Richard Engel (NBC News) Salary, Son, Wife. What is he doing?

• Richard Engel is a journalist and author known for his stories covered for the American TV network NBC News.
• He attended Stanford University and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in international relations in 1996.
• He escaped kidnapping multiple times while covering the Iraq War and was nearly shot while reporting on the Libyan Civil War from Benghazi.
• He has married twice and is currently married to Mary Forrest and they have two sons together.
• Richard’s net worth is estimated at more than $4 million.

Known for movies

NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (2003-2017)
as Himself - Chief Foreign Correspondent / Himself -

Today (2008-2016)
as Himself - Chief Foreign Correspondent / Himself -

Meet the Press (2006-2016)
as Himself / Himself - Chief Foreign Correspondent /

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (2006-2013)
as Himself / Himself - Guest

Who is Richard Engel?

Richard was born in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, New York City, USA, on 16 September 1973 – his zodiac sign is Virgo, and he holds American nationality. He’s a journalist and author, who’s probably known best for the stories which he has covered for the American TV network NBC News, especially for being the networks’ chief foreign correspondent.

Early life and education

Richard was raised in Manhattan alongside his brother David, who’s today working at New York Presbyterian Hospital as a cardiologist, by their Swedish mother Nina who was the owner of an antiques store, and their American father Peter Engel who worked as a financier at the American multinational investment bank The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.

Richard struggled to keep up with schoolwork while attending the college preparatory school Riverdale Country School in New York City, and it was while at a wilderness survival camp that he learned about being a leader, and being independent. His grades then improved and he became somewhat popular amongst his peers; he was then chosen to spend a year studying in Italy, where he became fluent in Italian, and fell in love with the country’s culture.

Upon matriculating in 1992, Richard enrolled at Stanford University and began contributing to their newspaper “The Stanford Daily”. He spent a summer as an unpaid intern at CNN Business News, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in international relations in 1996.

Career as a journalist

Richard moved to Cairo, Egypt after he graduated, believing that it was the place where the next big story would happen. He went on to learn Egyptian Arabic, living in a seven-story building with no elevator; he ended up spending four years working as a freelance reporter in Cairo.

He was then hired by the US public radio news magazine “The World” as their Middle East correspondent, a job which he held from 2001 to 2003. Richard then began reporting for the weekly magazine “Jane’s Defence Weekly”, “Reuters” and the American daily newspaper “USA Today”, and during the US invasion of Iraq, he also worked for ABC News.

He became the Beirut bureau chief and senior Middle East correspondent in May 2006, and mostly focused on covering the war between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon.

He joined NBC News as their chief foreign correspondent in April 2008, and the following month saw him interview the then US President George W. Bush; most of the interview was about the war in Iraq, and Bush’s speech to the Israeli Knesset.

Richard then covered the 2009 presidential election in Kabul, Afghanistan, and two years later the Egyptian revolution, and was nearly shot while reporting on the Libyan Civil War from Benghazi. For Richard’s subsequent coverage of the city of Mogadishu in Somalia as the ‘world’s most dangerous city’, he was nominated for an Emmy Award for News and Documentary.

The year 2012 saw him cover the Israel-Gaza conflict, the violence in Syria, and the election of President Mohamed Morsi in Egypt in June.

Since 2017, Richard has been hosting the MSNBC special series “On Assignment with Richard Engel”, for which he won a Peabody Award in 2019.

Notable stories

In March 2003, Richard was amongst only a couple of Western journalists who remained in Iraq, as other networks had pulled their employees from the country. He was the only American TV correspondent to stay in Baghdad during the entirety of the war, covering all the major milestones, including the execution of Saddam Hussein; during his time in Iraq, Richard escaped kidnapping multiple times, and survived several bombings and ambushes.

He then went on to cover the War in Afghanistan, and often travelled to the ‘valley of the death’ – the Korangal Valley. Richard covered the firefights between the US and Taliban forces in Korangal, and his show “Tip of the Spear” about these encounters won him a George Foster Peabody Award in 2008.

He covered the Arab Spring uprisings in Syria, Tunisia and Egypt, amongst other countries, and in 2012 received an Alfred I. du-Pont-Columbia Award for his coverage of these events.

On 13 December 2012, Richard and his team of five people were kidnapped in Syria. They escaped five days later, and Richard then stated that he believed they were kidnapped by a Shabiha group, and that they were freed by the Ahrar al-Sham group.

Love life and wife

Richard has married twice. He exchanged vows with his first wife sometime in the ‘90s, but Richard has kept her name and profession away from the media’s attention. They met while they were both attending Stanford University, but divorced in 2005 for unknown reasons; they didn’t have children together, and while this is believed to be because they both wanted to focus on their careers, some of Richard’s fans have claimed that his wife was perhaps infertile.

He married his second wife, the American TV producer Mary Forrest in May 2015, in a private ceremony attended by only the closest of their friends and family members; Mary gave birth to their first son in 2015, while their second son followed in August 2019.

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A post shared by Richard Engel (@richardengelnbc)

As of April 2022, Richard is married to his second wife Mary Forrest, and they have two sons together.

Hobbies and interesting facts

Richard is also an author, having co-written the book “Defeating ISIS: Who They Are, How They Fight, What They Believe” in 2016, while his first solo book “And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East” was published in the same year.

He’s quite active on Instagram, and seems to be enjoying the attention which he’s receiving from his more than 15,000 followers; Richard has uploaded nearly 200 pictures onto his account, most of which serve to break various news to his fans.

He nowadays spends most of his spare time with his wife and sons, but still likes to travel; the family has vacationed in a couple of US states, while Richard often travels to Asia for work.

He enjoys watching Hollywood movies – his favorite actor and actress are Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie, while a couple of his favorite films include “Good Will Hunting”, “Jason Bourne” and “The Talented Mr. Ripley”.

Age, height and net worth

Richard’s age is 48.He has short brown hair and brown eyes, his height is 6ft (1.85m) and he weighs around 175lbs (80kgs).

As of April 2022, Richard’s net worth is estimated at more than $4 million.