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Celebrity / TV

Who Is NBC Correspondent Kristen Welker’s Husband?

When it comes to television and film stars, we often learn a lot about the lives of our favorites. We keep tabs on their love lives and want to get a sneak peek inside of their houses. There are tons of media outlets dedicated to providing these details, but there are fewer opportunities to learn …

When it comes to television and film stars, we often learn a lot about the lives of our favorites. We keep tabs on their love lives and want to get a sneak peek inside of their houses. There are tons of media outlets dedicated to providing these details, but there are fewer opportunities to learn about the personal lives of news anchors. Fans of NBC correspondent Kristen Welker might like to know a little more about her family. 

Kristen Welker slightly smiling, looking off to the left, in front of a blue background
Kristen Welker | Nathan Congleton/Getty Images

Kristen Welker is an accomplished news correspondent

Welker’s work appears across several NBC and MSNBC platforms as she serves as one of the network’s White House correspondents. Her impressive political reporting appears on shows like NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt and Meet the Press. According to PBS, Welker has been serving as a White House correspondent since 2011, when she was covering the Obama administration. She traveled with the President, Vice President, and First Lady to provide important access to breaking news events, including then-First Lady Michelle Obama’s trip to South Africa. 

Welker is a native of Philadelphia who attended Harvard University where she graduated cum laude with a degree in American history. Her journalism career began with local network reporting in both Providence, Rhode Island, and Redding, California. She started working as a general assignment reporter for NBC’s Philadelphia affiliate WCAU in 2005. In 2010, she joined NBC News as a network correspondent in Burbank, California. 

2020 has been a big year for Kristen Welker

As you might expect, 2020 — a year in which the Presidential race has taken an unprecedented amount of media attention — has been a big year for Welker. When Sheinelle Jones announced she’d be leaving her regular role on Weekend Today, fans were excited to hear that Welker would fill the vacancy. Serving as co-anchor of the weekend show has been a big responsibility, but it hasn’t kept Welker from keeping up her political correspondent duties. 

In addition, Welker will be taking on the challenging role of moderating the third and final scheduled debate between President Donald Trump and his Democrat opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden. As the Inquirer reports, the debate is scheduled for October 22 in Nashville, Tennessee. With just days left before the national election, both men will be making their final appeals to the electorate. After a contentious first debate that had many frustrated with interruptions and chaotic messaging, Welker will have her hands full in keeping things running smoothly. 

Kristen Welker is married to John Hughes

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Welker has had an impressive professional career, but she did feel like her love life was taking a little longer to get going. According to The New York Times, Welker watched her friends marry and have children and started to think “it may not happen for me.” That attitude changed when she met John Hughes in 2014. The pair got set up on a date by mutual friends, and Hughes won Welker’s heart in the cutest way. 

Hughes hadn’t watched Welker’s news reporting, so he didn’t know what she looked like. When she stepped out of the car for their date, he felt she was out of his league. “If I can just make her laugh, maybe I’ll have a chance,” he remembers thinking to himself. Welker almost missed their second date because of another chaotic news day keeping her at work, but she decided she couldn’t cancel. At the end of that meeting, Hughes handed Welker an envelope filled with a homemade crossword puzzle themed around presidential trivia. That was it for Welker. From that moment on, she knew Hughes was the one. 

The theme continued, and Hughes proposed to Welker outside of the Lincoln Memorial. They tied the knot in Philadelphia in 2017, just a block from the site of their first date.