In 1987, Rivera began producing and hosting the daytime talk show Geraldo, which ran for 11 years. The show featured controversial guests and theatricality, which led to the characterization of his show as "Trash TV" by Newsweek and two United States senators. One early show was titled "Men in Lace Panties and the Women Who Love Them". In another in 1988, Rivera's nose was broken in a well-publicized brawl during a show whose guests included white supremacists, antiracist skinheads, black activist Roy Innis, and Jewish activists.
From 1994 to 2001, Rivera hosted Rivera Live, a CNBC evening news and interview show which aired on weeknights.

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, he accepted a pay cut and went to work for the Fox News Channel as a war correspondent in November 2001. Rivera's brother Craig accompanied him as a cameraman on assignments in Afghanistan. In 2001, during the War in Afghanistan, Rivera was derided for a report in which he claimed to be at the scene of a friendly fire incident; it was later revealed he was actually 300 miles away. Rivera blamed a minor misunderstanding for the discrepancy.

Controversy arose in early 2003, while Rivera was traveling with the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq. During a Fox News broadcast, Rivera began to disclose an upcoming operation, even going so far as to draw a map in the sand for his audience. The military immediately issued a firm denunciation of his actions, saying it put the operation at risk; Rivera was expelled from Iraq. Two days later, he announced that he would be reporting on the Iraq conflict from Kuwait.

If we talk about the personal life of Mr. Rivera he married five beautiful ladies. Somehow his first four marriages did not last long and he divorced them soon after.  His first wife was Linda Coblentz.  He married Linda in the year 1965 and this relationship lasted for four years, then the couple decided to go their separate ways.  Two years after his first divorce he married Edith and four years later they were divorced.  He did not have any children out of his first two marriages.  He has a son named Gabriel from his third marriage to Sherryl Raymond.  This time his marriage lasted for eight years.  In the year 1987 he married Cynthia and the couple became the parents of two children in the thirteen years of their marriage.  They had two daughters Simone and Isabella.  Geraldo’s fifth wife is Erica and he married her in 2003.  The couple gave birth to a baby girl after two years of their marriage.  They named her Solita.  It is also known that when he was the husband of Cynthia he had an extra-marital affair.  His girlfriend was Mexican American.  He also became the father of Cruz Grant because of this affair.  It might be the reason why Cynthia and Geraldo divorced.   Because of such ups and downs in his personal and professional lives he is always in news.