Al Roker is back on Today two days after the death of his ex-wife, Alice Bell.
After his absence from Today on the Tuesday, February 11, episode, where meteorologist Dylan Dreyer filled in for him, Roker returned for the Wednesday, February 12, broadcast where he performed his usual weather-reading duties, while taking a selfie with Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts after his team’s win at the Super Bowl LIX earlier that week.
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Roker‘s return to the Today show came two days after his and Bell’s daughter, Courtney Roker Laga, announced her mother’ death in an Instagram post on Monday, February 10. “She was my mother, my heart, and the most loving grandmother to Sky,” Laga wrote at the time. “I was with her for her last breath, and I will carry her love with me always.”
While Bell’s cause of death isn’t known, at the time of writing, Roker Laga’s post included a photo of her hooked up to an oxygen tube. Roker and Bell were married from 1984 to 1994 and adopted Courtney in 1987. Roker, for his part, also has two children, a daughter named Leila and a son named Nicholas, with his current wife, Deborah Roberts, who he married in 1996.
Two years before her mother’s death, Roker Laga shared an Instagram post in which she celebrated her mother, as well as her stepmother. “Happy Mother’s Day to the three most important women in my life. My mom Alice, my stepmother Deborah and my mother in law Barbara ❤️,” she captioned the post.
While Roker hasn’t spoken much about his first marriage, he did share in an interview with MSNBC in 2019 that his and Bell’s daughter was “not your typical kid.”
“When she was in her sophomore year in college, she came to [my wife] Deborah [Roberts] and me and said, ‘You know, guys, I don’t think this is for me. But I’d like to go to culinary school,’” he said. “We were surprised at first, and then I thought, ‘I should have thought of that.’ Courtney always liked to cook. She loved food presentation, too.”
He continued, “I remember when she was 6 or 7, she would go out and pick flowers to decorate the plate. It wasn’t the path we’d expected for her, but at the end of the day it was better she made that choice and invested in it.”
Meet the real-life partners of the Today show’s hosts in the gallery below.