Rachel Uchitel reflected on a painful period in her life on Wednesday as she commemorated the 23rd anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
The 49-year-old podcast host, who rose to fame as Tiger Woods’ former mistress, paid tribute to her late fiancé James Andrew O’Grady, who died when 2 World Trade Center collapsed on the morning of September 11, 2001.
“23 years ago I lost the love of my life, Andy O’Grady,” Uchitel began the caption of her Instagram post, which included an emotional video of footage taken shortly after the terrorist attack.
Uchitel was only 26 years old in the video, which shows her holding posters announcing the disappearance of her deceased fiancé. The smiling faces contrast with her shocked demeanor.
“This is my fiancé. I had my whole future planned with this person,” she said, trying to hold back tears.
Rachel Uchitel, 49, marked the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and remembered her late fiancé Andy O’Grady, who was killed when 2 World Trade Center collapsed; pictured in 2014
“23 years ago I lost the love of my life, Andy O’Grady,” Uchitel began the caption of her Instagram post, which included an emotional video of footage taken shortly after the terrorist attack
“If I don’t find him, I’ll have to start all over again. It’s taken my whole life to find him,” she continued, tears starting to fall. “And I don’t know what I’m going to do without him.”
After a brief pause, she looked at her flyers and continued, “Please help me find him.”
Uchitel then famously posted the cover of the New York Post, which featured a tearful photo of her holding her missing flyers.
“New York’s Tragic Face,” read the headline.
But she ended the video by putting Andy front and center, as he flashed a winning smile in sweet photos taken years before his death, including adorable shots of him and Rachel together.
The video, soundtracked by heart-wrenching piano music, ended with a simple caption that included his name and life history: “May 9, 1969 – September 11, 2001.”
O’Grady, a native of New Jersey, was a competitive swimmer for UCLA from 1988 to 1991. He was named co-captain of the swim team his senior year, then stayed on for an additional year as an assistant.
After college, he returned to the East Coast and worked as a managing director at the investment banking firm Sandler O’Neill & Partners, which had an office on the 104th floor of 2 World Trade Center.
Andy and Rachel had only gotten engaged on August 5, 2001, and had planned to tie the knot on May 4, 2002, according to the Los Angeles Times.
O’Grady had only been in the office for 45 minutes when the first plane hit World Trade Center 1.
“If I don’t find him, I’ll have to start all over again. It’s taken my whole life to find him,” she continued, tears starting to fall. “And I don’t know what I’ll do without him.”
Uchitel’s sobbing face was later used for a famous cover of the New York Post. She ended her video with laughing footage of Andy
His building would be hit 17 minutes later, but it would be the first to collapse.
In her Instagram caption, Uchitel said she had to watch the footage of the towers being hit for her job at Bloomberg News.
Uchitel recalls calling him after his death, shortly after the first plane hit the World Trade Center. He told her that no one was being evacuated from the building at the time.
When she called him later that morning, the situation was even more serious.
“Rachel, it’s really chaotic in here,” she remembered him saying. “You don’t understand. I just saw someone jump out the window.”
In her Instagram caption, she wrote: “I remember watching his building collapse and I couldn’t breathe. I remember the entire newsroom floor going silent. They had all just watched me watch Andy die.”
Although she and others continued to hope that he would somehow survive, she saw that there was “no hope.”
“The despair of not knowing was indescribable,” she added.
“This event completely changed who I was. I had been searching my whole life for the man who was ‘my one’ and I had finally found him and we were planning our wedding, and then this…,” Uchitel continued.
He was a competitive swimmer at UCLA and moved back to the East Coast to work as a managing director at the investment bank Sandler O’Neill & Partners, which had an office on the 104th floor of 2 World Trade Center
Uchitel previously said she spoke to O’Grady on the phone several times after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center
“It was the honor of my life to be loved by James Andrew O’Grady,” Uchitel concluded. “I am grateful that because of the photo that was on the cover of almost every newspaper in the world where I searched for him, more people know his name”; seen in 2010
She added that she could still remember Andy’s “smile” and “voice” to this day.
Rachel said the video of her search for Andy was filmed outside Bellevue Hospital, where she rushed after hearing he might have been found alive.
“I can still see the pain I was never able to take away in this video because this man was so amazing,” she wrote. “I remember the incredible outpouring of letters and phone calls from complete strangers after this photo appeared in newspapers around the world.
“It was the honor of my life to be loved by James Andrew O’Grady,” Uchitel concluded. “I am grateful that because of the photo that was on the cover of almost every newspaper in the world of my search for him, more people know his name.”