The Stunning Transformation Of Nancy Grace

Love her or hate her, there's no denying that television personality Nancy Grace has made an impact on the way Americans think about crime. She pioneered a specific brand of indignant, outraged crime reporting that seems everywhere now. Grace loves to ask questions, demanding that she be given information about the cases she's interested in. Of course, she would say that it's all an effort to seek justice for victims, and her legions of fans would agree. But how did her prosecutorial career transform Grace into the media figurehead we know today?

Well, there's one thing that sets Grace apart from her many imitators: She speaks from a position of authority and experience as both a lawyer and someone affected by a violent tragedy. After her fiancé was murdered while she was in college, Grace decided to become a prosecutor, and she won every single case she tried, no longer keeping track when she passed a hundred victories. "I started doing more and more homicides," she told Interview Magazine. (Here, she refers to prosecuting homicides, not committing them, for the record.) "Eventually, I had a specialty niche of nothing but murder, serial rape, serial child molestation, and arson of any type." Immersing yourself in that kind of depressing work would make anyone angry, so it's easy to see why Grace developed the righteous-anger persona that's served her so well on television. Indeed, Grace's success is marked by an inspiring transformation that spans her decades-long career.

Just as Nancy Grace never intended to be a lawyer until her fiancé's murder changed the trajectory of her life, Grace also never meant to end up as a television personality. In the 1990s, though, things changed. The tragic murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and the resulting O.J. Simpson trial had captivated the country, turning a grisly crime into entertainment fodder. Suddenly, there were cameras in the courtroom and experts reacting to developments around the clock. Alongside infamous lawyer Johnnie Cochran, Grace hosted a show on the then-new Court TV, and the rest was television history.

According to Erik Sorensen, the former executive vice president of Court TV, "Cochran & Grace" depended on the contrasting hosts. "She's president of several victims' rights organizations, and she's a hang-'em-high, let-'em-fry prosecutor ... [Cochran] is one of the best-known defense attorneys in the country," Sorenson told The Los Angeles Times. "She's a Southern, conservative woman; he's an African American who lives in Los Angeles."

That spitfire on-camera persona would come to define the rest of Grace's career. Still, Grace revealed in 2023 that she doesn't think of herself as a journalist or reporter. "I am very flattered that you said that, but I don't feel that way," she told Interview Magazine. "I'm just a trial lawyer." Grace's critics would agree; she doesn't always hold herself to the same journalistic standards that other reporters might, and sometimes, that causes major problems.

By 2006, Nancy Grace was an established television personality with her own show on Headline News, a CNN spinoff. That year, she interviewed a woman named Melinda Duckett. Duckett's son, Trenton Duckett, was missing, and when Grace tore into her on air, it seemed clear that the former lawyer thought her interview subject might've killed her own child. "You are not telling us [your alibi] for a reason. What is the reason?" Grace demanded (per The Times). "You refuse to give even the simplest facts of where you were with your son before he went missing. It is day 12."

The day after the interview — before it even aired on television — Duckett took her own life. Grace suddenly found herself at the center of a major controversy about the caustic tone of her television show, having to answer for whether she felt any responsibility for adding to the grief of the mother of a missing child. Instead of expressing any sorrow, Grace told The Times that she felt no responsibility for Duckett's suicide. "I do not feel that our show is to blame for what happened to Melinda Duckett. The truth ... is not always nice or polite or easy to go down. Sometimes it's harsh, and it hurts." As of 2025, Trenton Duckett still has not been found.

"Hollywood Medium" Tyler Henry has impressed many celebrities with his predictions, and Nancy Grace is no exception. When Grace sat down for a reading with Henry, she told him that she'd resisted dating for a very long time after the death of her fiancé. It wasn't until he appeared to her in a dream and told her to move on that she decided to entertain a romance with a man named David Linch. After that dream, she called and told him to move to New York to be with her. "If it had not really been for him visiting me in that dream, I probably would never have gone for it," she said (via E! News). "I would have continued grieving for Keith and never married and known what have now been the happiest years of my life — because of that one dream." 

In 2007, Grace gave birth to twins in what wound up being a difficult delivery that resulted in an emergency C-section. Grace detailed the frightening situation a year later. She was 47 when she became a mother, and she experienced numerous complications that included thinking for a time that she'd lost one of the twins. When she developed pulmonary edema, the twins were brought into the world early. Grace wrote that she'd been forever changed by becoming a mother. "Before I had the babies, I never really let myself love 100%. Lucy and John David have changed all that," she wrote for People. "There's no way I can't love them 200%. I can't imagine the world without them."

