5 Things to Know About Laura Coates, CNN Host and Former Federal Prosecutor (2024)

Laura Coates is on the rise at CNN, anchoring a new 11 p.m. broadcast called Laura Coates Live and serving as the network's chief legal analyst — in addition to hosting The Laura Coates Show on SiriusXM.

Coates, 43, made the switch to journalism after a successful legal career that led to her serving as a federal prosecutor for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division during the Bush and Obama administrations. Now, she's a mother of two, a wife and a self-proclaimed adventure-seeker — and she goes about her life informed by her thrilling and at times unusual upbringing.

Below, five things to know about CNN host Laura Coates.

Her family moved to Minnesota because of The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Coates didn't always identify as a Minnesotan. As a young child, she lived in Worcester, Massachusetts, where her father was raised and settled down with her mother. But when Coates was in fourth grade, she tells PEOPLE, her father decided he was tired of Worcester and wanted a change.

Her mom, open to the idea of moving, asked where they should go. "He said, 'Well, how about this? We'll turn on the television and wherever that show is based, let's just go there,'" Coates recalls. "And my mom goes, 'Okay, let's try it.'"

They turned the TV on and The Mary Tyler Moore Show was playing. Before the school year even ended, Coates' family had packed up their belongings and headed off for the Twin Cities. "It tells you a lot about my childhood," she says. "We were very adventure-driven in terms of always being open to new experiences, no matter how crazy they sounded."

Coates, who came to consider herself a St. Paul native, says that she was raised to believe in leaps of faith and still views every day as an adventure — a mindset she's tried to pass on to her own children. When things get tough, she looks at a sign in her office that reads, "You're gonna make it after all," an ode to the Mary Tyler Moore theme song.

She moonlit as a stage actress while working as a Justice Department prosecutor

For a portion of her legal career — both at a private practice and as a Justice Department prosecutor — Coates filled her free time with theater. "It was often a secret side," she says. "People knew that I was doing theater, but most didn't believe me."

Coates — who loves to sing but says it's not one of her strengths — starred in productions like Doubt, Little Shop of Horrors, and an all-female version of Reservoir Dogs.

"It was a really great escape from sometimes the most difficult and stressful of cases or topics, to have a moment to see the world through someone else's eyes and figure out, What would I have done in those shoes? And you get to walk in them," she explains.

Coates left her side-career behind when she started raising kids and working for CNN, but still admires stage acting from afar. "I love stories and I love being completely enveloped in the stories," she tells PEOPLE, "and theater gave that opportunity."

Her two older sisters also became lawyers

Coates is the youngest of three sisters, all of whom would go on to become lawyers. She's the tallest of the bunch — measuring at 5'3" — and often gets mistaken for the oldest.

"It's so weird that we're all lawyers, because my sisters and I, we're so much alike but we have such distinct personalities," Coates says, adding that none of them initially planned on entering the profession — but that all of them love to argue.

"I remember my parents were like, 'Couldn't one of you have been an artist? Couldn't one of you have been a dentist?' It almost became a disappointment," she adds. "It tells you a lot about the law and just how expansive it is that our distinct personalities could draw us to the same field and thrive each in our own way."

She's a proudly over-involved mom

Coates and her husband, Dale Gordon, are proud parents to son Adrian, 10, and daughter Sydney, 9 — and when it comes to mothering, Coates says she gets as involved as she can. She served as her daughter's Girl Scouts troop leader, attends (and cries at) their recitals, and is open about the time she was almost kicked out of her son's basketball game for "ever so kindly encouraging" the referee to "take off his blindfold."

Once a week, she also pops into the school cafeteria to eat lunch with them. "My son is now at the phase of asking, 'Could you drop lunch off?'" she says. "He's almost like the Godfather — instead of 'leave the gun, take the cannoli,' he's like, 'Mom, take the kiss, leave the Chick-fil-A.'"

"I just love hearing their conversations. I love putting the face to the name of the stories that they come home and tell me about," Coates says about the thrill of joining her kids for a meal in the cafeteria. "There's food flying and close talkers and there's nothing like listening to what the future is thinking and feeling. I love it."

She met her husband during a law firm orientation — and with only one eyebrow

Coates was having a bad week when she met Dale Gordon, her future husband, in 2007.

She says she had just arrived in New York City for a new job, her movers still hadn't arrived with her clothes, and an esthetician had accidentally waxed off one of her eyebrows. With no time to feel defeated, she bought a last-minute suit at T.J. Maxx, combed her hair in a way that covered her missing eyebrow, and navigated the unfamiliar NYC subways to get to her first day at the law firm — that's where she met Gordon, who had agreed to fill in for a sick colleague and conduct her new hire orientation.

"I had first day jitters and in walks this incredibly handsome man," she recalls. "I never stopped smiling."

She remembers showing Gordon her missing eyebrow, and says it still was love at first sight, setting the tone for an "authentic" relationship. The two were married in 2010.