Leslie Roberts

Roberts was raised in a family full of journalists. Roberts' great-grandfather John H. Roberts founded and ran a controversial reformist Montreal tabloid newspaper called The Axe between 1922–24.[2] His grandfather and namesake was a writer and journalist. His father, Bill Roberts, was a morning-man for Montreal's CJAD for 20 years, and later vice-president of programming. His mother was an assistant to a federal MP. Roberts' brother, Rob Roberts, is editor-in-chief at the National Post.

Roberts is the third generation of the Roberts media family to work at CJAD 800 Montreal. His father Bill was morning man through the 1950s and '60s, and again for a few years in the '70s. His namesake grandfather Leslie was an editorialist at both CJAD, and Toronto sister station CFRB 1010, in the 1970s.[3]

Roberts has one child, a daughter named Lauren. She is a reporter and weather presenter at CTV Montreal. Previously Lauren was a longtime producer at CTV's eTalk, and resigned in 2016. In January 2020, Lauren was director of the PK Subban Foundation (a charity started by former Montreal Canadiens defenseman PK Subban), which raises money for the Montreal Children’s Hospital. Joining CTV as an on-air presenter makes her the 4th generation of the Roberts media family on TV & radio in Montreal.

In October 2019, Roberts publicly came out as gay to mark National Coming Out Day.[4]

At 18, Roberts interned in the newsroom at Montreal's CKGM radio, specifically covering the 1980 Quebec referendum and having the opportunity to interview René Lévesque. After finishing school, he was immediately recruited in 1985 as a medical reporter for CFCF-TV, the CTV affiliate in Montreal. At CFCF-TV for twelve years, Roberts found himself on a variety of different segments, from travel to morning talk shows.[5]

In 1995, a tape of an interview he conducted on his morning TV show Montreal Today With Leslie Roberts landed on the desk of an agent in Los Angeles. Within six months he was offered a position with the TV tabloid show A Current Affair. A year later he moved to Fox as a reporter/anchor for WNYW in New York City. Three years later Roberts answered a call from CFCF-TV to return home as anchor/host of several shows. In 2000, the Global Television Network came calling. He was news director and senior anchor at Global Quebec until Global offered a position on the anchor desk in Toronto.[5]

Roberts was the executive editor and anchor for Global Toronto from 2001 to 2015, hosting the station's News Hour from 5:30-6:30 p.m., and co-anchoring Global and Shaw Media's The Morning Show from 2013 until 2015.

During those years he also hosted his own radio talk show on CFRB in Toronto, was a daily contributor to talk station AM640 Toronto, and penned his own column, "The Five Things I Learned This Week" in the National Post.

In 2011 and 2013 he was nominated for the Gemini Award/Canadian Screen Awards for Canada's Best News Anchor.[5] Roberts won two CSA's while hosting Focus Ontario.