Robin Roberts and her fiancée Amber Laign are feeling the love.
On Wednesday’s broadcast of Good Morning America, the pair — who are set to marry in September — were celebrated at a bachelorette party thrown by Robin’s colleagues and attended by some of their closest friends and family. The set of the ABC morning show was transformed into a tropical paradise for the occasion, complete with palm trees and a blue sky backdrop.
“As you can see, we have decked out our set for Robin and Amber’s bachelorette party. They have not seen anything yet,” Lara Spencer teased ahead of the couple’s arrival.
As a small group of Robin’s and Laign’s family excitedly waited — with some dressed in colorful dresses and others in matching blue button-down shirts with patches featuring the letters “RA” — actress Niecy Nash-Betts declared, “Let’s get them out here. Robin and Amber, please come check it out. We know that Key West is your happy place so we threw a party with a beach theme.”
The pair walked in to lots of cheers and applause. Robin, 62, wore a bridal white blazer, white lace pants and heels, while her longtime love sported a white jumpsuit. Both had on festive silver sashes.
The women smiled and greeted their guests, who included Food Network star Carla Hall, ABC news stars Deborah Roberts, Diane Sawyer, Gayle King, Juju Chang and Roberts’ sister Sally-Ann Roberts.
Spencer took a moment to ask Laign how she was feeling in the moment. “Amber, will you tell everybody . . . how does it feel to see your bride tribe together to celebrate you?” she queried, to which Laign replied: “Amazing. This is just incredible.”
“This is wonderful,” Robin agreed, continuing to spot familiar faces among the group and calling out to them.
An earlier segment showed the group making their way to the party on the “Bachelorette Express,” as Spencer called it — with Nash-Betts, 53, behind the wheel. “This is going to be a wild ride, Robin. We got your sister Sally-Ann, some of your closet friends and even En Vogue,” the Never Have I Ever star said.
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The broadcast — which closed out with a performance by the R&B girl group — also included several poignant moments. Before the party kicked off, co-host George Stephanopoulos asked, “Could 14-year-old Robin Roberts have imagined she’d be having a bachelorette party on national television?”
“Uh-uh, no,” Robin replied, shaking her head emphatically. “Especially to a woman.”
It wasn’t until after eight years of dating (the award-winning journalist met Laign on a blind date in 2005) that Robin publicly acknowledged her sexuality — and her romance with Laign — for the first time. Celebrating her recovery from a life-saving bone marrow transplant she underwent that year to treat myelodysplastic syndrome in a year-end Facebook post, Robin thanked her “longtime girlfriend Amber.”
As the bachelorette party came to an end on Wednesday, GMA contributor Tory Johnson brought out Sally-Ann, who was carrying a gift for her sister: a personalized cutting board from Sophistiplate, according to Entertainment Weekly.
“These are great because you can put your name or a date on them. They also make one that’s really, really special that your sister Dorothy helped me with,” Johnson explained. “Sally-Ann is here to show you this one — a very special board. They will allow you to submit something in writing and Dorothy helped with that.”
Robin then got visibly emotional when she saw that the cutting board was inscribed with her favorite family recipe.
“You know how much mama is blowing kisses to you right now, and now you have her recipe for rosemary chicken,” Sally-Ann explained to her sibling. “I know you’re going to be in the kitchen, where you always are.” Robin and Sally-Ann’s mother, Lucimarian Tolliver Roberts, died in 2012.
Johnson told Robin that Dorothy Roberts — who missed the party due to a medical procedure — had handwritten the recipe, which was then etched on the board. “I should’ve known when I saw the Kleenex box,” Robin said as she wiped away tears.
Robin and Laign’s bachelorette celebration comes after a difficult year for the couple. In February 2022, Roberts announced in a video posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) that Laign had been diagnosed with breast cancer. “She had surgery last month and this morning will begin chemotherapy. Thankfully, the prognosis is good,” she said at the time.
In July 2022, she shared in a video that Laign had completed her treatment. “My treatment is done, the course is run and I’m on my way,” Laign said in the clip, before she rang a bell and did a little celebratory dance. As the new year kicked off in January, the pair revealed their plans to tie the knot in 2023.
“I’m hesitating because I haven’t said it out loud yet . . . I’m saying ‘yes’ to marriage,” Roberts told author and speaker Gabby Bernstein during GMA‘s Jan. 2 broadcast. “We’re getting married this year.”
She continued, “It was something we had talked about but we had put it off, she became ill but . . . it is saying yes to that, and that next chapter.”
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