Amy Robach says dating T.J. Holmes lets her embrace her 'feminine energy.' He won't let her pay for their dates.

• Amy Robach says she can embrace her feminine energy now that she's dating her former colleague T.J. Holmes.
• "I was always on the other side of things. Always," she said on the June 5 episode of the "Amy and T.J." podcast.

Amy Robach says she rediscovered her "feminine energy" after she started dating her former colleague T.J. Holmes.

In the June 5 episode of the "Amy and T.J." podcast, the couple discussed dating and relationships with guest Thalia Ouimet, a matchmaker.

During the conversation, Ouimet said women should be tapping into their feminine energy to attract a male partner.

"All the power is in the feminine energy," Ouimet told the couple. "When a woman is truly in your feminine energy, it is magnetic, and so many things will happen for you because you're in that abundance receiving mode."

Robach went on to reflect on how she's changed since she started a relationship with Holmes.

"I was always on the other side of things. Always," Robach said in response to Ouimet's take on feminine energy. "For the first time, I am open to that part of me that I haven't been before."

Robach went on to describe what her previous relationships were like.

"I've always been like, no. I'm the doer. I'm the getter. I'm the maker. I'm the creator. I'm the breadwinner, and so it's interesting about accepting and not just accepting, but embracing the other side of yourself in the right relationship," Robach added.

Robach and Holmes were co-hosts on "Good Morning America 3: What You Need to Know." Their relationship became public in November 2022, at a time when they were both still legally married to other people.

Robach and Holmes have said they were already separated from their respective spouses when they started dating. They left ABC News early last year following the scandal.

Not paying for dates

In a May 20 episode of their podcast, Robach said Holmes doesn't let her pay on any of their dates.

"We had a lot of back and forth in the beginning, and it was quite funny because if I tried to pay for some of it or all of it, I
got a Venmo back immediately with an extra five dollars attached,
saying that was funny," Robach said.

Holmes said it's because he still views dating "in a more traditional way."

"From the moment I joined ABC News, you were already there. There's not a moment, a day in our ABC careers, that I made more money than you did," Holmes told Robach on the podcast. "So, but still, once we started dating, you didn't pay for a meal."

"We go to dinner, the man pays. That's just it," he said.

A 2024 survey of 1,070 Americans, conducted on behalf of credit-building platform Self Financial, found that 44.1% of participants believe that whoever earns more should pay for the date, while 35.6% preferred to split the bill equally.

The remaining 20.6% said the person who organized and suggested the date in the first place should be the one who pays.

The idea of embracing feminine energy, which Robach and Holmes discussed with Ouibet on their podcast, is reminiscent of the "high-value dating" trend that first gained traction — and generated controversy — a few years ago on TikTok.

It's been made popular by some influencers who offer dating advice to their followers by teaching them to embrace their femininity in order to attract "high-value" masculine men, per Cosmopolitan.

These influencers, such as Nelly Sudri, post videos encouraging women to adopt behaviors such as letting men pick up the bill and asking men for help in order to attract a male partner to provide for them, take care of them, and let them live a luxurious lifestyle.

There's also Nadeen Hui, who went viral last year for putting her boyfriend on a "performance improvement plan." She, too, creates content around being a "high-value baddie" and offers tips on how women can get the "princess treatment" from the men they date, such as letting men do the "heavy lifting" and "being pleasant to be around."

There are currently over 25.1 million posts available under the search term "high-value dating" on TikTok.

Robach and Holmes did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours via Instagram.