ITV's Lorraine Kelly reveals 4-word career secret that helped boost her career

An ITV special on Wednesday night celebrates Lorraine’s 40 years on TV, and explains there is more to her career than that

Friendly, down-to-earth and ­inquisitive is how friends at ITV describe Lorraine Kelly, and those characteristics are some of the reasons for her four decades on the screen.

Or as Lorraine herself bluntly puts it: “I’m just basically nosy.” She explains: “I don’t think I’ve changed in 40 years. I still think of myself inside as that kid who came down to London, thinking, wow, this is amazing. I think I will always have that curiosity. It is what keeps me young. I love that I learn something new every day. There’s not many jobs it happens in, so I’m very lucky.”

An ITV special tomorrow night celebrates Lorraine’s 40 years on TV, and explains there is more to her career than that. She spent five years as a newspaper reporter prior to heading into TV and remains an accomplished journalist – even if she appears to many to be just enjoying a chat on the sofa.

Lorraine was born in Glasgow on November 30, 1959, to teenage parents in the tough Gorbals area. They moved to the Bridgeton district when she was two but they did not have much and slept in the same bedroom.

“Mum and Dad taught me to read before I went to school,” says Lorraine. “There were always things to read in our house, all different kinds of subject. I always find it weird going into a house where there are no books.”

At Strathclyde primary, Lorraine ­flourished in English and she has fond memories of the library opposite which made her “curious about the world”. She was all set to head to university to read English and Russian but was stopped in her tracks by an advert in the East Kilbride News: “It said, ‘opportunity for a junior reporter’.

And something just clicked. I thought, I won’t have a chance but I’ll apply. Amazingly, I got the job. I didn’t really have a plan as such.” Her mum Anne recalls: “She did that and liked it and that was it, university out the window. She thoroughly enjoyed it.”

Talking to people to pick up stories came easily to Lorraine. She had her own column and was so good that after five years she left for a job on the BBC as a researcher. When a boss there told her she was “never going to make it on television” due to her accent, she did not let it deter her and applied for a new morning ITV show called TV-am.

Lorraine promptly landed a spot as their Scottish correspondent. She says: “What I liked about TV-am was the fact they were a bit maverick, because nobody knew whether breakfast television was actually going to work. The job was amazing. I got to cover absolutely everything. And I loved the fact that you could kind of be yourself.”

Lorraine received praise for her coverage of the Lockerbie tragedy and other high-profile events. “Not only was it the best job in the world, one morning in walks Stephen Smith, our new member of the crew. I just looked at him and I thought ‘He’s the one’. I knew right away. We just clicked.”

The pair married in 1992 and have remained inseparable ever since, sharing a love of travelling, and collecting fridge magnets wherever they go. Lorraine, 64, has had one break from ITV when she gave birth to her daughter Rosie, which led to her being replaced on GMTV, which had taken over from TV AM while she was off.

Two weeks before she was due to return she got a call saying ‘thanks very much but we’ve got someone else’. “I’d just got this massive mortgage and this tiny baby. The bottom just dropped out my world. What do I do now?”

A few months later, a baby food manufacturer, which was sponsoring a new mother-and-baby segment on ITV, asked Lorraine to host it. “It was a lovely little show. It did well. That led on to me coming back with my own show later in the morning. It worked out fine, but it was scary.”

Since that brief break in 1994, Lorraine has had her own show after GMTV and now GMB. She has interviewed everyone from prime ministers to George Clooney, and her journalistic background means she always entertains and elicits new information.

Piers Morgan says: “Lorraine is an iron fist in a velvet glove. She creates a persona that people think is very benign, very nice, very smiley but underneath it is a proper journalist.”

And if she forgets to ask a question her mum calls to give her constructive criticism. Lorraine, who was made a CBE in 2021, says: “I don’t have scripts. I just write down bullet points of the way that I’d quite like the interview to go.

“It’s really instinctive. I just make sure that I’ve done as much preparation as I can. I’m not a fan of the gladiatorial style of interview. You don’t get enough information, particularly from a politician, if you never give them a chance to talk.”

Asked for her highlight, she says: “Interviewing Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, was incredible. I watched the moon landings and I’m a total space geek. At TV-am I interviewed stars from the golden age of cinema like Kirk Douglas, Sammy Davis Jr and Lauren Bacall.

“I also get excited when we have my favourite bands from the 1980s on the show, like Hue and Cry, The Cure, Madness and Human League. Our campaigns are very special. Our Change and Check campaign has saved the lives of more than 100 women and is an amazing achievement, especially for our producer Helen Addis who had the idea after going through breast cancer herself.”

Fellow ITV stars and former hosts are full of praise for Lorraine. GMB’s Susanna Reid calls her “a trailblazer for women” in the documentary. Alison Hammond says: “She definitely has paved the way for other presenters and the likes of me who have different accents.” Piers adds: “She is kind of like the nation’s comfort blanket. She is the queen of daytime.”

• Lorraine; 40 Unforgettable Years, Wednesday at 9pm on ITV1, ITVX, STV and STV player.