Martha Raddatz Has An Intriguing First-meeting Story With Husband
World News Tonight Correspondent Martha Raddatz has been married twice before and recently celebrated the 23rd wedding anniversary with her third and current husband with whom she had married in 1997.
Who is Martha Raddatz?
America reporter Martha Raddatz is the Chief Global Affairs Correspondent associated with ABC’s World News Tonight. She also co-hosts This Week with George Stephanopoulos on ABC News. She started at ABC affiliate in Boston as chief correspondent back in 1979.
In her career spanning five decades, Raddatz has been in the frontline covering topics of national security, politics, and foreign policy. In particular, she has covered 9/11, ISIS, wars, interviewed AL Qaeda, and even heads of state.
Her First Wedding Took Place in 1979
The Idaho Falls native, who is in her late sixties, shares a daughter, Greta Bradlee, with her first husband Ben Bradlee Jr., who is now 72 years of age as of November 2020.
Raddatz and Ben Bradlee got married in 1979. At the time, Bradlee was working as an editor on the Boston Globe investigations unit. Now, their daughter, Greta Bradlee Williams, is married and shares two daughters with her husband, which makes Raddatz a grandmother.
Her Second Marriage Started in 1991 and Third began in 1997
In 1991, Raddatz married lawyer and chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski. Genachowski was the Havard Law classmate of Barack Obama,. The latter even attended the pair wedding.
Six years later, in 1997, Raddatz and Genachowski parted ways. They have a song together name Jake Genachowski.
Martha Raddatz With Her Son, Daughter, And Her Two Grandchildren (Photo: Facebook)
Raddatz married her current husband Tom Gjelten the same year she separated from Genachowski.
The Interesting Story Behind Martha Raddatz and Her Current Husband First Meeting
Raddatz Raddatz has been married to Tom Gjelten, who is the religion and belief correspondent for National Public Radio News (NPR), for around 23 years now. The couple tied the knot back on May 31, 1997, after Raddatz parted ways with Genachowski.
In an interview with Elle, Raddatz's husband Gjelten revealed how they first met. According to Gjelten, Raddatz befriended him when she started working at NPR in 1993. Then, the former was assigned her first combat-zone assignment to get into Bosnia's Sarajevo while Gjelten was covering the war in Bosnia.
At one point, Gjelten arranged a bus ride for Martha but things went wrong along the way, and Raddatz ended up traveling across the front line. Still, Raddatz somehow found her way into the city, and right after, as Gjelten describes, she “totally chewed him out.”
However, the duo worked things out, got married, and have been together for over two decades now.
Husband Tom Gjelten on His Wife's Success
Raddatz's husband told Elle in 2017 that he took on a more supportive role to ensure that Raddatz got the edge on her workplace. He also revealed his initial hesitations regarding this arrangement as this meant he had to let go of the traditional "guy-role."
When I met and married Martha and she became a foreign correspondent, I made a really deliberate decision to move into a support role. It's been a struggle for me. I'm a guy! And she has a guy's role! But I've picked up some slack around the house. I probably had a bigger role with Jake when she was travelling.
Furthermore, Gjelten admired how Raddatz used the fact of her being a woman and her reporting style to her benefit while covering the military.
They're disarmed by her, and her style of reporting, which is to establish personal relationships with people...I think she knew that she took advantage of that. That's the instinct she brought to the Pentagon. And people she talked to in the beginning rose to full colonels or generals.
Raddatz currently resides with her husband Gjelten in Arlington, Virginia.