Katy Tur Bio: Husband (Tony Dokoupil), Baby and Journalism Career

Katy Tur is an American broadcast journalist and author from Los Angeles, California, who has been married to Tony Dokoupil since 2017. Tur is an anchor for MSNBC Live and has reported for the NBC news Early Today, Today, NBC Nightly News, Meet the Press, WNBC-TV, MSNBC, and The Weather Channel.

Her husband Tony is also an American broadcast journalist and he shares four kids with Katy, two of whom they had together.

As everyone knows, being on TV all the time puts one and the radar. For someone good at what she does like Tur, it has made a lot of people curious about every bit of her career and her life outside it. Katy has always been a celebrated American new journalist, vastly admired for the efforts she put into her job, but she gained more attention as one of the many journalists on President Trump’s bad press list. She has been active since 2005 but her fame shot through the roof when she was selected by NBC to cover the Donald Trump presidential campaign.

That job left her with many memories, ones she wouldn’t forget so fast. For the most part of her coverage of the Trump presidential campaign, Tur immensely criticized the Republican candidate and the ever-controversial Trump didn’t ignore chances to fire back at her. He even nicknamed her “little Katy”.

Be that as it may, Tur continues to push her career forward and currently works as a correspondent for NBC News. In addition to that, she anchors MSNBC Live and has reported for multiple news platforms of the media house, including The Weather Channel, Meet The Press, Early Today, NBC Nightly News, and Today. Also a New York Times best-selling author, Katy’s career has been an inspiration to many Americans. 

Profile Summary of Katy Tur

  • Full Name: Katherine Bear Tur
  • Nickname: Little Katy
  • Gender: Female
  • Date of Birth: October 26, 1983
  • Katy Tur’s Age: 40 Years Old
  • Ethnicity: White, Jewish American
  • Nationality: American
  • Place of Birth: Los Angeles, California
  • Zodiac Sign: Scorpio
  • Sexual Orientation: Straight
  • Marital Status: Married
  • Katy Tur’s Husband: Tony Dokoupil
  • Katy Tur’s Children: Teddy and Eloise Judy Bear Dokoupil
  • Katy Tur’s Parents: Marika Gerrard and Zoey Tur
  • Siblings: James Tur
  • Katy Tur’s Height in Inches: 5 Feet 2 Inches
  • Katy Tur’s Height in Centimetres: 157 cm
  • Katy Tur’s Weight: 59 kg
  • Body Measurements in Inches: 37-25-37 in
  • Body Measurements in Centimeters: 94-64-94 cm
  • Katy Tur’s Net Worth: $4 Million
  • Famous for: Career in Broadcast Journalism
  • Katy Tur’s Instagram: katyturnbc
  • Twitter: @KatyTurNBC
  • Facebook: Katy Tur

Meet Katy Tur’s Husband, Tony Dokoupil

Tony Dokoupil is a native of Connecticut, he was born on the 24th of December 1980. This means he is 43 years old and nearly three years older than his wife Katy Tur. Not long after he was born in Connecticut, his family relocated to Miami.

Growing up, Tony was made to believe that his father, Anthony “Big Tony” Dokoupil, was into real estate but he would come to learn that the man was a drug dealer who made millions smuggling and selling marijuana. Big Tony made so much money from his illegal enterprise that he could afford to have his son attend the same private school with the grandkids of President George H.W. Bush. They lived in luxury until nemesis caught up with Big Tony.

In his memoir titled The Last Pirate: A Father, His Son, and the Golden Age of Marijuana, Tony related that the luxury lifestyle vanished when Big Tony who embraced the fun and wild lifestyle of being a drug dealer, got addicted to coke and prostitutes and eventually abandoned his family.

With that, Tony and his mother, Ann, moved to Maryland where she started working as a teacher to take care of her son. From what we gathered, Ann helped Big Tony to keep financial records during his drug-dealing days and used proceeds from the illegal business to obtain a graduate certificate in drug and alcohol counseling; this was from the University of Miami.

