A familiar face to NBC News and MSNBC viewers for years, Craig Melvin finally became part
of the Today family in 2018. From his time in the early 2000s as a local reporter in
South Carolina to now, his rise to the top has been a long time coming.
Craig Melvin's schedule is not for the faint of heart. He told Parade that his alarm wakes
him up each weekday morning at 3:45 a.m. After that, he says:
"I've gotten it down to a bit of a science in that I can get out of the house in 22 minutes."
He's picked up by a driver, typically before 4:15 a.m., for a commute that takes about
an hour. Melvin uses that time to prep for the show, "reading scripts and notes" for
Today, as well as his MSNBC show. He usually arrives at Today's studio in Rockefeller Center
by about 5:30. Before going on air, he'll eat a breakfast he describes as "very particular"
and never varies. Melvin joked,
"I'm a creature of habit. I'm like a 70-year-old man. I have a nonfat yogurt every morning
and I add nuts and blueberries."
That routine also includes lots of coffee. By 9:30 a.m., Melvin revealed he'll have had
"three cups of coffee and a double shot of espresso" to fuel him up for the day.
In March 2020, a Today staffer tested positive for COVID-19. That staffer had been in close
contact with Craig Melvin and Al Roker, which resulted in both having to remain in their
homes and miss some broadcasts.
"Craig and Al had some contact, so we're just, in an abundance of caution, keeping them home,
but they feel good."
Melvin tweeted,
"Feeling great this am. Thinking about our friend and colleague. Thinking about everyone
grappling with this right now. I'll be fine. So will we."
In April, Melvin began hosting Craig Melvin Reports: Coronavirus Pandemic, airing for
two weeks in the slot where his MSNBC show normally ran. NBC News said Melvin would "safely
report with a slim crew from key locations critical to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic
starting with the Central Park field hospital on Monday." For his broadcast, Melvin would
be joined remotely each day by a "Doctor on Duty" to provide expert insight.
On a July 2020 episode of Today, Al Roker brought up the topic of mentoring and asked
Craig Melvin who his mentor was.
"Roker's become my secret mentor — he doesn't even know he's my mentor."
"I had no idea."
It was many years earlier, quote, "before anybody started paying attention to me at
30 Rock," that Melvin asked Roker to lunch. To his surprise, Roker agreed. Melvin said,
"I wanted to pick his brain about his production company, the industry, navigating the waters.
To be able to do what Al has done for 40 years? It's a feat."
Over the years, Roker and Melvin have grown to become close friends. Roker wrote for Variety,
"I'm just going to come right out and say this. I have a man crush on Craig Melvin,
and I don't care who knows it."
Two high-profile NBC scandals rocked the network, but also served to fuel Melvin's rise through
the ranks. In fall 2017, Today anchor Matt Lauer was axed after Variety detailed various
sexual harassment allegations by numerous women. According to a report on ET, both Melvin
and Willie Geist had been angling to replace Lauer. R Online reported Melvin was, quote,
"devastated" when the gig ultimately went to Hoda Kotb.
Then another opportunity arose. In August 2018, Melvin stepped away from the Saturday
edition of Today, with Page Six speculating it was for him to join the weekday show. The
State reported that this came to pass less than a week later, when Melvin was bumped
up to weekday anchor on Today. Melvin said,
"The dream has come true. It's a pinch-myself moment."
Weeks later, NBC's high-profile new hire Megyn Kelly was fired over some controversial comments
about blackface. The former Fox News personality's abrupt departure left an hour-long hole in
NBC's daytime schedule, which led to the creation of the Third Hour of Today, with Melvin and
other Today personalities appearing in the studio of Kelly's canceled show.
Being impeached for lying about an extramarital affair with an intern is apparently still
a bit of a sore point for former U.S. President Bill Clinton. Craig Melvin found that out
firsthand when he spoke with Clinton during a Today interview in June 2018.
Melvin asked whether Clinton would have "approached the accusations differently" if the scandal
had occurred, quote, "with everything that's going on with the Me Too movement." Clinton
insisted,
"I don't think it would be an issue."
Clinton's tone turned testy when Melvin asked if he had ever apologized to his former intern.
"I have never talked to her. I did say, publicly, on more than one occasion, that I was sorry."
"The apology was public."
The interview stirred up controversy for Clinton while promoting the book he and author James
Patterson had written. When he and Patterson subsequently appeared on The Late Show with
Stephen Colbert, Clinton said of the Today interview, quote, "It wasn't my finest hour,"
adding that when he was mad at himself when watching it back.
Craig Melvin married Lindsay Czarniak, an on-air personality for ESPN and a former NBC
Sports correspondent, in 2011. At the time of their wedding, the couple opened up to
The Washington Post about their relationship. Melvin said of his bride,
"She loves life. She stops. She smells the roses. She picks a few, and she shows them
to me — 'Here, smell these!'"
The couple have two children, son Delano and daughter Sybil.
Czarniak left ESPN in 2017 and told The Washington Post that while, quote, "sports is still very
much [her] love," she would actually like to cover a broader range of topics as a journalist.
In 2019, she joined Fox Sports, focusing on NASCAR and working as an NFL sideline reporter.
In addition to her journalism career, Czarniak also has an occasional side gig as an actress.
She played a character named Mist in the 2000 sci-fi/action movie Aquarius, and had a brief
cameo as a news anchor in the 2010 horror flick Ghosts Don't Exist.
