Al Roker’s ex-wife Alice Bell has died. She was 77.
“She was my mother, my heart, and the most loving grandmother to Sky,” Roker, 70, and Bell’s daughter Courtney Roker Laga wrote on Instagram on Monday, Feb. 10, of Bell. “I was with her for her last breath, and I will carry her love with me always.”
The weatherman was absent from the Today show on Tuesday, Feb. 11 following the news of Bell’s death. NBC meteorologist Dylan Dreyer filled in for him.
Roker and Bell were married from 1984 to 1994 and adopted daughter Courtney in 1987. The Today co-anchor has two kids, Leila and Nicholas, with his current wife, Deborah Roberts, who he married in 1995.
The cause of Bell’s death was unknown at the time of publication, but in Roker Laga’s Feb. 10 Instagram post, Bell can be seen hooked up to an oxygen tube.
In 2022, Roker Laga, 38, wished a Happy Mother’s Day to “the three most important women in my life,” she wrote on Instagram. “My mom Alice, my stepmother Deborah and my mother in law Barbara.”
Roker has spoken often over the years about putting his kids first and his love of fatherhood. “I will tell you both that it’s the greatest thing that will ever happen to you, and that you will know that your heart beats outside your body to somebody else’s,” he said on the Today show in 2021. “And no matter what happens, these are always your children.”
The TV personality described his and Bell’s daughter Courtney as “not your typical kid.”
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“When she was in her sophomore year in college, she came to [my wife] Deborah [Roberts] and me and said, ‘You know, guys, I don’t think this is for me. But I’d like to go to culinary school,’” Roker recalled to MSNBC’s Know Your Value. “We were surprised at first, and then I thought, ‘I should have thought of that.’ Courtney always liked to cook. She loved food presentation, too.
“I remember when she was 6 or 7, she would go out and pick flowers to decorate the plate. It wasn’t the path we’d expected for her, but at the end of the day it was better she made that choice and invested in it.”
Roker said his own father taught him to parent to each child’s unique personality.
“One of the best lessons I learned from my dad was that each child is an individual,” he told Your Teen magazine. “I was not very athletic. I was not particularly outgoing. I really loved cartoons and animation. That’s how he connected with me. My dad was very athletic, but he didn’t force me to be an athlete because that’s not who I was. He connected with me on what excited me. That’s how I learned to connect with my kids.”
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