Is Erica Lopez Married? What Is Actually Known About the WFAA Journalist’s Personal Life
Erica Lopez has become a familiar television presence through years of morning traffic reporting, anchoring and entertainment coverage. After building her career in Charleston, Birmingham and Denver, she entered a new chapter in early 2026 as a traffic anchor for WFAA’s Daybreak in Dallas–Fort Worth. That growing visibility has naturally led viewers to search for information about her life away from television—especially one question: Is Erica Lopez married?
The most accurate answer is that Erica Lopez’s current marital status has not been publicly confirmed by a reliable source. There is no verified announcement from Lopez, WFAA, her professional website or a reputable news organization establishing that she currently has a husband.
Table of Contents
That distinction matters because several biography websites have claimed that Lopez married a man named Otto Staudt in 2019. Research shows that those pages appear to have confused WFAA journalist Erica Lopez with a different television personality, Erika Lopez, a meteorologist formerly associated with KHOU and KVUE. The latter really did marry Otto Staudt.
This article separates those two women, explains what Erica Lopez herself has publicly revealed, and provides a verified overview of her career and background without turning speculation into biography.
| Quick Bio | Verified information |
|---|---|
| Full name | Erica Lopez |
| Profession | Television journalist, traffic anchor and reporter |
| Current station | WFAA-TV, Dallas–Fort Worth |
| Current program | Daybreak |
| Previous major station | KUSA/9NEWS, Denver |
| Other former markets | Birmingham, Alabama; Charleston, South Carolina |
| Education | Towson University; undergraduate studies at Liberty University |
| Degree | Journalism & New Media |
| College athletics | Cross-country and track at Liberty University |
| Childhood connections | Syracuse, New York, and Maryland |
| Birthplace | Columbus, Ohio |
| Heritage | Colombian through her mother; Italian through her father |
| Marital status | Not publicly confirmed |
Information in this table is based principally on Lopez’s professional website, her 2025 first-person interview with DiningOut and current reporting about her move to WFAA.
Is Erica Lopez married?
As of August 2026, there is no sufficiently reliable public evidence confirming that WFAA traffic anchor Erica Lopez is married.
That does not mean she is necessarily single. It means her current legal or romantic status should not be presented as a fact when she has not publicly established it through a credible source.
Lopez’s own professional website focuses extensively on her broadcasting work, education, interests, charitable involvement, family and friends but does not identify a spouse. It says that outside television she enjoys traveling, hiking, exercising, spending time with friends and family, and being with her two Chihuahuas, Vito and Lala.
A 2025 interview provides one small piece of information about her dating history. While discussing a Denver restaurant, Lopez casually referred to having visited it with “my ex.” That establishes only that she had a previous relationship. She did not identify that person or say whether the relationship had involved marriage.
For that reason, claims that she currently has a husband, is divorced or has a publicly identified boyfriend go beyond what reliable evidence supports.
Is Otto Staudt Erica Lopez’s husband?
No reliable evidence supports the claim that Otto Staudt is the husband of WFAA journalist Erica Lopez.
This is where much of the online confusion originates.
Some celebrity-biography sites claim that “Erica Lopez” married Otto Staudt on September 7, 2019, in Wharton, Texas. One such page even presents the marriage as established fact.
But the original wedding evidence tells a different story.
The wedding website for Otto Staudt identifies his bride as Erika Lopez—with a “k.” More importantly, it describes her as a broadcast meteorologist working for KHOU in Houston. The wedding took place on September 7, 2019, in Wharton, Texas.
That professional description does not match Erica Lopez, the traffic anchor who later worked for KUSA and WFAA.
Contemporary reporting independently confirms the identity of the bride. In April 2019, the Houston Chronicle reported that meteorologist Erika Lopez was joining KHOU after working at KVUE in Austin and noted that she was newly engaged and preparing for her wedding.
The Austin Chamber of Commerce also identifies Erika Lopez as a meteorologist who worked at KHOU before returning to KVUE as chief meteorologist in 2020.
The conclusion is therefore straightforward: Otto Staudt married meteorologist Erika Lopez, not WFAA traffic anchor Erica Lopez.
This is a useful example of why biographies based only on similarly spelled names can spread misinformation.
Who is Erica Lopez?
The Erica Lopez relevant to the search query is an American broadcast journalist currently associated with WFAA-TV in Dallas–Fort Worth.
In January 2026, The Dallas Morning News reported that Lopez had joined WFAA’s morning program Daybreak as its traffic anchor after working at Denver’s KUSA-TV/9NEWS as an anchor and traffic reporter.
