He's suffered from racism, cancer, and survived a nasty car crash.
Al Roker's sunny disposition hides a life filled with storm clouds.
One of Al Roker's most public tragedies came when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer
in November 2020.
Roker announced the news on Today, sharing he'd undergo a five-hour surgery the next
week to remove his prostate.
Roker stated:
"It's a good news-bad news kind of thing.
Good news is we caught it early.
Not great news is that it's a little aggressive, so I'm going to be taking some time off to
take care of this."
The following February, Roker gave an update on The Kelly Clarkson Show, sharing:
"I was very fortunate.
We caught it early.
It was an aggressive form of prostate cancer, but we caught it very early."
Roker added that his surgeon felt he got all the prostate and the cancer out, but noted
he will have to continue to get his prostate-specific antigen levels checked every six months for
five years after his diagnosis.
One of the toughest parts for Al Roker was breaking the tragic news to his family.
Speaking to The Patient Story, Roker revealed that his son, Nick Roker — who is on the
autism spectrum — took it particularly hard.
Roker recalled:
"He was really upset and was kind of acting out."
Fortunately, the surgery went well and the father of three returned home to his family
with a smile.
He was back on Today later that month.
Sadly, Al Roker hasn't been able to escape the horrific experience of racism during his
life and career.
Roker has been pretty vocal about his run-ins with prejudiced people, including a particularly
harrowing incident with a taxi driver in New York City.
In 2015, Roker claimed a NYC Yellow taxi driver refused to stop for him and his autistic son
and instead moved further along to pick up a white person.
The Today star revealed in a tweet that he "filed a complaint" about the incident, adding:
"Hopefully @nyctaxi weeds out the bad apples.
Looking forward to a hearing and dealing with this.
I will keep you posted."
Things escalated from there, and The Taxi & Limousine Commission hit the driver with
the option of paying a $500 fine or having a hearing to determine exactly what happened.
The driver seemingly chose the latter, and it was reported by TMZ that the same person
had already been fined once before for the same offense.
A few months later, Page Six confirmed that the cabbie pleaded guilty to refusing to pick
the Rokers up and was fined $500.
Though Al Roker is one of the most successful weathermen in history, his path to stardom
was not an easy one.
Roker has experienced some difficult times, including facing racism and prejudice in the
workplace, which meant he felt he had to work much harder than his white colleagues.
Roker told The Hollywood Reporter:
"When I was coming up, there were no jobs that I wouldn't do when I was starting out
in television."
In the same interview, Roker also recalled a very frank conversation he had with his
dad, who told him:
"'It's not a fair world out there.
You are going to have to work twice as hard and be twice as good to get half as far as
the white kid next to you.'"
The star also got candid about his experience in his 2020 book, You Look So Much Better
in Person, where he recalled a racially aggravated incident that occurred on air while he was
working in Cleveland.
He elaborated about the incident on Today, recalling how a colleague was once hit with
a newspaper by a Black man.
Roker recalled:
"The next day we get on the air and his wife, Mona, is about to introduce me, and he goes,
'Mona, before you introduce Al, Al I don't know if you know this, but last night, one
of your people attacked me.”'
Roker admitted being horrified by the incident, before retorting:
"'Doug, why would a weatherman attack you?'
And then just went into the weather."
Al Roker has certainly had his fair share of health issues, and has had a particularly
tough time due to his involvement in a past car crash.
In 2001, Roker took some time off from Today to get total knee replacement surgery, revealing
his pain came from an accident he'd had 15 years earlier that had a lasting effect on
his leg.
Not too much is known about the accident itself, but it certainly had a lasting effect on the
weatherman.
He shared on his website that he was only able to extend his knee to 80 degrees at first,
and he had to re-learn to do everything from walking to bending down.
Sadly, that wasn't all Roker had to deal with as a result of the crash.
In 2016, he underwent the knife once again for a second knee surgery he'd put off for
several years.
Today cameras were filming when Roker took his first steps on his new knee and joked
that he'd been super glued back together.
One of Al Roker's most public struggles has been with his weight.
Roker has had a strained relationship with food and fans have seen how the weatherman's
weight has fluctuated.
