After more than four decades of chasing wars and grilling world leaders, one of CNN’s most familiar faces is walking away from the network she joined three years after it went on the air.
Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international anchor, told colleagues on Monday, Oct. 19, 2026, in a memo to staffers that she is leaving after 43 years. “After many months of thought and a few sleepless nights, I have decided to separate from CNN, my partner of 43 fantastic years!” wrote Amanpour, who is 68 and based in CNN’s London bureau.
Weekly in January, Gone by June
She is leaving 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 continues until May 2027. She departs CNN at the end of June 2027.
Amanpour was first diagnosed in 2021 with a rare form of ovarian cancer and underwent surgery and chemotherapy, and she said in October 2025 that the cancer had returned. Her departure announcement made no mention of her health.
The slowdown began earlier. In January 2025, her nightly eponymous interview program — hosted on CNN International since 2009 — was cut to a few days a week. Until next June, she will keep reporting and traveling the world for CNN, and she plans to continue her podcast “The Ex Files,” a Global production she makes with her ex-husband, Jamie Rubin. Amanpour addressed the decision on her show Monday, Oct. 19.
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 said he and Amanpour had been talking about the decision for some months, that he is sorry to lose her, and that he accepts she picked the right moment both personally and professionally. The network will take time to celebrate her before she goes, he added.
Thompson also recalled her first weeks in the Atlanta newsroom, where 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!” he wrote in his memo. Amanpour joined the company in 1983 as an entry-level news desk assistant on the international assignment desk in Atlanta.
Her Exit Lands Right After the Takeover
The announcement came less than two weeks after Paramount Skydance closed its acquisition of CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, placing CNN and CBS News under the same corporate umbrella, now called Skydance. Thompson remains in charge of the news network under the new owners and 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 described as “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 follows by one month CNN on-air contributor Kara Swisher’s announcement that she was done with the network, a decision that came after approval of the Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery merger led by David and Larry Ellison. Swisher’s contract runs through the end of the year. “I think they are terrible media owners,” she said of the Ellisons.
Amanpour has been outspoken about CNN’s coverage of Trump. In 2023 she publicly criticized the network’s town hall with Trump, then campaigning for a return to the White House — the first CNN anchor to object publicly — and 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, when the Persian Gulf War became her first major assignment. She has covered the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Bosnian War, Rwanda, Afghanistan, the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Arab Spring, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Israel/Hamas war in Gaza, and she was photographed 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 Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s final interview, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, former President Bill Clinton, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Iranian presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hassan Rouhani. She left CNN once before, exiting in 2010 for ABC News’ Sunday show “This Week,” then returned to CNN International in 2012 under an arrangement that also allowed her to keep working with ABC News. She currently hosts “The Amanpour Hour” on CNN’s U.S. network, and “Amanpour & Company” launched on PBS in 2018.
In the same note to staffers, she wrote: “Remember: always be truthful, not neutral.”