The woman who started at CNN as an entry-level news desk assistant and went on to land Muammar Gaddafi’s final interview is walking away from the network.
Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international anchor, told colleagues in a memo on Monday, Oct. 19, 2026, that she is leaving after 43 years at the company, ending a run that began in 1983 on the international assignment desk in Atlanta, three years after the network launched. Amanpour, 68, is based in CNN’s London bureau.
“After many months of thought and a few sleepless nights, I have decided to separate from CNN, my partner of 43 fantastic years!” she wrote in her memo to staffers. In the same note, she wrote: “Remember: always be truthful, not neutral.”
Weekly in January, Gone by June
Amanpour will leave in stages. Her daily CNN International show ends at the close of 2026, as does her PBS program “Amanpour & Company,” which wraps at the end of December 2026. In January 2027, her CNN International program drops to once a week, a weekly run that lasts until May 2027. She leaves CNN at the end of June 2027.
Amanpour was first diagnosed in 2021 with a rare form of ovarian cancer and had surgery and chemotherapy, and she said in October 2025 that the cancer had returned. Her departure announcement made no mention of her health.
She had already eased off once before. In January 2025, her nightly eponymous interview program, which she had hosted on CNN International since 2009, was cut to a few days a week.
Until June 2027, she will keep reporting and traveling the world for CNN. Her podcast “The Ex Files,” a Global production, is another project she plans to continue, and she makes it with her ex-husband, Jamie Rubin. On Oct. 19, she addressed the decision on her show.
The Boss Who Doubted Her
Mark Thompson, CNN’s chairman and editor-in-chief, broke the news to the newsroom in his own memo. He had been talking with her about the decision for some months, he wrote, and while he is sorry to lose her, he accepts that she picked the right moment, personally and professionally. The network will take time to celebrate her before she goes.
Thompson also recalled her first weeks in the Atlanta newsroom, when a boss told her she did not have what it took to become a foreign correspondent, or any on-air role at all. “Boy, did she prove him wrong!” Thompson wrote.
Her Exit Lands Right After the Takeover
Paramount Skydance had closed its acquisition of CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, less than two weeks before the announcement, a deal that put CNN and CBS News under the same corporate umbrella, now called Skydance. The new owners have kept Thompson in charge of the news network, and he reports directly to Skydance co-CEOs David Ellison and Ynon Kreiz. Ellison has promised editorial independence.
David and Larry Ellison donated approximately $45 million to a pro-Trump political nonprofit during Donald Trump’s 2024 election efforts. Amanpour’s announcement made no mention of David Ellison or the Skydance takeover.
Network colleagues were “caught off guard by the sudden news that one of CNN’s vanguards was hanging it up,” and “more than willing to fill in the blanks.”
Her exit also follows by a month the announcement from CNN on-air contributor Kara Swisher that she was done with the network. Swisher pointed to the approval of the Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery merger led by David and Larry Ellison. “I think they are terrible media owners,” she said. Her contract runs through the end of the year.
Amanpour has been outspoken about CNN’s coverage of Trump. In 2023, she publicly criticized the network’s town hall with Trump, who was then campaigning for a return to the White House, and she was the first CNN anchor to object publicly. She said she had shared her views with then-CEO Chris Licht.
From Mogadishu to Gaddafi’s Final Interview
Amanpour has been an international correspondent since 1990, starting with the Persian Gulf War. Her assignments since have included the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Bosnian War, Rwanda and Afghanistan, along with the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Arab Spring, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Israel/Hamas war in Gaza. Photographers captured her covering the U.S.-led peacekeeping operation in Mogadishu in 1992. She has won multiple Emmy, Peabody and George Polk awards.
Her interview list includes the final interview with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, former President Bill Clinton, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Iranian presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hassan Rouhani.
This is not her first departure. She left CNN in 2010 for ABC News’ Sunday show “This Week.” A 2012 arrangement brought her back to CNN International and also let her keep working with ABC News. Her hosting duties now include “The Amanpour Hour” on CNN’s U.S. network, and “Amanpour & Company” launched on PBS in 2018.
