How Ainsley Earhardt Became Fox’s Morning Queen, and Made Sean Hannity Husband No. 3

Ainsley Earhardt was not always the conservative media darling she is today on Fox & Friends.

The 48-year-old southerner, who got engaged at Christmas to fellow Fox News star Sean Hannity, once admitted she “did not know the first thing about politics” when she was first hired by Fox News in 2007.

That did not stop Earhardt from becoming the network’s morning queen, however, where she’s devoutly defended Donald Trump through controversy after controversy, and repeatedly praised his decision-making since she joined the hit weekday morning show in 2016.

An early opportunity

Earhardt grew up in the Carolinas, spending time as a child outside Charlotte and in Columbia. She graduated high school and from the University of South Carolina in the latter city, but landed a job in journalism before she walked across a graduation stage.

That gig was with WLTX in Columbia, South Carolina, where she was a star morning and noon anchor between 2000 and 2004. She was dispatched to New York City to report after the Sept. 11 attacks and her old CBS-affiliated station has since proudly documented her success on Fox News.

She told Columbia Metropolitan that she took voice lessons from a professor to tone down her southern accent “for marketability” while she attended USC. She maintains close ties to her home state and hopes to one day purchase a beach house there that each of her loved ones will have a key to, she has said. Also revealed in her 2017 magazine profile: She keeps a Bible on her nightstand and her favorite film is The Family Man (2000), starring Nicolas Cage.

A move and a (first) marriage

Earhardt moved to San Antonio, Texas, in 2005 to take a gig with KENS, another CBS affiliate—taking her from the country’s No. 75 media market to No. 31. She was a morning and noon anchor there, just like her job back home.

Earhardt traveled back to Columbia in April of that year to marry Kevin McKinney, her college sweetheart who worked in the pharmaceuticals industry. The couple had an evening wedding at Columbia’s First Presbyterian Church and celebrated into the night at the governor’s mansion, said a wedding announcement in the Columbia Star. That ceremony had an eye-popping 11 groomsmen and 11 bridesmaids.

At work, she got hands-on in covering the local military community in San Antonio, which included her skydiving with the U.S. Army’s Golden Knights and flying in an F-16.

A big break—and a breakup

Earhardt said her agent called her in 2007 with an exciting invitation: Fox News wanted her to travel to New York for an interview. She did just that, flying to the Big Apple on her birthday weekend to meet with executives who were apparently thrilled with her. Soon after, she was hired and moved to the city with her husband.

While McKinney appears to have gotten a job in medical sales, Earhardt began appearing as an overnight breaking news reporter and as a correspondent on her now-fiancée Sean Hannity’s show, where she had a segment titled, “Ainsley Across America.” She was also a regular on other network hits, including Fox & Friends. She must have been a quick learner, as she once admitted to Insider that she “did not know the first thing about politics” when she was hired by the late—and ultimately disgraced—Fox News boss Roger Ailes.

While her career exploded, however, her relationship with McKinney flamed out. The couple divorced in 2009.

Another marriage, another promotion

Earhardt then married the former Clemson Tigers quarterback Will Proctor—who is seven years her junior—in 2012 after they met on a blind date.

After suffering a “crushing” miscarriage that required surgery earlier in their marriage, she gave birth to Hayden DuBose Proctor in 2015—her only child. She speaks of Hayden regularly and says she she was the inspiration behind two of her children’s books. A third, The Light Within Me, was about her Christian faith and went on sale in 2018.

Earhardt said she dreamed of having as many as four kids, but her work schedule—and location, in Manhattan—made that unrealistic.

“Four kids would be expensive and I could never step away from the anchor desk often enough to be an attentive mom to all of them,” she told Women’s Health in 2017.

That interview came a year after Earhardt was promoted to be a co-host on Fox & Friends, just in time for Trump’s takeover of the Republican party. By the Daily Beast’s count, Trump tweeted about Earhardt’s show more than 100 times in his first nine months on the job—something that prompted The New York Times to crown it “the most powerful TV show in America.”

While Earhardt flourished on air, positioning herself as a cool-headed defender of Trump and his decision-making, a serious personal issue was brewing behind the scenes.

Infidelity accusations and another divorce

Earhardt and Proctor’s marriage crumbled in 2018 after allegations emerged that he once cheated on her with one of her “closest friends,” anonymous sources told the Daily Mail. The divorce was finalized the following year, but the estranged couple lived apart during proceedings. Reports said Earhardt tried to overlook the allegations and save the marriage, but eventually decided she couldn’t.

Another source confirmed the same to People, saying: “[He] was unfaithful with one of her closest friends a few years ago and there is evidence to prove it.”

Proctor vehemently denied cheating on Earhardt.

They still lived near each other on New York’s Upper East Side, however, and actively co-parented Hayden—something they still do to this day.

“After much prayer and careful consideration, Will and I have separated,” she said in a statement in 2018. “I am grateful to Fox for their support and allowing me to spend all day, every day after the morning show with my child. I am fully committed to parenting and doing what is always best for my darling little girl and would appreciate privacy and prayers during this difficult time.”

Earhardt maintained her active presence on social media and on the air throughout the ordeal. By 2019, she regularly took to Instagram to share dozens of Bible scriptures in posts.

Dating a colleague

News came out in 2020 that Hannity was Earhardt’s new beau—at least, new to the public. That was the same year that Hannity, 62, had announced a split from his wife of 27 years, but reports said they’d been secretly separated for some time.

Vanity Fair reported that the Fox stars appeared to be an item as far back as August 2019, when they made a “grand entrance” together as guests for a wedding at Trump National Golf Course in Bedminster, New Jersey.

“Hannity emerged from the chopper with Ainsley Earhardt, and they made this grand entrance together,” a former executive recalled. “People were like, ‘Wow, OK.’”

The Florida-based Hannity would visit Earhardt on weekends at her New York home and then they would alternate, Fox revealed this week. The two worked together closely during Earhardt’s early days at the network, when she had a segment on his show. They appeared to remain tight over the years, with Earhardt posting a smiling selfie with Hannity back in 2013 (pictured above).

That relationship progressed into Earhardt working from a remote studio in the basement of Hannity’s Long Island mansion during the pandemic, Vanity Fair reported.

A Christmas engagement

The big news arrived Thursday night from Fox News: Earhardt and Hannity had gotten engaged in Florida.

“Hannity proposed to Earhardt over Christmas at their home church, solidifying their long-term commitment to each other,” a Fox News report read. “The newly engaged couple had the blessing and support from their children, who ‘couldn’t be happier,’ according to the couple.”

That write-up said the couple bonded over their “deep faith” and “placed God first in their relationship.”

Their marriage is sure to be a unique one, with both stars planning to stay in their respective cities and continue their work unchanged.

“With a mutual respect for each other’s careers, both Hannity and Earhardt have long-term deals to remain at FOX News Media, where Earhardt will continue to co-host Fox & Friends from New York while the primetime star will continue to host his eponymous show Hannity from Florida,” Fox News wrote in a statement.

The couple said in their own statement that their ex-spouses were notified before the announcement and they all “still get along well.”