T.J. Holmeswas accused of taking a random woman's phone during a first-class flight to Los Angeles, RadarOnline.com has learned. The ousted Good Morning America host addressed the incident on the Monday episode of the podcast he started with his girlfriend, Amy Robach, after they were fired from the AM show over their secret romance.
Holmes, 46, said he was in first class with Robach and got up to use the bathroom. When he exited the bathroom, a stranger confronted him abruptly.
“She steps toward me and gestures — almost like she's about to frisk me — and says, ‘Oh, you don't have it,'” the ex-TV personality recalled on Amy & T.J., adding, “[She] flat out accuses me of taking her phone.”
He said he was taken off-guard by her comments and asked her to clarify why she was asking him.
“At this point, she's a short lady, so I actually scooch, I crouch down, I put my hands on my knees and get down to her level, and I say, ‘Ma'am, are you telling me I took your phone?’” Holmes told listeners. “And then she says, ‘Oh, no, but it was there,’ and then kind of ignores me.”
He said the flight attendant was "overly apologetic" about the situation, adding that Holmes was “hot” over the encounter. “I go back to my seat next to row 5C, and I don’t sit in my seat,” he shared. “I sit on the armrest.”
Holmes said the incident continued to bug him.
He shared that he watched the woman search for her phone, and “sure enough,” the device had fallen near the woman's seat. Holmes explained that his accuser repeatedly told him she was “so sorry."
“Sorry just doesn't cut it at that point,” Robach responded during the podcast.
Holmes' girlfriend also noted that situations like this only happen to "certain people." Despite the experience, Holmes said he was happy with how he handled the situation and glad he had people there to witness his reaction and give him the confidence boost to stand up for himself.
“If there weren't more people around, I don't think I would have bent down and would have been as assertive as I was because I wouldn't have a witness that I wasn't aggressive towards her or whatever it may be,” he admitted. “But that was a wild flight experience.”
Robach agreed, remembering how the flight attendant wouldn't stop apologizing for the "difficult" woman. “It was awful,” she said.
Holmes and Robach said they can laugh about the situation now, with T.J. joking the woman was possibly listening to their podcast episode on the “cellphone I took from her.”
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As RadarOnline.com reported, Holmes and Robach's relationship was outed in November 2022. At the time, they were married to other people — Robach to Andrew Shue and Holmes to Marilee Fiebig — however, they claim they did not cheat. Holmes and Robach lost their jobs at ABC shortly after their romance was exposed.
In an interesting turn of events, Shue and Fiebig began dating and were still going strong as of last month.