Alicia Vitarelli Talks Fan Obsessions, Scuba Dresses, and Her Reluctant Main Line Move

Alicia Vitarelli / Photograph by Kyle Kielinski

Alicia Vitarelli may be a New York native, but after 15 years in the city she now calls home, she has fully embraced Philly — and Philly has embraced her right back. Here, she talks meeting the love of her life on the job, her recent (and reluctant) move to the Main Line, and her crazy Super Bowl parade day.

Hi, Alicia. Thanks for text­ing me that you were running late. But I didn’t quite understand the text: “Hi! I am loading this impromptu Oscars prep for L.A. into my car and then I will call you!” And you accompanied that with a photo of a huge pile of boxes. What’s happening here? What’s in the boxes?
Dresses, gowns, and shoes. Management told me three days ago that I am going out to the Oscars this week, so I did an expedited order of stuff and I’m hoping something fits. It’s very exciting. It’s like when you give a kid a blind bag of mystery toys.

Have you been to the Oscars before?
I go every year! The Oscars are my Super Bowl.

Alicia Vitarelli covering the Oscars / Photograph courtesy of Alicia Vitarelli

It’s a little sacrilegious to say that this year, but I get your point. Have you actually seen many of the movies nominated?
I have! I interview a lot of the people in the movies, so I have to watch them. Some are a little artsy this year. Then there’s Wicked, which I saw in the theater three times, and now I own it and may have watched it 35 times. We’re a musical theater household.

This interview won’t come out until after the Oscars, so give me your predictions and we can see how you did.
Oh boy. I actually got to vote in the SAG Awards this year, because I was in an episode of Abbott Elementary and had to join SAG-AFTRA. For Best Picture, you would have thought Emilia Pérez at one time, but then came all that controversy. I’d say The Brutalist or Conclave. But it’s possible for Wicked to pull it out, and if that happens it’s because most of the people voting live in the L.A. area and are excited to celebrate something uplifting, magical, and wondrous in the face of all the horrible devastation caused by the wildfires. The movie is just sheer joy.

I’m sure with the Oscars and the recent Super Bowl and parade coverage, your schedule has been a little hectic. But what does the average day look like?
Wake up at 5:30. I’m at work at 8. I co-anchor the somewhat new Action News at 10 a.m. And then I’m back on Action News at 5 and 5:30.

Alicia Vitarelli with Danny Aiello (left) and Jerry Blavat in 2016 / Photograph courtesy of Alicia Vitarelli

What were the hot topics of conversation this morning?
Hmm. What did we talk about?

It was two hours ago!
[Laughs] Well, since the beginning of this year, the news cycle has been just relentless, for good or for bad. So many national stories affecting people locally, like with all the job cuts. But with 10 a.m., we have more flexibility. It’s more like a conversation. And we get to talk about people like the viral mom telling people what not to bring to her kid’s birthday party. It’s not necessarily lighter, but it’s definitely looser at 10.

Alicia Vitarelli with Action News at 10 a.m. teammates Nydia Han, Karen Rogers, and Alyana Gomez / Photograph courtesy of Alicia Vitarelli

I know you’re not from Philly, but without that knowledge, I would have bet $100 that you grew up in, say, Packer Park. You ooze “Philly.”
[Laughs] We almost lived in Packer Park when we moved here! I’m from New York. I’ve lived in three boroughs, but Staten Island is the one that claims me.

I’ve been to all boroughs except for Staten Island, and all I know about it is that there’s some kind of ferry and Colin Jost is from there. What do I need to know?
It’s the most suburban of the boroughs. You can leave for free, but you have to pay to come back — unless you take that ferry. And there was the infamous dump. Staten Island was pretty much where everyone else in New York City dumped their garbage for many years.

What path led you here?
I went to Villanova for my undergrad in communications and fine arts for musical theater. I left and did graduate work at Northwestern in broadcast journalism. And I soon landed as a general reporter at New York One, where one of my first assignments was 9/11.

Oh my God.
Yes. And I did it all one-man-band, meaning I had to operate my own camera, edit my own tape. Covering 9/11 really taught me to listen to people. Just listen. I talked to survivors, people on the ground looking for missing loved ones. And then I worked for some other stations, and the news director at 6ABC happened to see me in this franchised segment called “On the Road” — I was reporting from New Hope — and DMed me on Facebook asking if I’d want to come to Philly. I’m like, are you kidding me? This is a legacy station. I walk through the door and have Lisa Thomas-Laury welcoming me to the job?! Unreal.

