Former ABC News weatherman Rob Marciano, who was ousted after a turbulent run, clashed with colleague Ginger Zee over a bitter feud kept secret for years, reports the New York Post. Marciano was fired on Tuesday for alleged “anger management” issues, according to a source.
He joined Good Morning America in 2014 to replace Zee on weekends. Zee had recently been promoted to replace former chief meteorologist Sam Champion on GMA, who had moved to the Weather Channel.
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The working relationship between Zee and Marciano was fraught from the beginning and remained that way for years, sources with knowledge told The Post. Marciano’s “hot temper” made things difficult on the show, but Zee could also be “nasty,” the source said. “I think she brought out the worst in him. I’m not giving him a pass,” the source said.
“It’s sad because they are two people who are really into the science of the weather, unfortunately their personalities didn’t work.” Multiple sources reported numerous instances of disagreements between Marciano, who is now 55, and Zee, who is now 43.
“She treated him as a beta and she was the alpha,” the media executive told the outlet. “But they were much more peers in terms of experience, more than Ginger was with Sam.”
In addition to Marciano’s arrival, ABC News was also launching a 24/7 weather unit intended to provide all-day weather coverage for the network’s various programs, such as GMA and World News Tonight. However, the insider said there was no collaboration between the two, and Zee “pulled rank” over assignments.
As reported by sources, Zee and Marciano could not work well together, noting that both meteorologists were sensitive to criticism. “Ginger is a know-it-all. If you say something she disagrees with, she references her Twitter followers, saying, ‘You are wrong, my followers on Twitter loved it,’” the media executive said.
During meetings, Marciano’s “body language and tone would change” when he disagreed with management decisions. “If he was unhappy about something, you’d know it,” the executive said. “He lost his cool in meetings when he got news he didn’t like.”
“Ginger is a collaborative, inclusive and hard-working leader who is well respected by her colleagues and has never had a complaint about her working style,” another source said, adding that any suggestion otherwise is “sexist.” There was minimal overlap between their schedules as well, according to the source.
It is not clear what caused Marciano to be let go initially, but sources speculate that a flurry of complaints about his behavior was the main reason behind his dismissal last year. Among complaints about Marciano’s behavior, he was “banned” from the GMA set last year after a colleague claimed that he made him feel uncomfortable, Page Six reported in March 2023.
“He was found to have done something … that was improper, but he was punished for it, and they still haven’t let him return,” an insider told Page Six at the time. Recently, he was moved to the World News Tonight program and started providing reports from the field to the morning program.
The source indicated that Marciano’s salary when he was hired away from Entertainment Tonight, where he co-anchored the show, which one exec said was a little less than $1 million, was too much to take him on. The source speculated that ABC’s newly appointed president, Debra O’Connell, may have looked at the budget and seen his salary didn’t justify the decrease in his workload.
Marciano’s relationship with his colleague last year was unclear, but another source said he was going through a divorce from his wife at the time and dealing with “anger management issues.” Their marriage lasted 11 years, and they have two children.
Marciano’s behavior was not related to his divorce or run-ins with Zee, according to a source who has worked with him. “His personality wasn’t caused by his divorce or being treated like a beta,” said the source. “He’s got a temper. He’s got a short fuse.”
