Trailblazing Journalist Florence 'Flo' Anthony Dead At 74
She Broke Stories, Barriers & The Boys’ Club — Trailblazing Journalist Florence ‘Flo’ Anthony, Who Proved Black Women Belong In Every Newsroom, Dead At 74 - Page 3
Florence “Flo” Anthony, a pioneering entertainment journalist, radio host, TV contributor, and book author who broke down barriers for Black women, died on August 6 after a battle with cancer.
Source: Flo Anthony / Screenshot courtesy of Instagram @tlcjanetfan
Florence “Flo” Anthony, a pioneering entertainment journalist, former national syndicated radio host, TV contributor, and the author of several books, who broke down barriers for Black women, died after a battle with cancer on August 6. She was 74.
The news was confirmed by Jack Hirsch, the biographer of her husband, Olympic and pro boxing champ Michael Spinks, to New York Amsterdam News, which published her weekly “Go With The Flo” column dating back to 2001. She also had a nationally syndicated radio segment called “Gossip to Go With Flo” and another called “Flo Anthony’s Big Apple Buzz.”
Anthony and Hirsch collaborated on Michael “Jinx” Spinks: An Authorized Biography, which was released in March. He shared that she had recently disclosed to him that she had cancer.
Michael Spinx and Flo Anthony attend SummerFest2024 at Southampton Arts Center on August 17, 2024 in Southampton, New York. (Photo by Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
Born on March 4, 1952, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Anthony graduated from Howard University. She initially moved to New York to pursue acting, and also worked as a teacher. Her work with talent manager Tobe Gibson eventually segued into a career as a publicist for athletes such as Muhammad Ali and other champion boxers, including Spinks, whom she began dating in 1987 and married in January 2026.
During the 1980s, she pivoted to journalism, making a name for herself in the industry as a celebrity reporter who always got the inside scoop. She started as an agate clerk at the New York Post in 1986 before becoming the first female to work in the publication’s sports department and the first African American to work in the newspaper’s entertainment and world‑famous Page Six departments.
In a 2013 interview with Urban Bridgez, Anthony looked back on her seven years with the Post, recalling,“After a while, they said, ‘You flunked the job,’ and I was like. ‘What do you mean I flunked?’ But it was the thing of being the agate clerk, you had to do a lot, and I would be there all night till like 5 in the morning. So they was like, ‘Don’t worry, we see you have a masters degree in fine arts. We’re moving you to the entertainment department.’ I went to the entertainment department kicking and screaming. They said, ‘Look it’s a day job and pays more money, so why are you upset?’ So I went from the first African American woman in the sports department to the first African American woman in the entertainment department.”
Anthony became a fixture on popular talk shows hosted by Joan Rivers, Geraldo Rivera, Sally Jessy Raphael, Ricki Lake, Maury Povich, and more. She was also a regular contributor and sometimes served as co-host on E!’s The Gossip Show from 1993 to 1998. She appeared on episodes of celebrity-themed entertainment and news programs including Entertainment Tonight, Inside Edition, E! True Hollywood Story, Most Shocking Celebrity Moments, and Most Annoying People, as well as frequently contributing to TV One’s Unsung, Unsung Hollywood, and Life After.
She also worked in magazine journalism, serving as publisher and editor-in-chief of Black Noir and as editor-in-chief of Black Elegance. Anthony made history as the first African American woman to write a column for a supermarket tabloid, with “Eye on the Stars” for the National Examiner. But despite her penchant for what many regard as “trash journalism” Flo did not treat gossip journalism like the reckless recycling of rumors. As a gossip columnist, she saw herself as both a journalist and reporter who scooped exclusive stories and was responsible for ensuring journalistic integrity.
She discussed the definition of a journalist during her Urban Bridgez interview, saying, “Well, a journalist is someone who actually looks for a real story.” She went on to explain, “Not just picking something up off of a blog and not just being some wildcat person with a blog, but someone looking for a real story. Someone who researches the story, talks to people regarding the story and also a journalist is someone who breaks stories.”
Throughout Anthony’s illustrious career, she reported hundreds of exclusives, including the marriages of Mike Tyson and Robin Givens, John McEnroe and Tatum O’Neal, Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, as well as the news that Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were adopting children.
“I’ve broken in roads that will never be broken in again,” she said in the Urban Bridgez interview. “So if I never wrote another sentence or got on radio again in life or got on TV, I would miss it yes but I feel I’ve done a lot of what God put me on this earth to do.”
Anthony is survived by her long-time love, Spinks. Details on additional survivors or memorial plans have not been released.