Alicia Vitarelli on senior prom night / Photograph courtesy of Alicia Vitarelli

Where in Philly did you land?
We moved to the Gayborhood, then the Italian Market, then by the Franklin Institute, and we just moved to the Main Line so our daughter could have a back yard. But we are really city people who now find ourselves in the suburbs. We have to figure out how to use a lawn mower. Then there are the nosy suburban neighbors, whereas nobody in the city cares. We could be a TV show. It gutted our daughter to leave the city. That was a reaction my husband and I didn’t expect. We definitely had that moment of Are we doing the right thing here?

You were already familiar with Philly thanks to Villanova,­ but what was it like moving your life here?
Awesome. Amazing. This city is incredible. It wraps its arms around you, it’s easy to navigate, its heart is huge. And the city really flourished between the time that I left Villanova until we came here in 2010. When I was at Villanova, Georges Perrier was king, and Stephen Starr was just getting started. I was actually a server at Rouge under Neil Stein while I was a student here.

Wow. If I’m doing my math correctly, that means you were serving at Rouge when John Bolaris was in his glory days holding court there.
Mm-hmm. And, get this, I was also an intern at NBC10 a couple of years earlier, when he worked there. So … yeah.

I think I’m meant to just let that lie …
[Laughs] But I was a really, really good waitress. Great side hustle for me. I also worked next door at Devon Seafood, where I learned how to debone Dover sole, which remains one of the greatest talents I possess.

Alicia Vitarelli with WDAS’s Patty Jackson / Photograph courtesy of Alicia Vitarelli

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In doing research for this interview, I discovered that your nuptials were covered by none other than the New York Times. Not everybody gets that treatment.
They liked our story: I met him when he was working as my cameraman. Good headline! So we came from the same business and we’re still in the same business. He’s in management at NBC10.

Last time I talked to you, it was 2021, and you had a seven-year-old daughter, who is now a full-blown tween. How’s that going?
She’s such a great kid, calls herself a musical theater nerd. And these 11-year-olds, they like their Starbucks and their Sephora. These kids are living large!

Does having a tween daughter shape the music you’re exposed to?
Oh, believe me, our car playlist is Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Olivia Rodrigo. Last year, we took a bunch of 10-year-olds to see Olivia and Sabrina, and I was like, am I going to get a lot of questions about this? Is this appropriate? Then again, my mom took me to see Dirty Dancing when I was their age. They’ll be all right.

[Woman speaking in Vietnamese in the background of our phone call, as the scratching sound continues]

With a busy husband and a busy daughter, do you get to take any major trips together?
Yes! Last summer, we went to Italy and Greece [Alicia pauses to say something to the woman in the background], and this summer, we’re going back to Spain but then also Italy because this gal can’t pass up the pasta.

Alicia! Are you having a manicure done as we speak?
Yep. I’m telling you: Oscar prep! I’m at Narberth Nails. That’s first. Then a blowout at Drybar. Then a spray tan at Sugared and Bronzed. And naturally I have to get a spray tan, because I’m going to be in L.A. I cannot bring the winter of our discontent with me to the Oscars.

This is definitely a first, having my interviewee getting a manicure. Okay, so as much as I’d like to, I’m not going to ask you to dish on your current colleagues, like, do Cecily­ Tynan and Adam Joseph secretly hate each other­ and —
Let me tell you. They are secretly obsessed with each other.­

That’s all well and good. But what I actually want to know is whether you can verify a rumor that was around pretty rampantly in the past: Did Jim Gardner have a tendency to, well, pardon my French but … fart on set?
OH. MY. GOSH. [Laughs] I was never privy to this. I sit at his old desk now and do feel that the aura of Jim is still with it. He was a super-down-to-earth guy who loved musical theater as well. He and I would have a sing-along of songs from Wicked, and we would annoy literally everybody.

My colleagues and I talk a lot about how obsessed Philadelphians seem to be with local TV news people. Thanks to Google Analytics, we can see what people are reading on our site.

And let me tell you — whether it’s John Bolaris getting kicked out of a Rittenhouse bar (even though he hasn’t been on TV in ages), Cecily Tynan debunking hurricane conspiracy theories, or a post I did introducing people to the station’s latest meteorologist, Payton Domschke — ­it’s just amazing how people devour these stories.

