Florence "Flo" Anthony, the entertainment journalist who broke into the male-dominated sports desks of 1980s New York and became one of the most recognisable gossip voices in American media, died on 6 August 2026 of cancer. She was 74. Jack Hirsch, biographer of Anthony's husband, boxer Michael Spinks, confirmed her death to the New York Amsterdam News, which reported the news the same day. Deadline

Born on 4 March 1952 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Anthony began her career not in journalism but in boxing. She worked as a publicist for Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes, and Michael Spinks. Her stint with Holmes ran from 1982 to 1985, covering the period he held the heavyweight crown. She began dating Spinks in 1987, around the time he was IBF heavyweight champion, before he lost the title to Mike Tyson. The couple married in 2026.

Anthony shifted into journalism during the 1980s and joined the New York Post in 1986 as an agate clerk — an entry-level role compiling sports scores and results. She rose to become the first woman staffer in the paper's sports and entertainment department and its Page Six column, the Post's famed celebrity-gossip fixture.

Television widened her reach. Anthony was a regular contributor and sometimes co-host on E!'s The Gossip Show for its entire 1993–98 run. She appeared on talk programmes hosted by Geraldo Rivera, Sally Jessy Raphael, Maury Povich, Joan Rivers, and Ricki Lake — a roster that placed her on daytime television sets across the country.

On radio, she hosted nationally syndicated segments called Gossip to Go With Flo and Flo Anthony's Big Apple Buzz. In print, her widely read gossip columns appeared in magazines including the National Examiner. She also served as publisher and editor-in-chief of Black Noir magazine and editor-in-chief of Black Elegance magazine. Legacy.com

Her weekly column, Go with the Flo, launched early this century in the New York Amsterdam News — one of the oldest Black newspapers in the United States — and in syndication. The column was still running as recently as April 2026, when she filed a piece on Devin Hester at the Heinz 57 Red Carpet. Anthony also co-authored with Hirsch the book Michael "Jinx" Spinks: An Authorized Biography.

Beyond reporting, Anthony wrote five novels: Keeping Secrets, Telling Lies, Deadly Stuff Players, One Last Deadly Play, and Last Call for a Deadly Diva. She remained a longtime columnist for the Amsterdam News until her death. New York Amsterdam News

Anthony is survived by her husband, Michael Spinks.