ABC’s David Muir Pulls Back the Curtain on His Life Off Camera and How He Feels About His ‘Daddy’ Status (Exclusive)

David Muir is more than what meets the eye.

Yes, he’s the most-watched news anchor in America, helming the news desk of ABC’s World News Tonight since 2014. He’s covered dozens of worldly events, from the killing of Osama bin Laden to reporting live from Vatican City as Cardinal Robert Prevost became the 267th pope of the Roman Catholic Church.

He’s also helped set an all-time record of $9 million in donations raised for the World Food Program through his reporting on climate change from South Sudan and Madagascar. And most recently, he was named to the 2025 Time 100 list, honored with a tribute by his friend and mentor Diane Sawyer.

But despite all of his accomplishments and lengthy tenure in journalism, Muir, 51, says he’s still most himself in a setting far from the newsroom.

“I’d say my most comfortable element is being outside, covered in mud like this weekend,” he tells PEOPLE in an interview on May 27, following his Memorial Day weekend trip to his hometown in upstate New York. “It was pouring rain and I loved every second of it.”

It’s a side that Muir doesn’t always get to show off when he’s reporting the news — but one that continuously makes him feel whole and reconnected to his roots

“I have a German short-haired pointer, and for him, the biggest event of the weekend was discovering there was a beaver who had begun to build a dam inside the little boathouse,” he says. “So I spent more time at nightfall standing on the dock with the dog who was waiting for a glimpse of this beaver coming out of the boathouse than I did doing anything else.”

“When you’re out there on the lake, smelling the same air that you smelled when you were on your BMX bike back when you were a kid, there’s something really fueling about that and connected about it. You just feel like you’re home again,” he adds. “I couldn’t have been happier.”

Looking back on his roots, it’s no surprise that Muir was destined to be where he is today, especially since he grew up idolizing anchors that came before him.

“I was a nerd who felt this gravitational pull to the news, starting back when I was 12 years old,” he says. “I remember being outside, playing with the rest of the kids in the neighborhood and being the only kid who would go inside when the local news came on, and then watching Peter Jennings, who I thought was sort of the James Bond of the evening news, the globetrotter.”

To Muir, Jennings represented an “opportunity to get out there beyond your backyard and see the world.” It was an idea that Muir found enticing. “There was always this incredible pull,” he says.

After realizing he wanted to pursue journalism, Muir says he started “writing letters to the local reporters in my town.” When they responded with offers for internships, he leapt at the opportunity.

“I began interning, carrying all the equipment — and back then the equipment was huge and heavy — and I’d jump into the back of the cruiser and I was honestly the happiest kid,” he recalls. “Most kids were looking forward to summer vacation and I couldn’t wait to get into the back seat of that cruiser all over again.”

“All these years later, I look back on that as a defining moment in my life,” he adds. “I dove headfirst and I was just lucky enough to have people around me who weren’t turned off by the kid intern.”

After graduating from Ithaca College with a degree in journalism, Muir’s career took off as he started working at local news stations in Syracuse and Boston.

In 2003, he joined ABC News as an anchor of World News Now and has remained there ever since, working his way up the ranks before succeeding Sawyer on World News Tonight in September 2014.

Still, Muir can’t believe his fate. “It’s funny because [Sawyer] would tell you, and has told me, ‘I’m not your mentor. I’m your friend. I’m your colleague. We’re both reporters.’ And I still remember the first morning I reported to that studio in Times Square, sitting next to Diane Sawyer. And I remember looking at her and I couldn’t believe she was sitting in the chair next to me.”

Now going on his eleventh year at World News Tonight, Muir believes audiences truly know who he is at his core — but he does have one (or two!) secrets to divulge.

“I generally have jeans on from the waist down,” he admits of his attire for newscasts. “So the first thing that we try to do is make sure my jeans aren’t showing… I really don’t try to take myself too seriously but I always just joke, ‘Don’t tell anyone about the jeans and the boots!'”

He also admits to double-checking the date with his floor director Michelle before going on the air. “Because the news is hitting us at lightning speed, I literally will say just before we come on, ‘It’s great to have you Shelly on a Tuesday night?’ And she says, ‘Yes, David, it’s Tuesday,'” he says with a laugh.

When asked about his devoted fanbase — particularly those who share thirst edits on TikTok (there’s even a Tumblr Page called “Gimme Gimme Muir“) — Muir can’t help but laugh and take it in stride.

“People will forward TikTok videos, but only because they are laughing out loud at them and making fun of me and saying, ‘When did you become Daddy?’ So I don’t know whether that happens when you hit 50 or what, but I’ll take it as a compliment, I think,” he jokes. “Anyone who works with me knows that I am so uncomfortable even having to put on the tux. So the fact that I survive those events is still a surprise to me without looking like a total nerd.”

“So maybe it’s lost on me, but I guess Daddy’s better than the alternative,” he adds with a laugh.

Despite the online interest, he says it’s actually his dog, Axel, that his fans may love more than him.

“I love when people come up to me and interact because I feel like if they’re going to be with me every night on the news, they do know me and they have every right to come up and sort of check in with me,” he says. “But I have a dog walker who has been with me for six years now. And so I love the stories of even when the dog walker is out in public, people will say, ‘Is that David Muir’s dog?’ It kind of puts it all in perspective. The dog is always the most important.”

“I think [he’s] more [famous],” he says of his pup’s fame. “He deserves to be. And he has no idea which makes it even more special.

With so many boxes checked off in his life, what’s next for Muir? He has one simple answer.

“I think it’s really important to continue to try being better,” he says. “The moment you stop learning, the moment you’re no longer curious, the moment you don’t believe you can be better than you were a night ago or a week ago, is probably a time to sort of check yourself.”

“I still feel like I’m that kid racing into that local newsroom all those years ago,” he continues. “I love this job. I love the people that I interview and get to meet, and I think that journalism is more important than ever.”