Tragic Details About The View Star Sunny Hostin's Life

"The View" co-host Sunny Hostin's tragic childhood molded her into the strong person she is today. During a 2020 appearance on ABC's "Windy City LIVE," she shared that her parents, who were just teens when they had Hostin, struggled to make ends meet and sometimes even had to forego certain necessities like food and hot water. However, in the former prosecutor's 2024 interview with Diversity Woman Magazine, she recalled how her parents left no stone unturned to make her happy. Whenever they went out for a meal, they let little Hostin order whatever she wanted off the menu and only chose items that were within the remaining budget for themselves. 

Elsewhere, when the journalist appeared on "Tamron Hall" in November 2019, she revealed that her life was irrevocably altered when Hostin witnessed her beloved uncle being stabbed to death as a 7-year-old child. The TV personality was also left to deal with the complex emotions from the harrowing incident on her own because her family didn't seem to want to talk about it at all. Additionally, the man who stabbed her uncle never faced any consequences for his actions.

"I remember being in law school thinking, 'I want to be a prosecutor. I don't want to be a defense attorney. I want to get the guy that did that to my uncle,'" Hostin explained to Hall, per People. "And as a journalist, I wanted to give voice to the voiceless. I wanted to tell those stories." As a result, she studied journalism and later earned her law degree too. While Hostin eventually worked as a federal prosecutor and later snagged a spot on "The View," her struggles were far from over.

During a January 2021 episode of "The View," Sunny Hostin announced that her husband, Emmanuel Hostin's, parents had passed away from complications due to COVID-19. Their family had to endure the loss of his father on December 28, 2020, almost immediately followed by his mother on January 1, 2021. Sunny revealed that her in-laws were both physicians who took the pandemic very seriously and socially distanced as much as possible, so nobody could understand where they even contracted the virus. However, during a 2022 episode of "The View," Sunny asserted, "I blame the Trump administration for [their deaths]," per Fox News. 

When her co-host Joy Behar asked the legal consultant if Donald Trump could face legal consequences for the numerous deaths caused by the COVID-19 virus, she stated that her family had considered taking the president to court over her in-laws' deaths. However, they had ultimately decided against it because it would be a lost cause from the get-go due to Trump's considerable presidential privileges. While losing her in-laws during the pandemic within such close proximity to each other was undoubtedly difficult, Sunny still managed to find a silver lining in the support her co-hosts showered her with. 

The former prosecutor thanked each of them personally. "Whoopi [Goldberg], for sending so much food for several weeks," Sunny began, per People. She continued, "Ana [Navarro] for calling us and giving us all of the information that you gained when Al was battling this virus." Sunny also thanked Meghan McCain for giving her a break from the grief with pop culture updates and Behar for bringing some joy to the dark times with her sense of humor.

In January 2025, Sunny Hostin's husband and orthopedic surgeon, Emmanuel Hostin, found himself in scandalous legal trouble when American Transit, an insurance group that primarily handles healthcare claims from rideshare drivers, sued him. In court documents obtained by Us Weekly, Emmanuel was accused of federal insurance fraud for allegedly intentionally providing "fraudulent medical and other healthcare services including arthroscopic surgeries to Covered Persons through Hostin Orthopedics." Additionally, the Daily Mail also reported that Emmanuel had demanded payments from American Transit "in exchange for kickbacks and/or other compensation which were disguised as dividends or other cash distributions." 

The healthcare professional's lawyer, Daniel Thwaites, wrote off all of the insurance company's claims as categorically false. The TV show host with a gorgeous husband later shared a statement with Entertainment Weekly to proclaim that she had Emmanuel's back no matter what. The "View" co-host claimed that the nearly bankrupt American Transit was trying to weasel their way out of making the payments they promised to the people they covered. Sunny further alleged that the insurance company had "used my celebrity status to start a disgusting media smear campaign against my husband" and "[harassed] me and my family in a frantic attempt to not pay its bills." 

