'The View' co-host Sunny Hostin's biography
Three-time Emmy® Award winner and two-time New York Times bestselling author Sunny Hostin has been a co-host of “The View” since 2016. She previously served as a host and legal analyst at CNN, as well as a fill-in co-anchor for ABC News’ “World News Now” and “America This Morning.” On May 2, 2023, she released the second book in her “Summer” trilogy, “Summer on Sag Harbor,” which became an instant New York Times bestseller. In May 2021, Hostin released her debut novel, “Summer on the Bluffs” (William Morrow), which skyrocketed to No. 11 on The New York Times Bestseller List. The third book in the trilogy, “Summer on Highland Beach,” is scheduled to be released in the summer of 2024. In the fall of 2020, Hostin released her memoir, “I Am These Truths: A Memoir of Identity, Justice, and Living Between Worlds,” with HarperOne, featuring an introspective look into the challenges she faced while being raised by teenage parents in the Bronx housing projects, the many obstacles she overcame to become a federal prosecutor, and her ultimate path to becoming an incredibly successful television journalist.
Hostin is also founder and CEO of Sunny Hostin Productions, a global, multiplatform media company that produces and creates premium film and television content highlighting important social justice issues, meaningful stories, and underrepresented groups. The company’s first project is to develop her novel “Summer on the Bluffs” as a dramatic series alongside Octavia Spencer’s Orit Entertainment.
As a highly respected attorney and investigative journalist, Hostin has made a name for herself using her expertise in federal prosecution and true crime to bring a number of high-profile stories to light. In 2019, she hosted and executive produced a six-episode documentary series, “Truth About Murder with Sunny Hostin,” for Investigation Discovery, which explores some of the most infamous homicides in the nation. In the series, she delves into each case, meeting with forensic experts, law enforcement officials, prosecutors, defense attorneys and the families of each victim to provide a comprehensive view of how cases are solved. In 2021, Hostin was part of the groundbreaking ABC primetime newscast “Soul of a Nation,” the first broadcast network newsmagazine aiming to put Black life in America front and center. She moderated a provocative recurring conversation called “In the Kitchen,” where each week a group of talkers and thinkers joined her for a candid discussion on current events and the theme of the week.
After graduating from Notre Dame Law School, Hostin began her career as an appellate law clerk and went on to become a trial attorney and federal prosecutor with the United States Justice Department. During her time as an assistant U.S. attorney, she was awarded the Special Achievement Award by Attorney General Janet Reno for her prosecution of child sexual predators. She serves as a board member for Safe Horizon, where she fought for the successful passage of the New York State Child Victims Act in 2019, making it easier for child sex abuse victims to seek justice as adults. An inescapable voice from the top echelons of news and entertainment, she continues using her platform to advocate for and give voice to the marginalized.
A gifted storyteller, Hostin’s impressive depth of knowledge carries over to politics and the criminal justice system. She has brought clarity and context to some of the biggest stories of the past decade, including incisive political analysis of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and subsequent presidency, the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol, the Derek Chauvin trial and verdict, the college admission scandal, the George Zimmerman trial, the unrest in Ferguson and Baltimore, and the AME church shooting in Charleston. In May 2020, she and a group of Black female activists penned an authoritative op-ed for The Washington Post urging presidential candidate Joe Biden to select a Black female vice-presidential candidate, ultimately predicting his selection of Kamala Harris. Hostin has won two Emmys for her work as a correspondent for ABC’s “Good Morning America” and one for her work as a correspondent for the ABC News Special “The President and the People.”
Sunny currently resides in New York with her husband, Manny, and two children, Gabriel and Paloma.
