Lester Holt passed his love of broadcast news down to his son — and his grandchildren!
Calling into the at-home edition of The Tonight Show on Friday, the NBC Nightly News anchor, 61, opened up about how his grandsons — Samuel, 10 months, and Henry, 2 — are helping their father Stefan with his own broadcasts.
“Stefan, who we also love, he’s an anchor on local NBC news, posted a photo of his setup, which I want to say is in a closet in his attic,” said host Jimmy Fallon. “He had his two babies, one behind the camera, one in front of the camera.”
Alongside the sweet image, Stefan noted that while one of his children was a budding reporter, the other was a future photographer.
“It warmed my heart because it immediately made me think of a picture that was taken when I was an anchor in Chicago at the CBS station,” said Lester, who is also a father of two.
“One of them, I clearly saw he had the bug for the camera, and of course that’s Stefan,” he added. “It was really heartwarming to think back, god I remember when you guys were little and we did pictures like that, and now there’s my grandson.”
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As for his own set-up, the veteran anchor is getting a big helping hand from his wife Carol. “She came in here, started arranging things — looks great, doesn’t it?” Holt asked Fallon as he gestured to the tidy space behind him, before joking, “We don’t really live this way.”
In addition to helping out with set dressing, his wife also has another very important job: making sure their dog Lucy doesn’t start barking in the middle of a news segment!
“Let me tell you, in a few hours when I get ready to do the news, she becomes a hellion in this apartment,” Holt said while holding his dog on his lap. “My wife along with being set director, lighting director and technical manager is also the dog handler.”
Despite his wife’s best efforts, Holt said he wouldn’t be surprised if one day Lucy did manage to interrupt one of his broadcasts “It’s gonna happen some night,” he said.
At the beginning of March, before New York’s stay-at-home order went into effect, Holt was able to spend some quality time with his grandchildren.
“Any weekend with the grandsons is a great weekend!” he wrote on Instagram, alongside a sweet slideshow of images that showed the trio reading books and cuddling up on the couch together.
Days later, he was also able to celebrate his 61st birthday with his two grandkids, although the family was already beginning to take precautions.
“Birthday celebrations in this new era. Clapping, not blowing the candles out,” he wrote, alongside a video that showed just how much work successfully implementing this new strategy actually took.
In the sweet clip, the anchor gets a little help from one of his grandchildren, as they attempt to generate enough of a breeze to blow out the candles on a group of cupcakes.
“Healthier but surprisingly more difficult. Thanks for all the good wishes,” he added.
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