Ann and Big Tony never got married. After the latter abandoned his wife and kid, Ann sued and got custody of Tony, their only child. Following Tony and his mom’s relocation to Maryland, he attended and graduated from Severna Park High School, a public high school you will find in Severna Park, Maryland.

To further his education, he studied marketing and communications at the George Washington University School of Business. He graduated first class in 2003, and proceeded to Columbia University in New York City where he acquired a Master of Arts degree in American Studies; this was in 2005.

Katy Tur’s Husband, Tony Dokoupil Is Also a Broadcast Journalist Like His Wife

Katy Tur and her husband Dokoupil are considered a power couple in broadcast journalism. While Tur works for NBC News, her husband works for CBS but that’s not where his career journey began. As culled from his Linkedin profile, Tony Dokoupil began his career as a journalist and writer with Way Back Info in the Greater New York City Area.

He worked here for over two years, from 2004 to 2006. In June 2007, he started working for Newsweek and The Daily Beast as a senior writer. He held this position until June 2013 and within that timeframe, Tony wrote a string of several cover stories that popularized his name in the industry.

Moving on from being a senior writer for Newsweek and The Daily Beast, Tony Dokoupil joined NBC News in June 2013 to work in the same capacity. Amongst other things he accomplished in this position which he held until July 2015, Katy Tur’s husband wrote what is considered as the first NBC News long-form project – Send in the Weathermen.

At NBC News, he started making cable appearances on MSNBC and contributed videos to NBC News digital. Tony climbed up the career ladder in July 2015 when he became a national reporter for MSNBC. This saw him cover news stories both on-air and online.

In October of 2015, he made another career leap and became a correspondent for MSNBC. He became the network’s lead reporter for the major national stories and the position saw him cover stories like the Flint water crisis, the Paris climate agreement, and the presidential primaries.

He held this position until June 2016; he joined CBS News the following month and has been working as a correspondent for the network since then. Apart from serving as a news correspondent, he co-anchors CBS Mornings, one of the most popular programs on CBS.

Tony Met Katy While He Was Working for MSNBC and They Have Been Married Since 2017

Katy Tur
Katy Tur and fiance Tony Dokoupil: Image Source

Before Tony and Katy Tur started dating, she was known to be in a relationship with Keith Theodore Olbermann — a sports and political commentator that once worked for MSNBC. They reportedly dated from 2006 to 2009. After the relationship ended, much wasn’t heard about her love life until 2015 when it emerged that she was in a relationship with Tony Dokoupil.

Their love story, according to various accounts, began at the make-up room of MSNBC. Tony’s career breakthrough as a national reporter for MSNBC came with some on-air work which included a segment on Al Sharpton’s show. While contributing to the show, Katy Tur who was getting makeup to go on-air saw him on the screen and wondered who he was.

The makeup artists preparing Tur for her time on-air told her who he was, that they were all crushing on him, and introduced the two to each other. Tony imagined there was more to it than just introducing colleagues to each other and decided to take a shot.

Details of how we went about this are best known to the two but by 2015, they were known to be lovers. Not long after, their love was put to test as Tony left MSNBC to work for CBS News. This meant they couldn’t get to see each other as often as they did. Around the same time, Katy’s coverage of Donald Trump’s campaign intensified. This further drove them apart but they decided to find a way around it.

Barely two years into the relationship, Katy Tur and Tony Dokoupil were convinced they were meant to be together and decided to get married. They got engaged in early 2017 and it made headlines that Tur was getting married to someone from a rival network. Reports have it that they got married on the 27th of October 2017 in Utah.

The couple eloped intending to quietly get married without any publicity. But then, Page Six reported it, divulging that they planned a nondenominational ceremony at the desert in Utah. It was said they picked a location with no cell service, a place where no one would be talking about politics around them. Nonetheless, they later had a party to have their family and friends celebrate the union with them.

Katy Tur and Her Husband Are Parents to Two Kids

The couple has been married for over four years as of this writing and as far as the public knows, it has been a happy marriage for them. Their social media pages are littered with pictures of each other with heartwarming comments. It is quite obvious that have been very supportive of each other, and that Katy loves Tony as much as he adores her. Theirs’ has been a happy home blessed with two kids.

