Ashleigh Banfield

Ashleigh Banfield is a well-known face and frequently featured on the worldwide famous news channel CNN as an anchor and news journalist.

Broadcasting Career

Ashleigh is the host of various shows like ‘The Early Start’ and ‘The 11 a.m. Hour’ and the ‘Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield’. Ashleigh’s interest in journalism was sparked ever since she attended Balmoral Hall School which was a university preparatory school in Manitoba. She finished the prep school in 1985. She then went on to graduate from Queen’s University where she completed her Bachelor degree in Political Science and French. She decided to continue her education and later studied Advanced French at the University of British Columbia where she graduated in 1992. All of her studies would prepare her for her future career.

Ashleigh has earned a lot of respect for her work and is an Emmy Award winning news anchor, who has covered countless number of breaking news across the nation and internationally. She is a brave journalist who did not even back out during the coverage of 9/11 terrorist attack or the other attacks in South East Asian countries. Ashleigh and her distinct journalistic style is the perfect fit for any news station. Before joining CNN, she was a correspondent at ABC News contributing for shows like Good Morning America, Nightline, and 20/20. She already had a nice resume before she made CNN her permeant home.

Fighting for Women’s Rights

After Ashleigh wrote an article about comedian Aziz Ansari and the alleged victim of his sexual harassment, she was attacked with insults by many people even her own editor. She did not want the story to be brushed under the rug and made an appearance on NBC’s Megyn Kelly Today to state that it needed to be a bigger story, “There is 100 percent a conversation here and there is a way to have the conversation. I think this was launched in a very sloppy and reckless way because what happened, as you said and you are a lawyer, you know, you said ‘allegedly.’ What happened, if her words are true, did not amount to something that is actionable.”

Ashleigh was upset that some people were trying to describe the incident as just a bad date and not actually sexual harassment. She thought it was foolish to say something wasn’t sexual assault just because the woman did not claim it at first. In Banfield’s logic, it is perfectly fine to give her objection even after you consented at an earlier step, “I want to share this because I think this gives some insight into the caliber of the person who wielded that nuclear weapon at Aziz Ansari’s career. If you truly believe in feminism, the last thing you should do is attack someone in an ad hominem way for her age/ I’m 50, for my highlights,  I was brown-haired for a while when I was a war correspondent interviewing Yasser Arafat and in Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, and the West Bank, Google those places. That’s not the way we have those conversations as women or as men. We don’t attack as journalists, we do not attack for people for their age, or their highlights, or their lipstick. It is the most hypocritical thing a woman who says she supports the woman’s movement could ever do.”

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Personal Life

Like every other celebrity, Ashleigh Banfield also has a personal life which keeps her in the news.  Ashleigh married Howard Gould, a real estate financer in 2004. He is the founder of Equator Environmental, a carbon credit trading company. They met while they were both walking their dogs in Central Park. Ashleigh had her two Westies with her while Gould had his two pugs. The couple had a typical movie-like love story right from their first day of meeting when Ashleigh and Howard met in a park while the strings of their dogs’ leash got entangled with each other and as if it was their fate to meet in this way. This meeting took place near Central Park of New York when both of them got on talking terms while sorting out the leash tangles and it was like a love at first sight for them.

The wedding took place on a wooden yacht at the Royal Lake of the Woods Yacht Club in Canada. The couple made sure that they had one of the best weddings with all the events planned by the couple themselves with the best arrangements, designers, and themes. Howard’s love for his wife was very deep, the wedding reception was held in a resort where Ashleigh spent most of her childhood. Howard was the only man in Ashleigh’s life. She never had a boyfriend, before she met him. Howard had always been a loyal husband. They live more like best friends and never had any issues during their marriage. Both Ashleigh and Howard complement each other as a couple and after a decade of their marriage, they lived together as a happy family in Connecticut. Even after a decade of their married life they have always stood beside each other as loving and caring partners.

Unfortunately, all good things came to an end. Their marriage ended in divorce but they still produced two sons, Jay and Ridley. In 2015, Ashleigh got engaged to her boyfriend of over two years, Chris Haynor. Chris popped the question in August while the pair were on vacation in Ontario, Canada with Banfield's two young sons. Ashleigh was happy to finally move on from her first marriage

Banfield is quite popular among her fans for her strong remarks that are both controversial and positive since she started her career in the national media. Off the screen, she is a laid out personality preferring to spend her leisure time heli skiing, and sleeping.

She is known for her famous rectangular eyeglasses, a trademark that has caught attention since she joined the national media scene as a news anchor. Ashleigh had refractive lens exchange surgery while she was on vacation. It was the first time in two decades that she was been able to function without wearing her signature glasses. The surgery essentially replaces the natural lens of the human eyes with an artificial lens, making it possible to see without reading glasses. She didn’t mind losing her trademark as she much would rather have better vision than a fashion item.

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