TJ Holmes had sex in the office with an ABC ‘intern’ 13 years his junior

TJ Holmes had an affair with a script coordinator 13 years his junior, who approached him as a potential mentor, but felt uncomfortable and used after the relationship turned sexual, DailyMail.com reveals.

According to a well-placed source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the affair with Jasmin Pettaway, then 24, took place in 2015 when Holmes had been married to his now-estranged wife, Marilee Fiebig, for five years.

The source, who knew Pettaway well at the time, said: “He was a predator who took full advantage of his position and was reckless.”

‘It was Jasmin’s first real TV job, and it was a big deal for her. She was looking for a mentor and reached out to several people. TJ was someone who would talk back, but she absolutely abused the position of trust,” the source said.

At the time, Pettaway and Holmes, who had joined the ABC news team in September 2014, were often on the same shifts.

The source said: ‘Holmes was someone who drank and he and Jasmin started doing it. He must remember that he was her correspondent at the time and is taking the time to talk to her about work or whatever.

“I don’t know how long it was before he turned sexual, but I do know that the first time he did it was in his office, and it was due to go on the air in a couple of hours.”

The source said that Pettaway later told them that Holmes called her into his office where he saw that she was drinking liquor.

There’s like a change of atmosphere, almost an expectation that something is going to happen, and it did.

“They had sex and I know she was confused after what it meant. That kind of ‘Did that really happen?’ feeling. I mean that’s pretty risky behavior on her part.

It was, the source said, part of a pattern of ‘incredibly reckless’ conduct on Holmes’s part. On one occasion, the source said the couple were having drinks together when he “got down to business” in a very public place and manner.

They said, ‘He just didn’t seem to care. You know he’s wearing her ring. He has a wife, he has a relatively high-profile job, but he wasn’t acting like he was worried about any of those things at the moment.

Holmes’ representative did not respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment. Pettaway declined to comment.

Pettaway and Holmes’s sexual relationship continued for several months and included him visiting her at her apartment before, the source said, “fizzled out.”

The source said: ‘What does that say? “Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it burned down in one.” So it was with Jasmin and TJ. It didn’t last long, but you have to wonder if he ever invested in being a mentor.

‘Jasmin was a beautiful girl and she had everything on her terms. She was interested and then not.

“This was a young woman starting out in a tough industry, looking for role models and mentors and she got TJ

“Nobody was talking about abuse of power back then, but things happened.”

Pettaway became a segment producer for GMA and stayed at ABC in New York for two years before returning to her hometown of Cleveland in late 2016, where she joined the network’s local affiliate.

Today she is an award-winning casting producer for ITV America, married, and founder of women’s digital lifestyle brand, Lemon-Love.

In an online interview with Voyage Ohio in 2021, he reflected on his departure from New York, saying it was due to a “mixture of insecurity, loneliness, and a certain naiveté.” He also admitted that ABC’s “toxic work environment really hurt my self-esteem.”

DailyMail.com has been told that Pettaway wasn’t the only subordinate Holmes put the moves on as, according to multiple sources, a young network intern described herself as “stressed out” and “scared” by her unwanted advances.

According to the source, ‘That’s who he was. Did he ever want to be professional when it came to Jasmin or just spoil the fruits he had been given? I dont know. I only know that he always sought to be the arrogant type.

“He didn’t seem to care that he was married or that he might be risking his job.”

In fact, DailyMail.com was told that attempts to raise concerns about Holmes’ “behavioural issues”, which included drinking alcohol in his office and before going on air, were rebuffed by at least one executive producer who ” didn’t want to know’ when told the star was ‘a big responsibility’.

Indeed, after DailyMail.com broke the news of Holmes’ affair with married GMA3 co-host Amy Robach, 49, last November, news of a previous affair surfaced.

In 2016, Holmes began a three-year affair with 37-year-old GMA producer Natasha Singh. She at the time was married to film producer Garrett Braren, whose credits include Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny. She was also a close friend of Robach’s.

In fact, it was Robach who helped Holmes save his marriage after his 44-year-old wife Marilee Feibig found out about his affair with Singh.

But neither Robach’s nor Holmes’s twelve-year marriages could survive the revelation of their romance, which began as a bubbly friendship with obvious chemistry and “crossed the line” last year.

Holmes’s wife filed for divorce shortly after Christmas. Robach’s divorce from her husband, former Melrose Place actor Andrew Shue, 55, is reportedly near final.

Professionally, his future still hangs in the balance. With ABC executives yet to make a final decision, the official line remains that the co-hosts-turned-lovers will be out of their seats on the morning show’s lunchtime slot “indefinitely.”