 2021 amid sexual misconduct allegations, was apparently reluctant to allow Marciano back on the set even after he underwent formal training. “After all she went through with Corn and everything else, she wasn’t gonna allow that nasty behavior,” one network source said. “If anyone on her team was gonna feel uncomfortable, that was it.”
Marciano, who joined ABC News in 2014 after a co-anchor stint on Entertainment Tonight, continued to deliver weather reports for the weeknight news broadcast World News Tonight and ABC’s streaming network during his absence from GMA.
In the end, following Page Six’s story about his banishment, he was ultimately welcomed back to the Times Square Studios for occasional segments.
It wouldn’t last, however. And according to several colleagues, it was really just a matter of time before it all came crashing down around him. “I’m surprised it’s taken this long,” one senior ABC staffer said, a sentiment echoed by other former co-workers who spoke with The Daily Beast.
Following Marciano’s demise at ABC, The New York Post reported that he frequently “clashed” with Zee after he joined the network and took over the weekend gig she previously held. Zee had replaced chief meteorologist Sam Champion and was promoted to weekdays. According to the tabloid, they engaged in “a bitter feud that was kept tightly under wraps for years.”
Not all of Marciano’s former co-workers remember him as having workplace issues, however. Following his ABC exit, People spoke to several of his ex-colleagues who described the firing as “unexpected,” heaping praise on the longtime meteorologist’s work ethic and demeanor.
“Rob is great,” one ex-CNN coworker told People. “No one championed my career in that building more than he did and no one took care of the crew in the field better than he did in my 10 years of working there.” Another insider told the New York Post that the complaints about Marciano felt like a “hit job.”
It wasn’t just anonymous employees who sang Marciano’s praises. Former GMA3 co-anchors T.J. Holmes and Amy Robach, who sparked headlines and eventually left ABC over their scandalous extramarital affair, offered well wishes to their ex-colleague.
Saying they “know what it’s like to have your entire life upended,” Robach noted on the podcast she now co-hosts with Holmes that she does “applaud all the work he has bravely done over the last decade or so.” Empathizing with his former colleague, Holmes added: “We do know what it’s like to have those headlines, to be the subject of clickbait, and that’s a tough position for anyone to be going through, especially someone who is a father of two.”
Marciano’s exit comes as the network deals with turmoil among its top leadership. CNN reported this week that ABC News President Kim Godwin appears to be on “thinning ice” and was nowhere to be found during Thursday’s editorial call. After ABC’s parent company Disney tapped Debra O’Connell to oversee the news channel (and Godwin), speculation has ramped up that the embattled executive could soon be out as she no longer “has the confidence of the newsroom.”
