How Seattle radio hosts Carla Marie and Anthony went from being co-workers and friends to dating

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Ask Marina

In this special column, Marina Resto, who runs the lively Instagram account @Dating_in_Seattle, talks to radio co-hosts Carla Marie and Anthony about starting their own show on Twitch, how their friendship became a romance and why they were theirs Kept relationship a secret.

Carla Marie and Anthony met in New York in 2010 while working for Elvis Duran on the Z100 Morning Show. The duo quickly became friends and as an experiment to see what it would be like to host their own show, they created their own podcast on the side. Her talent was recognized by executives at parent company iHeartMedia, who put Carla Marie and Anthony on their own morning show in Seattle.

In 2016 “The Carla Marie & Anthony Show” started on Seattle’s POWER 93.3. Two years later, the company made formatting changes, moved the show to KISS FM, and eventually gave Carla Marie and Anthony a morning show slot. That was a little over a year before the company made another program change – one that didn’t include the couple. After more than a decade at iHeartMedia, Carla Marie and Anthony were fired in July 2020. Three days later they started their own new show, this time on the streaming service Twitch. Her new show is a success, with loyal followers she’s gained over the years from New York to Seattle.

Last June, the couple announced another big surprise: They’re meeting! At some point in the time they worked together – they refused to say exactly when but hinted that it happened before the coronavirus pandemic – the duo’s friendship grew into a romance. But for the sake of professionalism, they kept it a secret from fans, friends and even some family members.

The couple sat down with us recently to talk more about the great secret they revealed in the air this summer.

Why do you think it was such a shock to your followers when you announced you were dating?

Carla Marie: The people who hear / see our show spend so much time with us, they were more shocked that we didn’t make a mistake! I think the people who were shocked the most were our friends, so many of them didn’t know and they literally stared at us with their jaws lowered when we told them. After we were let go [by iHeartMedia] I was so, so grateful that we never mentioned on the show that we were meeting because now we could do it our own way without anyone else telling us what to do or what to say.

Antony: People have “accused” us of dating since we met 11 years ago, and we were both in different relationships at the time, so they were 100% wrong. I stopped talking vaguely about former girlfriends or dating women on dating apps to say, “Hey, look, I have a girlfriend and this is Carla Marie!”

What advice would you give to someone who has been friends with someone for a long time and wants to find out if there is more without “ruining” their friendship?

Carla Marie: I really can’t keep thoughts or emotions to myself, I didn’t want to live with the regret of not sharing my true feelings. I knew there was more than one friendship between us. It’s easy for me to advise someone to just do it because it works for me right now. It just has to be a risk you want to take.

Antony: I would advise anyone in this situation to take their time and make sure that you are genuinely ready to make a sacrifice. You need to understand that your relationship will never be the same. I learned so much just by being friends with Carla Marie. Arguing as friends is different than arguing with someone you met through the dating world. The connections go deeper than just meeting and dating. I thought about what I was saying or how my actions would make my girlfriend feel different than she would in other relationships because I knew more than the relationship was at stake.

How long did you keep it a secret and why?

Carla Marie: It was kept secret longer than either of us expected. We felt we had to keep it a secret and had always heard from our old bosses: “Don’t date, you will ruin your career”. We also knew that if we told them we were dating, they’d turn it into a cheesy radio stunt, which neither of us wanted.

Antony: We wanted to be respected as individuals and as contributors to this show that we built. The secret has been kept much longer because of strange things that often happen in the radio world. When a couple happens to be or become a couple on the morning show, the woman is often relegated to that strange sidekick role. I didn’t want to treat Carla Marie like that. Our show has always been a 50/50 deal. I was often drawn into meetings and asked questions without her, and had to keep reminding iHeartRadio executives and managers not to make the calls alone, then I walked down the hall and grabbed Carla Marie. It’s a sad truth, but on average, women still don’t get the respect they deserve on the radio, and I didn’t want our relationship to become another hurdle for Carla Marie to be a respected team member in this building.

How do you think your relationship has changed since telling everyone about your new status?

Carla Marie: We recently celebrated my sister’s wedding together and it was our first event since going public and it was the best night of my life. My family loves that everything is now public, as they have known for a long time. The ability to just dance together and not hide our feelings for one another was amazing – and he could hang out with all of my family, which was so special to me. My nieces keep screaming, “Hey, are you with yourself ?!” Because they think they’re funny. Our relationship itself hasn’t changed, but it feels like a burden has been removed and we can just live.

Antony: Apart from this initial freedom [after] the burden of not being honest has been lifted, everything else has remained the same. The response from our audience was great, we felt a lot of love. We enjoyed the moment and then went back to business to find out how we can use all that we have experienced and learned to make people’s mornings a little bit better every day, in our own way and on our own terms.

Marina Resto
Marina Resto is a freelance writer for the Seattle Times and a side-hustle cupid. Slip into your Instagram DMs here: @dating_in_seattle.