Theodore “Teddy” Dokoupil

  • Date of Birth: April 13th, 2019
  • Age: 4 Years Old

It was in December 2018 that Katy revealed on her show that she and Tony were expecting their first child together. She played a video of her ultrasound and announced that she have a baby in her belly. The journalist added that she is tired of the tweets asking if she was pregnant and offered that the baby boy would be due in April. True to her words, they welcomed a baby boy named Theodore “Teddy” Dokoupil on the 13th of April 2019.

Eloise Judy Bear Dokoupil

  • Date of Birth: May 13th, 2021
  • Age: 2 Years Old

Two years and one month after the birth of their first child, Katy Tur and Tony Dokoupil welcomed their second. As it was with Teddy, Katy disclosed during a live broadcast of her show, “MSNBC Live with Katy Tur” that she and her husband were expecting Eloise. She added that “her two older brothers and her older sister are all very excited…”. This probably led to some confusion in some quarters but Katy was referring to the two kids Tony had from a previous relationship.

Before Katy Tur, Tony Dokoupil was married to a woman whose identity has remained unknown to the public. He had two kids in that marriage and disclosed in a 2021 tweet, on the 12th of May, that his two older children live with their mother in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Postpartum Experience Made Katy an Advocate for Paid Maternity Leave Across The United States

The NBC News correspondent had a rough postpartum experience after she gave birth to her first child in 2019. She had an unplanned C-section which left her exhausted and quite paranoid. Her husband helped her get by, but he soon had to return to work. Katy had to cope alone and based on what she shared, it wasn’t easy for her. Because of this, she has become sympathetic to American parents whose jobs don’t afford them the length of leave she and her husband enjoyed when they welcomed their kids.

Based on the foregoing, Katy Tur has become an advocate for paid maternity leave across the United States of America. In her first show after she returned from maternity leave following the birth of her first child, the MSNBC Live anchor stressed the importance of the leave. She contended that it is disturbing to acknowledge that her husband got more time off than about 70 percent of fathers in the country, that about 25 percent of women in America return to work after two weeks of putting to bed, and that seven out of every ten men do so after just 10 days or less.

The journalist recalled that her mother, who worked in the same industry, had to wean her unto formula because she had to return to work. In all, Tur doesn’t understand why paid parental leave hasn’t been able to make it through congress whereas it seems to be one of such issues that have little opposition. She believes it’s only a broken system that would condition a developed nation like the United States to such more woking conditions.

Katy Tur Is of Jewish Descent and Both of Her Parents Are Journalists

It wouldn’t be wrong for one to assert that Katy Tur is carrying on the legacy of her parents in journalism. The NBC correspondent named Katharine Bear Tur at birth was born on October 26, 1983. It is no secret she was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, just as it is common knowledge that both of her parents are journalists and that she is of Jewish descent —from her father’s side.

For many people, Katy’s family background tells a lot about her career choice and why she has been very passionate about journalism. She was raised by Zoey Tur (father) and Marika Gerrard (mother) who were regarded as groundbreaking journalists in their prime.

The former couple has, without a doubt, left their mark as far as American journalism is concerned. Zoey and Marika started the Los Angeles News Service which became the first news service in a major city to employ the use of an AStar helicopter for the coverage of live breaking news.

Notably, the service was the first to televise high-speed police chases. They gained massive clout with their coverage of O. J. Simpson’s slow-speed chase in 1994 and the attack on Reginald Denny during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

Accordingly, their works brought them several coveted awards including three Television News Emmy Awards, two Edward R. Murrow Awards, the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), Humanitarian Award, and an Associated Press National Breaking News Award. Zoey and Marika got married in 1980 and divorce in 2003.

While Katy is their most popular child, she isn’t the only child of the couple. Their marriage also produced a son named Jame Tur. He is not a journalist like the rest of his family members, so much is not known about him. However, some reports say he has built a successful career as a physician.

