Melissa Carter had a baby via carrier last year. CREDIT: B98.5
By RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com, originally filed Saturday, September 5, 2015
Melissa Carter, B98.5 morning co-host, posted a column Saturday morning in The Georgia Voice informing the world she had broken up with her girlfriend after nine years.
The girlfriend, who has never wanted to be named in public, is known on the radio as Katie Jo. Carter, the first openly gay radio host in Atlanta, talked about Katie Jo frequently when she was on the Bert Show, heard locally on Q100 and based here. She was on that show for a decade until 2011. She continued to talk about her relationship when she joined B98.5 in 2013.
On the station, she reported last year that she and Katie Jo were having a child via a surrogate.
But life wasn’t so happy behind the scenes, she wrote. (Read the entire column here.)
Katie let me know she wanted out as we traveled to bring our son home from the Oregon hospital where he was born. Our relationship had been deteriorating for some time, having nothing to do with Mr. Carter. In fact, in hindsight I think he helped us stay together longer than we would have without the hope of him. But knowing it was over when our family had just begun was surreal, and something I don’t think I completely believed at the time. We both are equally at fault for our unraveling, but I naively thought things might get better once we got more sleep.
She said by the holidays last year, they faked it with the families but by spring, Katie Jo and Carter were living separately and co-parenting their son.
I have, on the one hand, had the most incredible experience of my life getting to know and care for my son. At the same time I’ve had to grieve in private a relationship I thought would last much longer, and simply endure the comments from others about how excited they are for us as a couple.
The average listener, she wrote, figured they might get engaged and married after the Supreme Court deemed gay marriage legal in all 50 states in June.
She received a lot of emails and social media comments but “let it slide.”
Carter said she is now embarking on the dating scene yet again and is committed with Katie Jo to successfully raise their son as single parents.
Sadly, Bert Show members have had trouble keeping marriages intact. Bert Weiss is currently divorcing his wife of Stacey. They had been together for nearly two decades.
Jeff Dauler divorced Jessica Dauler in 2011 after 12 years together, but he recently got engaged to get married to Callie Riggs.
Former Bert Show member Jen Hobby, now mid-days on Kicks 101.5, divorced Sister Hazel band member Ryan Newell in 2008. She married Grant Rivera in 2010.
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Axel working the controls at Rock 100.5. CREDIT; Rock 100.5
Axel Lowe last week returned on air at Rock 100.5 after four months but he is no longer living in Atlanta. He is voicetracking evenings now from Cincinnati, where he is program director at a station called 96Rock (obviously no relation to a station with the same name that was in Atlanta for many years.)
He spent more than 20 years on air in Atlanta on various rock stations, most notably the afternoon jock at the seminal alternative rock station 99X for most of its run here. Before he got his new job, he had been the jockey doing afternoons at Rock 100.5, which is now covered by current program director Jay Philpott.
