Who Is Deborah Norville And Why Did She Leave Inside Edition?

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Deborah Norville has been a television staple since the 1980s, starting her journalism career in her native Georgia before making a name for herself in Chicago and New York. Over the decades, Norville has undergone a complete evolution, jumping from hosting morning shows and late night news to writing books, launching a collection of yarns, and even helming a game show. Along the way, Norville won two News & Documentary Emmy awards, was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame in 2016, and was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 52nd Annual Daytime Emmys in 2025.

However, what she's most widely known for is anchoring "Inside Edition," a job she first landed back in 1995. Over the next three decades, she made headlines with everything from her head-turning weight loss transformations to broadcasting live just nine hours after giving birth. And yet, despite being the face of "Inside Edition" for 30 years, she chose to leave the show behind in May 2025. Here's what sparked Norville's decision to quit the show, plus a closer look at who she is and all she's accomplished.

Before Deborah Norville was an award-winning journalist, she had dreams of becoming an attorney. That all changed during her senior year at Georgia's Dalton High School when she decided to enter a beauty pageant on a whim, hoping to win some money for college. That was 1976, and not only did she win the Junior Miss title for Whitfield County, she then won the crown for the state of Georgia. Norville went on to compete at the national America's Junior Miss competition (her talent was sewing), and while she didn't take home the top prize, nothing was ever the same for her again. "Is there a moment that changed your life???" Norville asked fans on Facebook, sharing a photo of herself at that very first pageant. "You're looking at the moment that changed mine." As she explained, while she ultimately didn't take home top honors, "I DID win the game that mattered. I discovered television."

Indeed, watching the CBS team produce America's Junior Miss pageant for TV and seeing how much fun they had turned Norville's dreams upside down. "My entire career in television is attributable to one weekend the fall of my senior year in high school," she mused on her website. "I took the research part of law that had intrigued me, married it with TV production, and dreamed up that I'd be a TV reporter."

Having decided to pursue a career in journalism during her final year of high school, Deborah Norville threw herself into her studies at university. She enrolled at the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and, while there, landed an internship at WAGA-TV 5 in Atlanta. It seems she made quite the impression because, as recalled on her website, "[I] caught the attention of the station manager, who for reasons I will never understand, gave me a gopher's job for the summer." Following her graduation with a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1979, she was offered a weekend anchor job at the station, about which she quipped, "I think it was because I worked really cheap." More likely, it was the fact that she had graduated summa cum laude, boasting a 4.0 GPA and the title of First Honor Graduate.

In addition to teaching her invaluable reporting skills, her time at Grady also introduced her to lifelong friends, including Deborah Roberts, whom you may recognize as a "20/20" co-anchor. "We have known each other — almost forever," Norville reminisced on Facebook. "Which is why it is always a delight ... that we ended up how we did: with the careers and more importantly, beautiful families that we did."

After starting her career in Atlanta, Georgia, a 23-year-old Deborah Norville decided it was time for a big move. In 1982, she accepted a job at Chicago's WMAQ-TV as a general assignment reporter, and while she was certainly an underdog, she wasn't easily fazed. "My age, coupled with my Southern accent and the fact that I moved to Chicago in January (no sane person would move there then!) assured my new colleagues at WMAQ-TV that I must have been as dumb as a fence post," Norville reminisced on her website. Even so, the budding journalist worked hard and was eventually promoted to news anchor before again deciding to take a big leap. Five years after her arrival, a 28-year-old Norville moved to New York to join NBC's "News at Sunrise" as an anchor. It was there that she won her first News & Documentary Emmy in 1989 for covering the Romanian revolution.

A slew of other gigs followed before she made it to "Inside Edition," including roles on a few short-lived programs. In 1993, she became a correspondent for CBS' "Street Stories" as well as "48 Hours," which is where she won her second Emmy for reporting on Mississippi's Great Flood. In 1994, she jumped to anchoring "America Tonight," but of all her titles before "Inside Edition," it was her time at "Today" that made the most headlines — for all the wrong reasons.

