1. Clarissa Ward was born in London to a British father and American mother.
23 Facts About Clarissa Ward
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Clarissa Ward grew up in London and New York City and attended the Godstowe and Wycombe Abbey boarding schools in England.
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Clarissa Ward graduated from Yale University in 2002, and holds an honorary doctor of letters degree from Middlebury College.
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Clarissa Ward began her career as an overnight desk assistant at Fox News in 2003.
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Clarissa Ward worked on the international desk coordinating coverage for stories such as the capture of Saddam Hussein, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and the deaths of Yasir Arafat and Pope John Paul II.
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Clarissa Ward produced coverage of the Israeli-Lebanese war, the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit and subsequent Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip, the trial of Saddam Hussein and the 2005 Iraqi constitutional referendum.
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Clarissa Ward covered the execution of Saddam Hussein, the Iraq War troop surge of 2007, the Beirut Arab University riots and the 2007 Bikfaya bombings.
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Clarissa Ward conducted interviews with notable figures such as Gen.
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Clarissa Ward spent time embedded with the US military in Iraq, most notably in Baqubah.
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From October 2007 to October 2010, Clarissa Ward was an ABC News correspondent based in Moscow.
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Clarissa Ward reported from Russia for all ABC News broadcasts and platforms, including World News with Charles Gibson, Nightline and Good Morning America, as well as ABC News Radio, and ABC News Now.
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Clarissa Ward was in Georgia at the time of the Russian intervention into Georgian territory.
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Clarissa Ward was transferred to Beijing to serve as the ABC News Asian Correspondent, where she covered the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
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Clarissa Ward was a contributor for 60 Minutes and served as a fill-in anchor on CBS This Morning beginning in January 2014.
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On September 21,2015, CNN announced that Clarissa Ward was joining the network and reporting for all of CNN's platforms, and would remain based in London.
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Clarissa Ward was among the journalists who travelled to Ukraine to give insights into the humanitarian situation for children and wounded civilians in Ukrainian hospitals amidst the ongoing conflict.
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Clarissa Ward faced past controversies, including accusations of fabricating a live report and misquoting UN statistics in her coverage of Gaza.
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In December 2024, amidst the fall of the Assad regime, Clarissa Ward was accused of faking an interview with an alleged prisoner of said regime.
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Clarissa Ward received a Peabody Award on May 21,2012, in New York City for her journalistic coverage inside Syria during the Syrian uprising.
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Clarissa Ward has received seven Emmy Awards, an Alfred I duPont-Columbia Silver Baton, and honors from the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association.
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In November 2016, at London's Chelsea Old Town Hall, Clarissa Ward married Philipp von Bernstorff, a German fund manager, whom she had met at a 2007 dinner party in Moscow.
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Clarissa Ward co-founded the Foundation for ARID1B Research after he was diagnosed.
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Clarissa Ward speaks fluent English, French and Italian, conversational Russian, Arabic, and Spanish, and knows basic Mandarin Chinese.