By February, industry publication TVNewsCheck listed Lopez alongside Daybreak anchors Dia Wall and Matt Howerton and meteorologists Greg Fields and Mariel Ruiz as part of WFAA’s weekday morning team.
Her professional profile likewise identifies her as an Emmy-winning television anchor with experience in traffic, entertainment and general news.
Where is Erica Lopez from?
Lopez has lived in several parts of the United States, which may explain why different online biographies give conflicting answers about her hometown.
The most useful account comes directly from Lopez herself.
In an October 2025 interview with DiningOut, she said she was born in Columbus, Ohio, where her parents initially lived after marrying. Her family moved when she was young, and she spent much of her childhood in Syracuse, New York. She later spent her high-school and college years in Maryland.
Her own professional website similarly describes Syracuse as the place where she grew up and notes that she spent nearly a decade in the Baltimore area.
Some third-party biography sites publish precise birth years for Lopez, but those sites disagree with one another. Because a dependable primary or major-news source establishing her full date of birth was not found, her exact age should not be treated as publicly verified.
Erica Lopez’s family and heritage
Lopez has publicly discussed her cultural background more openly than many details of her romantic life.
She told DiningOut that her mother is Colombian and her father is Italian. She also described temporarily living in South America when her father was involved in a wholesale flower business sourcing flowers from Colombia.
Her current social-media biography similarly presents her as Colombian and Italian, reinforcing those family connections.
However, detailed biographies of her parents, siblings and wider family have not been extensively documented by authoritative public sources. There is therefore little value in filling those gaps with unsourced names or assumptions.
Her education
Lopez studied journalism before beginning her on-air career.
Her professional résumé states that she earned a bachelor’s degree in Journalism & New Media from Towson University. Before Towson, she undertook undergraduate studies at Liberty University, where she participated in cross-country and track as a Division I scholarship athlete.
In her 2025 interview, Lopez explained that her overall college journey took about six years because she transferred schools before eventually graduating from Towson. She then spent roughly a year in Baltimore before obtaining her first television position.
That combination of competitive athletics and journalism would later fit naturally with a television career requiring unusually early mornings and a fast-paced newsroom environment.
How Erica Lopez started in television
Lopez’s first full-time television job was in Charleston, South Carolina.
She recalled that she worked there for roughly three years, covering traffic while also doing multimedia journalism, breaking-news assignments, field reporting and fill-in anchoring. Her résumé identifies that station as WCIV, where she worked as a traffic anchor and multimedia journalist and occasionally hosted Lowcountry Live.
Before obtaining that position, she had gained newsroom experience at WBAL-TV in Baltimore, including traffic and assignment-desk internships.
Those early roles established the multi-skilled approach that has remained characteristic of her career: Lopez has not worked exclusively as a traffic presenter but has also reported, anchored, interviewed guests and produced television segments.
Birmingham and Good Morning Alabama
After Charleston, Lopez moved to Birmingham, Alabama, where she worked for WBMA.
Her résumé describes her responsibilities as traffic anchoring and reporting, transportation coverage and fill-in news anchoring. She also anchored the 9 a.m. hour of Good Morning Alabama and served as a fill-in host for Talk of Alabama.
One major transportation story during this period involved the closure and reconstruction of an interstate through downtown Birmingham. Lopez produced recurring updates and detour coverage connected with the project.
She remained in Birmingham until the opportunity arose to move into a larger television market.
Erica Lopez at 9NEWS in Denver
Lopez joined KUSA/9NEWS in Denver in August 2020.
She has described the unusual hiring process herself. Because the move occurred during the COVID-19 period, she was hired after remote interviews and accepted the position without previously having visited Denver.
At KUSA, Lopez became a traffic and entertainment anchor and also worked on morning and noon programming. According to her résumé, she developed and produced the entertainment segment E Block, interviewing entertainment figures including Bowen Yang, Ben Affleck, Lily Rabe, LaKeith Stanfield and Ben Higgins.
Her Denver work also extended beyond conventional news coverage. She hosted events connected with Colorado’s restaurant community and served as an emcee for charitable events benefiting Pepper’s Senior Dog Sanctuary. A 2024 announcement from the organization identified Lopez as a 9NEWS host, anchor, reporter and board member.
Her professional site also lists involvement with Heart of Hearing and Pepper’s Senior Dog Sanctuary.
Why she left Denver for WFAA
By early 2026, Lopez had moved from Colorado to Texas.
The Dallas Morning News reported in January that she had joined WFAA’s Daybreak as traffic anchor following her work at KUSA.
