ITV to celebrate Lorraine Kelly’s 35 years in broadcasting

September 19, 2019

ITV Daytime will celebrate the queen of morning television later this month.

Lorraine on GMTV.

Lorraine Kelly’s 35 years in broadcasting will be celebrated with a special anniversary show on ITV later this month. The programme will be packed with surprises – for the viewers and for Lorraine – and will include newly created opening credits, celebrity guests, a montage of some of the highlights of her TV career and a look at some of her most daring fashion moments.

To celebrate this milestone in broadcast journalism, which has seen Lorraine awarded three-lifetime achievement awards this year, ITV have compiled a list of some of her most memorable moments on the sofa.

Lorraine became a famous breakfast face on TV-am’s Good Morning Britain in the 1980s, before heading to GMTV to host Top of the Morning, and later, the main morning programme. She then launched her own series which has had several names including LK Today, Lorraine Live and currently just simply Lorraine. Kelly also had a spell as a main host on This Morning in the 2000s, presenting Friday’s with Phillip Schofield. In the 2010s as well as her own morning show she also co-hosted breakfast slot Daybreak alongside Aled Jones.

A proud scot Lorraine has also hosted several programmes for STV, the Channel 3 broadcaster in Scotland, including primetime game show The Cash Machine.

Lorraine Kelly on the set of This Morning.

Aled Jones and Lorraine Kelly host Daybreak.

ITV Daytime’s Lorraine Highlights

During her long reign as the Queen of Breakfast TV, there’s hardly any celebrity Lorraine hasn’t interviewed. The Scottish presenter has been serenaded by Jeff Goldblum, and Oprah Winfrey has showered her with praise, telling Lorraine: “You’re such a good interviewer, do you know how you’re a good interviewer? When it doesn’t feel like an interview!” Hollywood legend Tom Hanks ribbed her about her Scottish accent, saying: “Your fabulous voice! It’s like little happy Scot is going to make us feel good about everything lovely.” Actress Anna Kendrick said: “Can I say how much better you’ve made all morning TV for me now.”

Nothing seems to faze Lorraine who has run four marathons (three in London and one in New York) to raise funds for breast cancer charities and the British Heart Foundation. In 2011, she joined a group of celebrities trekking across an African desert for Comic Relief. Thrill-seeking Lorraine has also taken to a zip wire and proved that the sky’s the limit when she flew in a fighter jet, fulfilling a lifelong dream. She explained: “I remember telling my careers officer that I wanted to be a fighter pilot in the RAF. I got short shrift as this was the 70s and women weren’t exactly encouraged to fly.” When she was invited to fly in a jet to mark Armed Forces Day in 2010 she said it was “one of these amazing experiences that money can’t buy. It was mind-blowing stuff.”

Lorraine hosts her own morning show on ITV.

Lorraine hosts GMTV with Eamonn Holmes in the 1990s.

Over the years, Lorraine has rode a blow-up unicorn with Dr. Hilary, danced the ‘Baby Shark’ with fashion guru Mark Heyes and dressed up as Wonder Woman before interviewing Lynda Carter, who played the superhero. Lynda joked: “I have been known by the character of Wonder Woman for 35 years and all that time I have never seen anybody do that! You go girl! Fabulous! I love it, it’s the best thing I’ve ever seen, I love it.” Lorraine has also dressed up as Ab Fab’s Eddie, Mrs. Claus, Lady Gaga and an Irish dancer! And who can forget her dancing on the banks of the Thames to the Maroon 5 track ‘Moves Like Jagger’ at the age of 55?

One of the interviews that certainly left Lorraine buzzing was when she met astronaut Buzz Aldrin. She explained: “It was unbelievable to actually get to talk to somebody like that because I’m a huge, huge fan… But it was the worst interview I’ve ever done. I just kept going ‘Oh my God, Oh my God.’ I was fan-girling over him.” She also has a soft spot for George Clooney: “When I interviewed him I was struck by how self-deprecating and friendly he was to everyone,” she said. Lorraine is a seasoned broadcaster, but admits that some interviews have been tough. She interviewed Kevin Spacey before there were public allegations against him, and she described him as: “rude and dismissive not just to me, but to everybody in the room. He was very entitled and I was disappointed in him.”

Her own series has had several names over the years starting with Top of the Morning, LK Today, Lorraine Live, GMTV with Lorraine and Lorraine.

Lorraine Kelly on the set of TV-am.

Having racked up more TV hours than almost anyone else, there are bound to be the odd slip up on air. Lorraine remembers one time when she was walking across the studio and speaking to the camera when she missed a step and fell over live on screen. She says: “I had high heels on and I was introducing my next guest, Jane Asher. I fell down flat on my face, ripped all my tights and my knees were bleeding. So I sat and did an interview with Jane with my knees bleeding like a seven-year-old.” Meeting the Spice Girls on live TV also led to an unexpected moment as she attempted to wear a pair of their trademark platforms. Lorraine explains: “I was interviewing the Spice Girls and they gave me a pair of giant platforms to wear. I did a high kick and showed my underpants – clean, white Marks & Spencer ones, thank you very much.”

Piers Morgan admitted he was pea green with envy when he found out about Lorraine’s second lifetime achievement award earlier in the year, confessing: “There comes a point when there are only so many lifetime achievement awards I can stomach… and I have reached my limit.” But that didn’t stop him from presenting her THIRD Outstanding Achievement gong at the recent TV Choice Awards. He praised Lorraine’s “ferocious hard work and dedication” which he said made her like The Queen. He added: “She’s been a consistently calming, cheering and sometimes consoling influence in our lives, someone who we can rely on whatever the weather or global turmoil. But as with Her Majesty, never make the mistake of underestimating her. Beneath that cheeky grin and sunny attitude lies a fiercely professional and experienced journalist who cut her reporting teeth on massive news stories like Dunblane and the Lockerbie disaster.”

The special edition of Lorraine will air at 8:30am on ITV on 30th September 2019.