He's also spoken candidly about the effects it's had on his life — including his marriage.
Speaking on Today in 2013, Roker confessed his overeating stemmed from a love of food
and a lack of self-confidence.
Roker also shared that the death of his mom contributed to him eating more, telling Parade
that he gained around 40 pounds in the following years, as he consoled himself with eating.
Roker's weight also started to have a detrimental effect on his relationship with his wife,
Deborah Roberts.
Roker told Today that his weight issues and refusal to exercise quote, "became a problem
in [their] marriage."
He shared how Roberts would take care of their kids and go for a run, while he didn't move
from the couch.
Roker really turned his life around in 2011, when he promised his dad on his deathbed that
he would get healthier after tipping the scales at around 340 pounds.
He revealed in his book, Never Goin' Back: Winning the Weight Loss Battle for Good, that
promise gave him a sense of "guilt and massive responsibility," which resulted in his gastric
bypass surgery.
In addition to undergoing gastric bypass surgery, surgery to remove the cancer in his prostate,
and surgeries following his car accident, Al Roker has gone under the knife several
other times after being plagued by health issues over the years.
In 2020, he revealed on Today that he'd had to have shoulder surgery after feeling "intense
pain" due to arthritis in his shoulder.
Roker admitted:
"For the last month I've only been sleeping about two or three hours a night, which even
for me is a little bit less."
The surgery actually marked his second for the same issue, as he'd battled pain in his
shoulder for several years and had the rotator cuff in his left shoulder repaired in 2014.
But that's far from all he's undergone.
In September 2019, Roker shared he was having problems with his hip and back.
Roker said on Today:
"All of a sudden, in the last three months, my left hip has been deteriorating, and decided,
you know, let me go get it taken care of."
Roker also admitted that — although the pain wasn't excruciating — he could definitely
feel that something was wrong.
He announced he'd be taking some time away from the NBC morning show to have hip replacement
surgery, and gave fans an update shortly after.
For Al Roker, the road to true love did not run smoothly, as Roker was actually reportedly
married twice before finding love with his current wife, Deborah Roberts.
Very little is known about his first wife, though we know that he shares an adopted daughter,
Courtney Roker, with his second wife, Alice Bell.
Roker and Bell were married for 10 years before divorcing in 1994.
However, when Al embarked on a new romance with Roberts, Courtney wasn't accepting of
their relationship.
Roberts wrote in her and Al's book, Been There, Done That: Family Wisdom For Modern Times:
"Since Al came to the relationship with an ex-wife and a daughter, we were destined for
complications.
I thought our happiness and love would cure any problems we faced, but that was wishful
thinking."
Roberts added, "Al felt a tremendous amount of guilt" about splitting with Courtney's
mom.
Roberts also went on to say:
"[L]ike any child of divorce, she was hurting and blamed me for her broken family.
Of course, I wasn't the reason her parents divorced, but that didn't matter to Courtney."
Roberts shared that disagreements would often happen because Al felt a little torn between
her and Courtney.
Fortunately, things seem to be much better today, and March 2022 even saw Al share a
sweet family snap to Instagram that featured the entire clan in matching clothing.
Al Roker has been pretty candid about his own experiences as a child, and shared a touching
insight into how he's taken on being a parent to a child with learning difficulties in 2019.
Al spoke to Today about his son, Nick Roker, admitting he believes if the world was as
aware of autism when he was growing up as it is today, he likely would have been considered
to be on the spectrum as a child.
Roker confessed on the show:
"I see many of the things in my son in me.
Maybe a part of that is I feel a little guilty about that."
Al also opened up about his experience caring for a child with autism and credited his wife,
Deborah Roberts, for helping to pull him through some tougher moments.
Al also spoke openly about his experience in an in-depth piece for Guide Posts that
year, writing,
"Do I get frustrated with my son sometimes?
You bet.
But then I remember my dad, how understanding he was.
And Deborah reminds me that I have to show my son not only that I love him but that I
like him as well.
More than that, I admire him."
As for Nick, he's gone on to become a very successful athlete, even winning two gold
medals at the Special Olympics New York in 2019.