Her move placed her in the large Dallas–Fort Worth television market and alongside a revamped morning team. Industry coverage in February confirmed that Daybreak included Lopez on traffic, Dia Wall and Matt Howerton as anchors, and Greg Fields and Mariel Ruiz handling weather.
Her professional identity is consequently now tied primarily to WFAA and North Texas rather than Denver, even though older profiles and her personal résumé may still contain KUSA-era information.
What is known about Erica Lopez’s dating life?
Very little—and that is the key point.
Lopez has made her professional life highly visible while keeping her romantic relationships largely outside her public biography.
The clearest first-person reference found during research comes from her October 2025 interview, in which she mentioned visiting a Denver establishment with an ex-partner. She gave no name or further relationship history.
Therefore:
- A past relationship is publicly acknowledged.
- The identity of that former partner is not established in the cited interview.
- No reliable source reviewed for this article confirms a current husband.
- No reliable source reviewed confirms a current boyfriend or fiancé.
- Claims linking her to Otto Staudt result from confusion with meteorologist Erika Lopez.
Anything more specific would require speculation.
Does Erica Lopez have children?
There is no reliable public confirmation that Erica Lopez has children.
This is another area where name confusion can produce false information. Meteorologist Erika Lopez—the woman married to Otto Staudt—has publicly discussed becoming a parent, but that information belongs to a different person. Reporting about Erika’s later career explicitly discusses her husband and child.
Those details should never be transferred to Erica Lopez of WFAA simply because their names are almost identical.
Why is “is Erica Lopez married” searched so often?
Television personalities occupy an unusual space between journalism and celebrity. Morning anchors in particular appear in viewers’ homes every day, often for years, creating familiarity and curiosity about their lives outside the studio.
Lopez’s increased visibility also contributes to the search interest. She spent more than five years at Denver’s 9NEWS before becoming part of a new WFAA morning lineup in Dallas in 2026.
At the same time, inaccurate biography pages can create a feedback loop. Once one website associates a journalist with a supposed spouse, other websites may repeat the information without checking the original source. In Lopez’s case, checking the supposed 2019 wedding immediately reveals that the bride was Erika Lopez, a KHOU meteorologist, not Erica Lopez of KUSA/WFAA.
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FAQs
Is Erica Lopez married in 2026?
Erica Lopez’s current marital status is not publicly confirmed by a reliable source. No verified WFAA biography, first-person interview or reputable news report reviewed for this article identifies a current husband.
Who is Erica Lopez’s husband?
There is no reliably confirmed husband for WFAA journalist Erica Lopez. Websites naming Otto Staudt appear to be confusing her with meteorologist Erika Lopez, who married Staudt in September 2019.
Does Erica Lopez have a boyfriend?
No current boyfriend has been publicly confirmed through a reliable source. Lopez referred to an ex-partner in a 2025 interview but did not identify that person.
Where does Erica Lopez work now?
She works as a traffic anchor at WFAA-TV in Dallas–Fort Worth, appearing as part of the station’s Daybreak morning team. She joined WFAA after working at KUSA/9NEWS in Denver.
Is Erica Lopez the same person as meteorologist Erika Lopez?
No. They are different television professionals. Erica Lopez is a traffic anchor and journalist associated with KUSA and WFAA. Erika Lopez is a meteorologist who worked for stations including KHOU and KVUE.
Where did Erica Lopez go to college?
Lopez graduated from Towson University with a degree in Journalism & New Media after earlier undergraduate studies at Liberty University, where she competed in Division I cross-country and track.
Is Erica Lopez an Emmy winner?
Yes. Lopez describes herself in her professional résumé as an Emmy-winning anchor, and her current public professional profile continues to use that designation.
Conclusion
The safest and most accurate answer to “Is Erica Lopez married?” is that her current marital status has not been publicly verified.
The widely repeated claim that she married Otto Staudt in 2019 does not survive basic source checking. Otto’s bride was Erika Lopez, a KHOU meteorologist, and contemporary reporting independently confirms Erika’s career and engagement. WFAA journalist Erica Lopez is a different person.
What can be established about Erica Lopez is substantial without inventing a private-life narrative: she is a Towson University graduate, former Division I athlete, Emmy-winning broadcaster and experienced traffic, news and entertainment journalist whose career has taken her from Charleston and Birmingham to Denver and, most recently, WFAA in Dallas–Fort Worth.
Until Lopez herself or another authoritative source publicly confirms a marriage, partner or other change in her relationship status, claims beyond that should be treated as unverified—not as biography.
