Shepard Smith sits at his desk on-air during ‘Shepard Smith Reporting’ at Fox News Network. The longtime anchor was a part of the network’s inception in 1996, and later became a regular anchor, the host of ‘The Fox Report with Shepard Smith,’ and the networks’ managing editor for breaking news. Smith made headlines, however, after he announced his sudden departure on Oct. 11. “This is my last newscast here. Recently I asked the company to allow me to leave Fox News and begin a new chapter,” he said in a statement on-air. The announcement came only a day after he was criticized on Twitter by President Donald Trump, and a month after he was warned by the Fox News CEO and the network president not to criticize his fellow on-air anchor Tucker Carlson.
Shepard Smith originally hails from Holly Springs Mississippi, where he attended college prepatory school Marshall Academy and then Journalism at the University of Mississippi. Prior to his time at Fox News, he worked in local television in Florida and then for a news magazine show in Los Angeles. The anchor was previously married to Virginia Donald and is now dating Fox News Business producer Giovanni Graziano. Shepard confirmed he was gay in 2017.