Given that Craig Melvin is Black and his wife, Lindsay Czarniak, is white, they have had
to navigate some cultural divides. This led Czarniak to post a three-part interview series
on Instagram, including conversations on "uncomfortable" issues surrounding race.
In one of these interviews, Czarniak spoke with her mother-in-law Betty Jo Melvin about
her reaction when she found out her son was dating a white woman.
"I told him that love has no color, that your skin color doesn't matter, as long as you
loved him and he loved you."
While Betty Jo Melvin may not have been focused on skin color, she knew that wouldn't be the
case with everyone her sons encountered. As a result, she taught them that whatever they
were undertaking,
"[They would] have to compete a little bit harder. They can't do the same things and
get the same results as someone that has the same qualifications that they have if he's
white or someone else. So you teach your children from when they're younger that, 'I need you
to be more.' You have to push them hard."
Author Malcolm Gladwell's bestselling book Outliers proposes an intriguing theory: to
achieve true mastery in a field — any field — one needs to spend 10,000 hours honing
that particular skill.
Melvin thinks Gladwell is onto something, calling himself a, quote, "firm believer in
the 10,000 Hour Rule" in an interview with Serendipity. For Melvin, this meant serving
as a journalistic "one-man-band" in his early days as a broadcaster in South Carolina. Melvin
said,
"I would drive the news truck to locations, run the cable from the truck to the camera,
and report. I did it all and that probably helped me in my career more than anything
else."
The December 16, 2020 edition of Today was an emotional one for Craig Melvin. He paid
tribute to his older brother, Lawrence Meadows, who died of stage 4 colon cancer. Melvin first
revealed his brother's death in an Instagram post, writing,
"Colon cancer robbed him and us of so much. He was diagnosed at 39. He died Wednesday
at 43. He spent a fair amount of time over the past few years raising awareness about
the disease. We'll be keeping up that fight."
On Today, Melvin admitted that his grief was tempered with relief.
"He was suffering at the end, and when you have someone you love and that you cherish,
you don't want them to suffer anymore."
He also shared his thanks to "the friends, the strangers, who sent cards, texts, and
prayers especially," and offered further gratitude to his co-stars on Today, "our little TV family,"
as he called them. According to Melvin,
"You guys really held us up over the last few weeks and it was a kindness and a generosity
that we will never forget."
In the summer of 2020, when protests erupted around the globe in support of the Black Lives
Matter movement, Melvin hosted a timely NBC News "virtual conversation" titled Growing
Up Black.
Melvin explained why people commenting about his, quote, "well-behaved" biracial children
tended to irk him. He said,
"They either look Black or they're racially ambiguous and I'm always struck when someone,
a stranger will say to me, 'Oh your kids are so well-behaved. And you know that they probably
wouldn't say that if there were two white kids sitting there who are the same age. It's
like, did you not expect my kids to be well-behaved?"
Melvin had previously opened up on Today about raising biracial children. He said of he and
his wife,
"We like to think we don't see race. [...] But since we've been married, we have become more
aware of it than we were before we were married. Since we've had children we've become even
more aware of it, and we've talked about how do you rear biracial children in an environment
like this?"
Craig Melvin is usually seen on TV wearing a suit, but he apparently has a buff bod concealed
beneath. Maintaining that fit and healthy physique, he told City Lifestyle, is something
he insists on making time for. Melvin admitted there's a certain degree of vanity in his
quest to stay fit, saying,
"If I didn't do what I do for a living, I'd probably be 300 pounds. My primary motivation
for hitting the gym is that I don't want to look fat on TV."
Melvin says his philosophy is, quote, "old school when it comes to the gym," relying
on a regimen that includes running and lifting weights. He explained,
"In the winter, I'm in the gym. I'm an elliptical guy and I need 20 minutes of cardio or I don't
feel like I've worked out sufficiently."
He added that when it comes to weight training, he swears by "low weight, high reps."
Like a lot of us, Craig Melvin wears contact lenses to see clearly. Those same lenses that
correct his vision nearly caused him to lose it. Melvin told People,
"I was one of those people that did not listen to their ophthalmologist when they would tell
them repeatedly that they should not sleep in their contact lenses. I never had any problems
when I did, so if my eyes got dry I would just use rewetting drops. I just thought that
maybe my eyes were different."
When he began to notice persistent redness in his eyes, Melvin finally heeded his coworkers'
advice and visited a doctor — who told him his "filthy habit" of sleeping with his contacts
had resulted in developing a corneal ulcer. Melvin's diagnosis led him, for the first
time ever, to wear glasses on the air, and he offered advice for viewers who wore contact
lenses:
"Don't let this happen to you!"
Working on one of America's most-watched morning shows pays a lot more than Craig Melvin earned
when he first launched his broadcasting career at WIS News 10 in his hometown of Columbia,
South Carolina. Once he landed at NBC, it's safe to say that the size of his paycheck
improved significantly — and became even bigger when he joined Today. According to
Celebrity Net Worth, Melvin has a net worth of $6 million and reportedly earns $3 million
per year as Today's weekday news anchor.
According to People, Melvin and his wife Lindsay Czarniak can afford to live in a "sprawling
suburban home" in Connecticut, with five bedrooms and six bathrooms. Melvin's "domain" is the
basement, which boasts such luxurious features as a media room, home gym, a wine cellar,
and a "full bar."
With two young children in the house, Melvin joked, the basement is also, quote, "the only
place in the house where you can occasionally find 45 seconds of almost quiet."
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