Born in Glasgow, Lorraine Kelly has worked in journalism since she turned down a university place to join the East Kilbride News at the age of 17. The 62-year-old became Scotland correspondent for TV-am in 1984, and joined GMTV when it launched in 1993. Since 2010, she has presented Lorraine on ITV.
What was the best thing you did on screen last year?
To be honest, just keeping going and still being able to do my job through the pandemic. Covid got very close to us with what happened with Kate [Garraway and her husband, Derek Draper, who was hospitalised for more than a year], and a lot of our crew have been affected in some way, so we had to be very careful. Video calls have definitely made interviewees more accessible, though – I did lots of big, big stars on Zoom from their houses. I’d be in my house in my slippers, and there’s George Clooney, or Pierce Brosnan in his house in Hawaii. It made it feel more human – you could be like: “Oh, I have that book too!” I also made a documentary, Return to Dunblane, which was something I really wanted to do. What the families did there to change the law was a remarkable achievement – they made something positive out of something unimaginably horrific. I think the fact that I did hard news for years and I was a correspondent was the best training. If you can report on something like Dunblane or Lockerbie, you can do anything.
Who would play you in the TV show of your life?
The drag queen Lawrence Chaney.
Have you ever been mistaken for anybody else?
No, but I will be toddling around with my husband in the supermarket, and people will come up and start chatting to us. He’ll just stand here, and then they’ll go, and he’ll say: “How do we know them?” And I’m like: “We don’t!”
What show had you gripped during the last year?
It’s a Sin. That was my life, except we were in Glasgow not London, and my best friend, Joyce, was like the wee lassie Jill. That drama did such a lot of good – it really made people think. I think what trans people are going through now is like what gay people were going through when I was growing up.
Your TV guilty pleasure
Below Deck. My daughter introduced me to it – it’s utterly vacuous and completely wonderful.
What makes you reach for the remote (to turn the TV off)?
Naked Attraction. I don’t understand that at all. The only time I saw it was when I did Celebrity Gogglebox and they showed a clip – I couldn’t believe my eyes. What made me laugh was that at the end they had a credit for the wardrobe lady!
• Lorraine airs weekdays at 9am on ITV. For more information about the Virgin Media Bafta TV Awards, visit bafta.org