In 1987, a 28-year-old Deborah Norville began anchoring NBC's "News at Sunrise." At the same time, she started working as a sub for "Today" and made such a positive impression that, in 1989, she was hired as the show's full-time lead correspondent. Just two days later, co-host Jane Pauley told producers she was leaving the program, and after she taped her final show that December, Norville replaced her in January 1990. Despite Pauley's insistence that her departure had nothing to do with Norville, the young journalist was portrayed as a villain. "I had been unfairly targeted as having pushed out my predecessor," she told People.

In a cruel twist of fate, Norville herself was replaced by a younger reporter not long afterward. In 1991, a year after her debut as "Today" co-host, Norville and her husband, businessman Karl Wellner, welcomed their first child, a son named Nick. While she was on maternity leave, "Today" had Katie Couric fill in and, as ratings began to rise, Norville was permanently replaced. "I was shocked initially," Norville told People in 1991. "Devastated, and then utterly depressed." Even before that, Norville and Couric had a tense relationship, but as Norville would later reveal, it wasn't actually her desire to leave. "Not all the [career] pivots were by choice," she confessed to People. "I resigned before they could push me out."

Following the fiasco at "Today," Deborah Norville wasn't sure where her career would go next. "I didn't think I'd ever work in broadcasting again," she admitted to People. However, she needn't have worried because that same year, she began hosting "The Deborah Norville Show: From Her Home to Yours" on ABC Radio. "[W]ith my confidence built back, I was able to go back to television," she recalled, and from 1992, she spent three years at CBS News. Jump to 1995, and she was approached to take over the helm of "Inside Edition," which proved the perfect alternative to CBS' original offer: a correspondent role on "Eye on America."

At the time, Norville was pregnant with her second child and, as she told the Associated Press, "Eye on America" would have meant lots of travel, so she turned it down. "I didn't think I could be the kind of mother I aspired to be, and certainly the kind of wife that I wanted to be, if I was on the road," she mused. Meanwhile, "Inside Edition" allowed her to shoot in a studio, right in New York, but she had her work cut out for her. "When I got here, it was still the hardcore, tabloid, beach blanket bingo — a lot of girls on sandy beaches in tiny bikinis," she recalled. Even so, she soon turned the format around, but not without hearing her share of criticism. As she told AP, The Washington Post's Tom Shales "actually put in the paper that I was selling my credibility."

In addition to her journalism career holding steady following the "Today" show drama, Deborah Norville also found a second successful path: writing. In 1997, she published her first book, titled "Back on Track: How to Straighten Out Your Life When It Throws You a Curve." In it, she shared the stories of real-life women overcoming various obstacles and hardships, as well as her own ordeal. As she told People, she was actually inspired to write the self-help volume after what happened to her on "Today." "What I learned in my own forced situation of recalibrating and picking up the pieces is, it's critically important, as you're making your life decisions, to know who you are," she mused.

A decade later, Norville released her second self-help book, 2007's "Thank You Power: Making the Science of Gratitude Work for You," which made her a New York Times bestselling author. That was followed by 2009's "The Power of Respect: Benefit From the Most Forgotten Element of Success," but she's written more than just inspirational guides. Norville has also published a knitting book, contributed to the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" series, and penned two kids' books: "I Don't Want to Sleep Tonight" and "I Can Fly." "It's funny how writing has become such an important part of my life," she wrote on her site, noting how all of her work has been inspired by her own experiences and life lessons.

Deborah Norville is so committed to her job that even giving birth didn't alter her shooting schedule. Back in 1997, Norville and her husband welcomed their third and final child, Mikaela Katharina. Shortly after giving birth, both Norville and her baby girl found themselves on TV. The journalist had taken everyone by surprise and agreed to host an entire episode right from her hospital bed. As she later recalled in an interview with the Associated Press, "Nine hours after I gave birth, the crew was in my hospital room taping 'Inside Edition' because they couldn't find anyone else to do the show."

Norville herself conceded that the situation was wild and told viewers, "My husband thinks I'm crazy to be doing this, but as they say, the show must go on." Reminiscing about that headline-making stunt during a 2025 appearance on "Tamron Hall Show," Norville explained that she had received approval from the hospital beforehand and that it was about staying true to her word. "You gotta be dependable," she explained of her unorthodox decision. "You gotta be the person that people can count on, and if you have pledged to be there, you have to be there."