Nancy Grace has been through a lot in her life. She's been on the receiving end of a tragedy, but she's also looked deeply into all the worst aspects of tragedies experienced untold by other people as well. In 2009, Grace turned all of that pain into a novel. She was a literature major before her fiancé was murdered after all, and words were her first love. "I've been told I had a completely different personality before then," she recalled to The New York Post. "I don't remember who that girl was! I just wanted to read Shakespeare all day, and teach it."

That year, she published "The Eleventh Victim," the first novel in a series of mysteries that center around Hailey Dean. A psychology major who becomes a lawyer to get justice for her murdered fiancé — sound familiar? — Grace's literary creation would go on to inspire several sequels and a series of Hallmark mystery movies perfect for a cozy Saturday night. According to Grace, finally finishing the book was much harder than she'd expected, especially as she was adjusting to her new role as a mother at the time. "I hear other people on TV talking about, 'Oh, I did it when I was on the treadmill.' That is B.S.!" she told "Good Morning America" (via People). "I would stay up until three or four in the morning ... working moms have it hard!"

In 2011, Nancy Grace appeared on Season 13 of "Dancing With The Stars." Her time on the show made headlines for many different reasons, including because she wore one of the most controversial outfits ever on "DWTS." Many television viewers were certain they saw a wardrobe malfunction happen before their eyes, baring more of the crime analyst's body than anyone expected; for her part, Grace says the cleavage slip-up was not what it looked like.

At the time, Grace slimmed down considerably to twirl about the "DWTS" stage. In a Q&A with fans online, Grace said that, unlike the wardrobe malfunction, the weight loss was indeed what it appeared to be. "I've lost 23 pounds. It's incredible. I didn't even try," she said (via The Hollywood Reporter). Lest anyone want to copy her regimen, though, Grace warned people against following in her tap-dancing footsteps. "Frankly, it's not a good diet. It's the 'I'm too tired to eat' diet, which I don't advise to anybody. I'm not even hungry. I'm exhausted and nervous."

When Grace appeared on "The View" after her elimination, she credited her dance pro Tristan McManus with her transformation. The hosts asked how she planned to keep the weight off, and Grace joked, "I don't know! Other than move him in with the twins, I don't know how that's going to happen."

In 2016, Nancy Grace announced one of her biggest career transformations yet. After 12 years on the air at CNN Headline News — later renamed HLN — Grace decided to step away from the television platform that had made her famous. Still, Grace didn't imagine she'd leave television forever. Instead, she was exploring ways to branch out online.

"I will always be wedded to a traditional platform — which is TV, God help me. My plan is to merge those two in an effective way, in my voice, the 'anti-crime' voice," she told The Hollywood Reporter. "Our show has never really been about me." Grace did indeed host several television shows after leaving HLN, but they tended to be shorter-run shows about specific topics. For example, in 2022, Grace spoke exclusively with The List about her true crime hit "Bloodline Detectives," which endeavored to solve cases using DNA.

In 2017, Grace then launched CrimeOnline.com and claimed the digital media site would have it all. "It will be the go-to for crime sleuths and people who want knowledge about crime and crime fighting," she told Business Insider. That includes ongoing coverage of major crime stories but also a tip line for people to help investigate them. Grace clarified, "This is not just for us to make a story. This is to help fight crime."

Nancy Grace doesn't just write about crime at CrimeOnline.com. Over the past few years, she's also gone back to doing what made her famous: angrily and indignantly asking questions on camera. In 2017, she hosted the "Crime Stories with Nancy Grace," one of the best podcasts for true crime fans. What started out as a daily podcast then transitioned to a Fox Nation streaming series in 2020. "Nancy Grace dives deep into the day's most shocking crimes and asks the tough questions with honest perspective you won't get anywhere else," reads the series' description (via Fox's website). "Nancy shares her opinions, leaning on her experience as a prosecutor, and questions everything surrounding the case."

In other words, Grace returned to the same strategy that got her in trouble all those years ago. In 2019, Grace told an audience member at CrimeCon – an annual event for true-crime fanatics — how she's been able to be so prolific for so long. After all, "Crime Stories with Nancy Grace" is still on the air, as of 2025. "There's never a lack business, my baby," she said. "There's plenty of business to go around."