Do you think Philadelphians are uniquely obsessed, or is everyone everywhere obsessed with their local TV people?
Absolutely uniquely obsessed. When I started here, I was warned — I was told that people get very excited about news personalities here. I didn’t think much of it. And then I was on TV twice and went to the Whole Foods on South Street to grab a few things and, wow, people were just staring. I quickly learned that I needed to leave the house with mascara on at least because there would inevitably be selfies. Ninety-nine percent of the time, people are lovely about it.

Alicia Vitarelli / Photograph by Kyle Kielinski

There used to be a few different reporters in Philly who semi-regularly wrote about the local news “celebrities” in town, but I think I’m the only one left.
When I first came here, it snowed, and so for a segment on the snow, I got on a sled and went sledding so we could get that shot. One of the local newspapers actually reported on it! [Laughs] I thought that was so weird.

What’s the craziest thing that’s happened at work recently?
Okay, so every year, we go to Disney on Presidents’ Day weekend to celebrate my daughter’s birthday. We’re a Disney family on both sides. Family from New York comes down. It’s a thing. We had the trip booked for months.

But then the Eagles win the Super Bowl. And then the parade is announced for the Friday of Presidents’ Day weekend. So I flew to Disney with her on Thursday morning, caught a 5 a.m. flight out of Orlando on Friday to cover the parade, and then I flew back after the parade that day and by 8 p.m. was with my family at the Magic Kingdom. I had to walk probably seven miles outside of the parade to finally find an Uber to get me to the airport, but I did it. It was the best level of insanity. I would not have missed that day in Philadelphia for anything. If anyone ever questions my loyalty to Philadelphia, you tell them that.

You’re on TV five nights a week. I can only imagine that you’ve had to endure some of the social media comments about your body, your hair, and your clothing that your peers Cecily Tynan and Karen Rogers have long lamented. Cecily is also well known to engage with her critics. She’s done so many times. Do you?
Okay, so, I have a trick. My trick is that I let the people of Philadelphia do it. And they do. And they will. Now, if I do jump in there to say something myself, I usually just say, “You seem nice.” And leave it at that. But really, Philly is great about handling things like that for me. This city will ride or die for the people they love.

But it’s interesting how people feel empowered to say not-nice things to people they don’t even know.
People just feel like they have a say, because they feel like they know you. I’ve been very open about my endometriosis and infertility and finally having a baby. We have one. We tried for 14 years, only one hit! People feel like they can be like “Only one? That’s so sad!” And I’m like “It’s not sad to us.” Meanwhile I’m looking at them saying, “Why on earth would you have five kids?!” [Laughs]

Alicia Vitarelli with mother Elizabeth Vitarelli / Photograph courtesy of Alicia Vitarelli

Getting back to clothing, I mentioned to a few people that I was interviewing you, and one of them asked a question that I never would have thought to ask: What are your fashion secrets? Where do you get those dresses?
I think part of the reason that I have been so successful in this market is that people see these things I’m wearing, and it’s something that everyday people can look at and say, “She looks like me. … She’s my shape.” I have viewers ask all the time about shapewear, and I’m happy to DM them some tips.

In terms of my dresses, I love the Italian designer Chiara Boni, who makes these gorgeous, totally stretchy scuba-type dresses that are perfect for girls like me who like to eat pasta and drink wine. But they are very expensive, so I try to find them resale online or in consignment shops.

Alicia, you seem to be bursting with energy all the time, always on.
I burn the candle to its core every day. But I am also a hardcore sleeper. I get eight hours and then do it all over again. I run, run, run. But I also love my work. So does my husband. So that makes it a lot easier. But at the end of the day, life is a three-ring circus.­ Sometimes on the weekends we have what we call a “relax day” and just totally veg. Maybe­ play Scrabble.

How’s your game?
I’ve won some Scrabble championships in my time. I’m also a Wordle freak. New York Times crossword puzzles as often as possible.

Alicia Vitarelli’s finished Oscars-worthy manicure / Photograph courtesy of Alicia Vitarelli

I saved the most important question for last: How’s the manicure going?
Just finished! Looks great. You cannot go to the Oscars without a great new manicure. I’m so excited to go out there, but I won’t be able to wait to come home. Philly is just everything. And everywhere. We’re at this cafe in Rome the last day of our trip last year, and around the corner walks this woman wearing an Eagles jersey and she walks up to our table and is like [yells] “I’m from Havertown!” Of course you are. [Laughs] I just feel so lucky that Philly has wrapped its arms around me and keeps squeezing tight. I love this city so much.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Published as “Lights … Camera … Alicia!” in the April 2025 issue of Philadelphia magazine.