Bruce Haring has been a staff writer or editor at USA Today, Associated Press, Yahoo!, the Newark Star Ledger, Deadline and more. He is the author of five books, including the award-winning “Off the Charts: Ruthless Days and Reckless Nights Inside the Music Industry.”
Haring is also the managing director of JM Northern Media, which produces the New York Book Festival, the Hollywood Book Festival, and the London Book Festival.
Contributing Entertainment Writer
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Al Roker was absent from Today on Tuesday, February 11. He was off the air mourning the loss of his ex-wife, Alice Bell, who died at 77.
The news of her death was announced on Monday, February 10 via Instagram.
“She was my mother, my heart, and the most loving grandmother to Sky,” Roker, and Bell’s daughter, Courtney Roker Laga, wrote on Instagram on Monday, of Bell. “I was with her for her last breath, and I will carry her love with me always.”
Roker and Bell were married from 1984 to 1994. They adopted Courtney in 1987. During the early 1980s, they both worked at WNBC in New York City, where Bell produced the network’s “Live at Five” newscast. Roker was the weatherman at the station.
The Today co-anchor shares two children, Leila and Nicholas, with his current wife, Deborah Roberts, whom he married in 1995.
Roker has not issued a statement yet, and the cause of Bell’s death is not known.
However, their daughter’s Instagram post shows two photos – one of her as a child with her mom, and two more recent photos of Bell with Laga’s daughter, Sky.
In the photos with Sky, Bell appears to wear a nasal cannula to provide oxygen.
