Christiane Amanpour

Biography:

Christiane Maria Heideh Amanpour (born January 12, 1958) is a British-Iranian journalist and television presenter. She serves as CNN’s Chief International Anchor and hosts several programs, including Amanpour on CNN International, The Amanpour Hour on CNN, Amanpour & Company on PBS, and Christiane Amanpour Presents The Ex-Files on Global alongside her ex-husband James Rubin.

Born in Ealing, West London, she is the daughter of Mohammad Taghi Amanpour, an Iranian Shia Muslim, and Anne Patricia Hill, a British Roman Catholic. Raised in Tehran until age eleven, she was then educated in England, first at the Convent of the Holy Cross in Buckinghamshire and later at New Hall School in Essex. After finishing school, she returned briefly to Iran before the 1979 revolution forced her family to relocate to the United States. She studied journalism at the University of Rhode Island, working at WBRU-FM and NBC affiliate WJAR in Providence, and graduated summa cum laude in 1983. In 2007, she was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her contributions to journalism.

Amanpour joined CNN in 1983 as a desk assistant in Atlanta. She soon advanced to covering major international stories, beginning with the Iran–Iraq War, then the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. By the late 1980s she was reporting from Germany and, by 1990, from CNN’s New York bureau. Her coverage of the Persian Gulf War in 1990 earned her wide recognition, followed by notable reporting from Bosnia, including an interview with General Ratko Mladić. Her emotionally charged reports, particularly from Sarajevo, led some critics to question her neutrality, though they also cemented her reputation for courage in war zones.

From 1992 to 2010, Amanpour was CNN’s Chief International Correspondent and also anchored Amanpour, a daily CNN interview program. She has reported extensively from conflict areas and humanitarian crises around the globe, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Israel, Pakistan, Somalia, Rwanda, and the Balkans, and in the U.S. during Hurricane Katrina. She has conducted exclusive interviews with world leaders such as Iranian presidents Mohammad Khatami and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac, Pervez Musharraf, Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, Hassan Rouhani, Hillary Clinton, Nicolás Maduro, and the Dalai Lama, as well as cultural figures like Angelina Jolie, Tom Hanks, and Meryl Streep.

From 1996 to 2005, she contributed international reports for 60 Minutes, earning Peabody Awards in 1993 and 1998. She also serves on the boards of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the International Women’s Media Foundation, and others. Since 2015, she has been a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Freedom of Expression and journalist safety.

In 1998, Amanpour married James Rubin in Italy. Rubin, of Jewish-American background, was a U.S. Assistant Secretary of State during Bill Clinton’s presidency and later advised Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The couple’s son was born in March 2000. After living in London for many years, they moved to New York in 2010, later returning to London in 2013. Amanpour and Rubin divorced in 2018.

Her extended family ties link her to prominent Iranian figures, including General Nader Jahanbani of the Imperial Iranian Air Force and Princess Shahnaz Pahlavi through marriage.

In June 2021, Amanpour revealed she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, underwent successful surgery, and began chemotherapy treatment.