‘Today’s Craig Melvin Says He ‘Stalked’ Wife Lindsay Czarniak Before They Dated
What To Know
- Craig Melvin humorously recounted meeting his wife, Lindsay Czarniak, at NBC’s Washington, D.C. affiliate.
- The couple married in 2011, have two children together, and recently celebrated their 14th wedding anniversary.
- Melvin shared his story during his cohosting debut on Today With Jenna & Friends, where Jenna Bush Hager also discussed her own unique relationship story.
Craig Melvin joked that he met his wife, Lindsay Czarniak, the “old-fashioned way” — by stalking her.
“I stalked her at work. This was when you could do that. You could meet at work. You could date at work,” Melvin joked on the Monday, November 3, episode of Today With Jenna & Friends. “I knew who she was before I got there.”
The couple first met while working at the Washington, D.C., NBC affiliate WRC-TV. “She was in China covering the Olympics for NBC. So, I had started while she was overseas, and then, she came back one Saturday,” Melvin shared.
Melvin recalled chatting with colleagues minutes before going to air, only to turn around and see Czarniak joining him onscreen. “I turned, and the guy who had been filling in for her wasn’t there,” he recalled. “I didn’t know that, and I turned and I’m like, ‘Oh, hey, uh,’ And so, I got a little tongue-tied. I was like, ‘Hey, welcome back from the Olympics,’ and she’s like, ‘Welcome to Channel 4, loser.’ She didn’t say ‘loser.'”
Czarniak loved the moment so much that she showed it at her and Melvin’s wedding rehearsal dinner. “So, we met on the air,” Melvin concluded. “I guess technically we did. We met on NBC.”
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Three years after their on-set meeting, Melvin and Czarniak tied the knot in 2011. The couple became parents in 2014 with the birth of their son, Delano, followed by their daughter, Sybil, in 2016.
Monday’s episode of Jenna & Friends marked his first time cohosting the fourth hour of Today with Bush Hager. After sharing his own story, Melvin went on to ask Bush Hager how she and her husband, Henry Hager, first launched their relationship.
“I took him to a state dinner,” she revealed, much to Melvin’s surprise. (Bush Hager and her twin sister, Barbara Bush, are the only two children of former President George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush.)
“You took your now-husband on the first date with your family to a state dinner? And at the time, that seemed like a good idea?” Melvin asked, to which Bush Hager replied, “Yeah. ‘Cause he’s charming. You know Henry Hager. He could hold his own. And also, then I’d be like, ‘I told you what you’re getting into.’ Nothing else came as a surprise after that.” (Bush Hager and Hager wed in 2008 and share three kids — Mila, 12, Poppy, 10, and Hal, 6.)
Melvin and Czarniak celebrated their 14th wedding anniversary last month. “You’ll always be a head taller than me but you can’t put a measurement on my love for you and your willingness to feed into my favorite things (like pumpkin mazes and spontaneous adventures),” Czarniak wrote alongside Instagram pics of herself and Melvin from over the years on October 16.
Lindsay Czarniak Instagram
She continued, “I do indeed love you more than when we made it official and feel like the luckiest girl in the pumpkin patch to have you by my side. Happy lucky number 14 @craigmelvinnbc!!!!”
Melvin, for his part, gave his wife a special shoutout on the third hour of Today‘s October 15 episode, saying into the camera, “Happy anniversary, sweetie.”
Today With Jenna & Friends, weekdays, 10a/9c, NBC
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