Deborah Norville has always been an open book with her fans, and as she told "Inside Edition" in 2019, that strong connection may have saved her life. "We live in a world of see something, say something, and I'm really glad we do," she told viewers as she became the latest celebrity to open up about her cancer diagnosis. Norville explained she would be undergoing surgery to remove a large portion of her thyroid after monitoring it for years. As she explained to Healthy Women, it was in 2000 that a viewer who'd once had thyroid cancer noticed a bump on Norville's throat that was awfully similar to the one she'd had. She quickly jumped into action, contacting Norville's publicist to share her story and encourage the journalist to have it checked out, which she did.

Norville had an ultrasound and a biopsy, which found she had benign nodules on her thyroid. "For years, it was nothing until recently, it was something," she revealed a day before her operation. "The doctor says it's a very localized form of cancer." Ultimately, in April 2019, Norville had the right part of her thyroid removed, as well as the central part; however, she was incredibly thankful for the outcome. "Because it was so early on, there was no radiation, no chemo, and no indication that it migrated anywhere else," she shared with Healthy Women, praising the eagle-eyed viewer who felt compelled to reach out all those years ago.

Deborah Norville spent three decades at the helm of "Inside Edition," making her the longest-running anchor ever on American TV. However, all good things must come to an end, and on May 21, 2025, Norville said goodbye to fans with her final episode. Speaking about the monumental decision with People, the Emmy-winning journalist explained it was all about timing and family. Reminiscing about her start at "Inside Edition," Norville said she initially accepted the job because it allowed her to strike a healthy balance between family and career. "It was the right decision for me, because of who I was," she mused.

Thirty years on, she applied that same logic while deciding whether or not to leave "Inside Edition" behind. "It's the right move for my family, for my husband, for the entirety of our marriage," she told People. "There've been too many times when my career had to come first," she admitted, noting it was time to change that. Norville was ready to put her personal life first and to start ticking more things off her bucket list, including travel. To celebrate her retirement from the show, she planned some lovely European getaways, vacationing in Italy in June before visiting Paris in September.

In July 2025, Entertainment Weekly confirmed that "GMA3" co-anchor Eva Pilgrim would swap ABC for CBS in order to take over Deborah Norville's role at "Inside Edition." "Anchoring 'Inside Edition' is truly a dream job," Pilgrim enthused. "I have been an avid viewer and fan of the show for many years." Her first episode aired that August, and as she told the show's staff, she had received Norville's stamp of approval before going on-air. However, unlike fellow TV staple Pat Sajak, who prepped Ryan Seacrest to take over his job, Norville kept it light. "Deborah sent me this really nice email and said that the reason she never left was because it was so great," Pilgrim shared with "Inside Edition." "She was wishing me well and wishing you guys well."

Interestingly, Norville may actually have remained at the helm a while longer if producers had agreed to her remote work request. Speaking with TV Insider in August 2025, she revealed that because the show is shot on a green screen, she was sure she could switch to filming remotely rather than in-studio. "I wanted to do the show in another location, and that wasn't something that they were prepared to do," Norville told the outlet. "So, okay, fine — it's your candy store, and that's the way you get to choose how to run it."

Months before her final episode of "Inside Edition" aired in May 2025, Deborah Norville had already lined up her next gig. In December 2024, Deadline confirmed that she would be taking on a different type of TV role as the host of a new syndicated game show called "The Perfect Line." "I grew up watching way too many game shows and have always wanted to do one," Norville enthused when asked about the inspiration behind her new career move. On the show, contestants will be asked to arrange events, items, and people in chronological order to create, as the name suggests, "the perfect line." "I've found the right format," Norville said of the appeal of the CBS series. "The show is a fast, fun, smart take on trivia and pop culture with tidbits of stuff you didn't know."

While it may seem like a big departure from "Inside Edition," Norville told TV Insider that she had actually previously approached Game Show Network with a different game show idea, which didn't work out. However, the seed was planted, and when they teamed up with CBS to produce a brand new show, Norville was at the top of their list.