Despite being one of the most successful and highest-paid anchors at Fox News, Bill Hemmer is no stranger to tragedy. Like many of his colleagues, he suffered a personal loss following the death of his father, William R. Hemmer, in 2025 in their native city of Cincinnati. He was 85 years old. Bill has often spoken about his father’s influence throughout his life during interviews. Speaking of his parents, he told Business Insider in 2020, “They allowed us to step on our own pile, to figure out how to clean it up on our own.” He confirmed the family loss through a touching tribute he shared on Instagram, writing, “I loved this man and every single moment I had with him.” A retired sales executive for a mattress company, William left behind his wife of 63 years, along with five children and several grandchildren.
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But the death of his father isn’t the only tragedy Bill has had to endure. Having worked at Fox since 2005, the veteran newscaster has covered dozens of major news stories, many of which have stuck with him long after the cameras stopped rolling. Some were more traumatic than others. “I would find myself closing my eyes at nighttime at the end of another long day, and the images, as searing as they were, would come flooding back into [my] brain,” he shared during a chat with Mediabistro. Bill, who is among the least shady Fox News anchors, had to pull himself out of that headspace before his thoughts took over and threatened to consume him. “Those are dark places. They would literally get under your skin.” But of all the tragedies he witnessed during these assignments, there’s one he could never quite forget.
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Hemmer was traumatized by the 2010 earthquake in Haiti
For Bill Hemmer, it was the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti that ravaged the country and left thousands of people dead that hit him the hardest. “It was the one story that haunted me the most. And usually, I can shake it off after 48 hours,” he told Mediabistro in 2012. “Honestly, it wasn’t the dead that you had to deal with. … It was the living that haunts you.”
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Reporting live on the aftermath of the earthquake, he witnessed firsthand how dozens of locals scrambled to seek medical help amid all the chaos and destruction. One woman who sustained injuries had to be sewn up without some form of anesthetic due to the lack of necessary supplies there. “That mosaic of human drama, I think, is something that played back in my mind,” said Hemmer. “And, in all likelihood, played back in the minds of everybody else.”
Though the news anchor may be at the top of his game today, there was a point in time when he almost considered throwing in the towel after experiencing a mid-life crisis. He was 26 when he quit his job as a local reporter to experience life beyond the newsroom and discover the rest of the world. During one of his escapades, Hemmer had a frightening encounter with a pack of stray dogs in the West Bengal city of Kolkata, India. He also traveled through countries like China, Egypt, Vietnam, and Russia. “I felt the walls in my world were going to cave in around me if I didn’t get this thing done,” he told Business Insider. “The only thing I thought for sure was that I could not afford to turn the age of 30 without seeing what was out there.”
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