Katy’s Relationship With Her Father and The Transphobic Allegations Against The NBC Correspondent 

Formerly known as Bob Tur, Katy Tur’s father came out of the closet in 2013, several years after the end of his marriage to Marika. Subsequently, he underwent transgender surgery in 2014, and to complete the sex reassignment, he applied to a court to change his documentation from male to female.

Katy Tur and her father have made headlines several times for their rocky relationship. While Katy has avoided talking about the reason behind their unstable relationship, Zoey has stated more than once that it’s because she is transgender. According to her, she and her daughter became estranged after he underwent gender reassignment.

Initially, Zoey explained that Katy is not transphobic but was only having a difficult time dealing with her transition. Based on what she said, the pressure from her daughter’s television career left Katy in fear of not fitting in because of who her “hero father” has become.

Things later took an ugly turn as Zoey took to Facebook to proclaim that Katy is transphobic and afraid that accepting her father for who she is would hurt her career. Amongst other things, Zoey lamented that it’s been a long time since she saw her daughter and that Katy told her that she was a terrible father just after she came out as transgender.

Reacting to that, the NBC correspondent stated that even though she had had a rocky relationship with her father for a while, it had nothing to do with the transition she went through. The current state of their relationship is not clear but from the obvious, they are not the best father and daughter duo.

The NBC News Correspondent Began Her Career Journey In 2005 With KTLA

Raised by parents who know the value of education, Tur got the best they could afford. She finished from Brentwood School in 2001 and moved to study Philosophy at the University of California, Santa Barbara, graduating in 2005 with a Bachelor of Arts. Tur has said that her knowledge of philosophy has helped her quickly come up with questions during interviews.

During a June 2017 interview with NBC, she said that while a B.A. in Philosophy is not what most people in her career path would want to study, it didn’t hinder her success in any way. Her professional journalism career officially started in 2005 and it didn’t take long before her works began receiving acclaim. Three years into her career, in 2009, Katy Tur received her first award — AP’s Best Spot News Award for her coverage of the March 2008 crane collapse on the Upper East Side.

Before rising to the NBC News platform, she worked for New York-based NBC radio station, WNBC-TV. She has also reported for KTLA, WPIX-TV, News 12 Brooklyn, and Fox 5 New York. Tur now reports across major NBC News platforms, in addition to serving as a correspondent for NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, and MSNBC.

The Drama with Trump that Earned Her The “Little Katy” Nickname

Katy Tur
Trump and Katy – Image Source

Katy was heavily involved in the affairs of the Donald Trump presidential campaign. She worked on the Access Hollywood tape which brought Trump’s conversation with Billy Bush to light. The conversation which focused on opinions Trump shared about women courted bad media for the then-presidential aspirant, putting him in constant war with the press.

Unfortunately, Katy was one of those who felt the criticism the most. Following her involvement in the matter, Trump supporters also joined in making life and her job difficult by verbally abusing her in public.

The billionaire real estate magnate, Trump, labelled her “Little Katy”, calling her “incompetent” at her job. He also called her a “3rd rate reporter” and asked NBC to fire her. However, when Trump faithfuls began threatening her, NBC had to hire a private security detail to help her escape violent crowds.

Trump called her out on various occasions and even at a rally in Florida, the then-presidential candidates’ supporters joined in ridiculing her, but the journalist learned how to treat that as an unnecessary distraction.

Following the end of the campaign, she wrote a book about her experience titled “Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History.” The New York Times Best Seller list featured the book for weeks. Also, her coverage of the campaign helped her win the  Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism; this was in 2017.

Chinedu Ndubueze
Chinedu Ndubueze
Chinedu holds a B.SC in Mass Communications with several years of writing and editing experience. He is an advocate of closed-back headphones, horror movies, and dark humor; He believes that Peter Griffin and Stan Smith should be real people. Outside of having to write, edit, and work on other forms of content, Chinedu may keep up with the EPL or listen to everything Eminem and Jon Bellion.

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