Are Deborah Roberts and Robin Roberts Sisters? Find out Here!
Updated May 14 2020, 1:04 p.m. ET
Is it us or is it so hard to keep up with who's related and who's not in the public eye? Both Deborah Roberts and Robin Roberts are both well-known journalists for ABC, so there's no surprise that there has been a slew of questions over the years about whether or not the two journalists are related since they share the same last name. The two are colleagues, but are they sisters, too? Here's everything we know about Deborah and Robin's relationship!
Are Deborah Roberts and Robin Roberts sisters?
So it turns out, Deborah Roberts and Robin Roberts, who were born just two months apart in 1960, are not sisters. In fact, they are not related at all! Roberts is just a common last name, so it's not totally crazing that they share it.
But even though they aren't technically sisters, they are very close and refer to each other as so. Back in 2013, Deborah tweeted: "Proud to know my sister / friend Robin Roberts." How sweet!
The two may not be sisters, but they each have biological sisters of their own. Deborah, 59, who was born and raised in Georgia, has an older sister named Tina Clarington.
During a 2006 interview with ABC News, Deborah explained how Tina was the caretaker of her elderly parents since she lived closest to them at the time. "Some days I just feel I am doing all of this," Tina said 14 years ago. "Somebody help me now!"
While there isn't much information about whether Deborah has more siblings, she has hinted that she does have more than just Tina after stating in the interview that she and her siblings were trying to help out more with their parents.
Robin, 59, on the other hand, grew up in Mississippi and has two older sisters: Sally-Ann Roberts, 67, and Dorothy Roberts McEwan, 63. She also has an older brother named Lawrence Jr. (aka Butch).
What many may not know is that Robin and Sally chose the same career path in life: journalism. Sally-Ann was a broadcast journalist having worked for WWL-TV in New Orleans and Eyewitness Morning News over her impressive 40-year career. She retired in 2018, and at the time, Robin hosted an honorary interview with her sister to celebrate all of her success.
The sit-down proved how much the sisters love and respect one another despite being competitors in the news industry.
Sweetly enough, Robin and her two sisters have a very close bond despite each being four years apart... and they even had that "typical" sibling rivalry as kids. "When we were growing up, we didn’t really like Sally-Ann,” Dorothy joked of their eldest sister to Essence.
Sally didn't deny it. "I was a typical teenager," she admitted. "I really didn’t want to hang around them; I didn’t want them to come into my room."
But perhaps the most touching thing about their sisterhood is that Robin was able to take a bone marrow donation from Sally-Ann that saved her life when she was battling myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) back in 2012.
"I thank God every single day that Robin was able to accept the stem cells and that her body responded well," Sally-Ann shared with the news outlet.
"I just don’t see it as something that I did. I see this truly as something that God did. I take no credit for the genes I have that match hers. Only God could have made the match...I have to give all glory, honor, and praise to Him," she added.
Thank goodness for sisters, that's for sure!