Further, she revealed that they had sent the company notice and were looking into filing a $5 million defamation countersuit against them to boot. According to Fox News sources, Emmanuel's lawsuit caused a major stir at "The View's" network, ABC News', office leading to several meetings to discuss the best steps going forward. 

While she's widely known as Sunny Hostin, the TV personality's real name is actually Asunción Cummings. During a 2020 chat with People, the former prosecutor revealed that her Court TV colleague Nancy Grace had suggested she use a nickname like Sunny because she had such a tough time pronouncing her real name. Hostin was in the early days of her career and understandably wanted to get ahead, so she decided to take Grace's advice. However, in her interview with Good Housekeeping that same year, Hostin admitted that she profoundly regretted the name change because it dishonored her multicultural Puerto Rican, African American and, Jewish roots. 

"I don't know why in that moment I disregarded everything about myself, and everything my family instilled in me about being proud of my name, my heritage, my culture and my family," she confessed. "But all of a sudden, people remembered my name. I got called back over and over again." The situation was made significantly worse by the heartbroken look in her grandmother's eyes when she broke the news to her. 

The choice also had long-term negative consequences for her career. Hostin faced constant questions about her identity that would likely have never arisen if she still had her given name. Sadly, as she told People, the TV personality struggled with her identity throughout her life because neither her Puerto Rican family nor her Black family saw her as one of their own because she didn't resemble either ethnicity closely enough.

During Sunny Hostin's 2020 People interview, the lovable TV star acknowledged that although she generally liked to keep a low profile when she was out and about, Hostin didn't mind being recognized either because it made her less likely to face racism. The journalist detailed that, while wearing low-key attire while shopping a few years prior, the owners had eyed her with suspicion and even believed she was attempting to shoplift because of their racial prejudice. Hostin has also reportedly been the subject of racist remarks in the workplace. In 2020, HuffPost published a report detailing ABC News executive Barbara Fedida's countless racially insensitive comments over the years. 

Additionally, the article's author took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to allege that Fedida has called Hostin "low rent." While addressing the offensive comments in a 2020 chat with Entertainment Tonight, Hostin confirmed that although she frequently stood up for others who endured racism, she still grappled with the fact that she had experienced it, too. The talk show host's mind would often be filled with thoughts like: "'Wow, I feel like I'm being treated a little differently and I feel like maybe it's because of my race, and I feel like maybe I'm being discriminated against, and maybe I'm being paid less too,' I kept on pushing it back and it all came crashing down." 

Fortunately, once an internal investigation found that Fedida likely made the offensive remarks in question, Hostin realized it wasn't all in her mind and used that knowledge to write the foreword of her memoir "I Am These Truths."

During Sunny Hostin's 2020 appearance on "Windy City LIVE," she openly discussed dealing with infertility, including going through IVF treatments and enduring five miscarriages in her journey to motherhood. As a result, she had to be extremely cautious when she got pregnant with her son and had to remain on bed rest for nearly her entire term. Sunny admitted that she "fell into a deep depression" because of her infertility struggles and was ashamed of them as a result. 

After a grueling journey that lasted several years, she and Emmanuel Hostin finally welcomed Gabriel "Gabe" Hostin, followed by his sister Paloma Hostin. But her problems still persisted. While speaking to People in 2020, Sunny recalled how she had to have some heartbreaking conversations with her kids about racism, sharing, "We started them with our son: People will perceive you, because of your skin and your height, as a threat. He's this big ball of love, and he's like, 'Me?'" 

The conversations only got tougher as Gabe grew older, as she advised him to wear his Harvard shirt when he went on runs around their neighborhood because she didn't want their predominantly White neighbors to assume he was a trespasser. Sunny's son Gabe lives a pretty normal life and her daughter is following in his footsteps. During a 2024 episode of "The View," Sunny revealed, "I got to drop off my daughter at college and become an empty nester. And I'm a mess, I'm in grief," (via People).