No-nonsense TV host Kay Burley breaks her silence over Sky News Breakfast ‘departure’
Kay Burley has denied claims she is leaving her Sky News breakfast show after five years.
The 64-year-old first joined the news channel 35 years ago and has since gone on to become one of the broadcaster’s highest-profile news anchors.
The TV host moved to the breakfast slot in October 2019, taking over from Sunrise host Sarah-Jane Mee.
Breakfast with Kay Burley was re-launched this year with a more conversational format featuring co-hosts Gareth Barlow and Mhari Aurora.
Reports suggested the veteran journalist was due to step down from the breakfast show as early as this week, according to Deadline.
But Kay Burley told MailOnline last night such rumours were not true.
She said: ‘I don’t know where that comes from, but neither of them are true. I am off on the 19th [as] planned and then I am back on January 16.’
When asked about reports in the trade press that she was leaving her breakfast show, she added: ‘Not that I’m aware of, unless you are telling me something new.’
She said: ‘I am getting up at half past three in the morning… I’m back after I have been away to the Seychelles.’
Sky News has also been approached by MailOnline for comment.
Kay Burley is set to leave her Sky News 6am until 10am breakfast show after five years, according to reports
Kay Burley (pictured right) was one of the channel’s original presenters when it was launched by Rupert Murdoch in 1989
Pictured: Kay Burley (right) with Sir Trevor Phillips and Beth Rigby on Sky News’ election night coverage
Kay Burley (pictured left) with her colleague Beth Rigby (right) outside Downing Street in 2019
A Sky insider told Deadline ‘it would be massive if she left’ — Kay was one of the channel’s original presenters when it was launched by Rupert Murdoch in 1989.
Before hosting breakfast, she anchored the late afternoon shows and is usually the broadcaster relied upon to cover major news events on the channel.
Kay has held the top seat for some of the biggest stories over the last four decades, including the death of Princess Diana and the 9/11 terrorist attack on New York.
In 2020, Kay was taken off air for six months after it was revealed she flouted Covid regulations with a birthday party held in central London.
Kay has faced a number of personal challenges in recent times, including her sister being diagnosed with blood cancer and an accident which left her ‘covered in blood’, with a black eye and bruising all over her face.
Kay has been candid about her heath in the past, as she revealed in 2021 that going through the menopause is ‘tricky’ to handle while working on TV and claimed hot flushes leave her ‘looking like she’s walked through the shower’.
The journalist has also been haunted by cancer for most of her adult life, losing her mother Kath to the disease in 1993. Her father also died of a heart attack aged 66.
She previously told MailOnline that she has an ultrasound, an MRI scan and a mammogram every year.
Kay has held the top seat for some of the biggest stories over the last four decades, including the death of Princess Diana and the 9/11 terrorist attack
Rumours are circulating that she could be leaving the news channel altogether but these have not been verified. Pictured is Kay Burley speaking with former education secretary Gillian Keegan
Kay Burley (right) reports from St Michael’s on Wyre, Lancashire, during the search for Nicola Bulley in 2023
Kay Burley (right) holding the day’s newspapers as she reports from outside 10 Downing Street in London on October 18, 2022
‘Given how young my parents were when they died, I do worry about myself. I am a worrier by nature,’ she said.
‘There’s a long line of cancer in my family and I’m in the high-risk category compared with the national average. I like to make sure everything is as it should be. I have an annual ultrasound, MRI scan and mammogram.
‘They’re not pleasant procedures, but I’d rather be one of the worried well because these precautions give me a fighting chance of catching it early on.
‘Being a journalist, it’s in my nature to want to have all the facts — I don’t want to die of ignorance.’
Kay has a grown up son called Alexander, whom she shares with her ex-husband Steve Kunter.
As well as being the face for Sky News, she also published her debut novel First Ladies in 2011, which was followed by her second book Betrayal in 2012.
Born in 1960, Kay was brought up in Beech Hill, in Wigan, and is the daughter of working-class parents.
She began her journalism career aged 17, working for the Wigan Evening Post and Chronicle.
Kay then went on to work for BBC local radio and Tyne Tees Television, before she joined TV-am in 1985 as a reporter and occasional newsreader.
She was recruited by Andrew Neil and joined Sky Television in 1988 with her own documentary, The Satellite Revolution.
