Lorraine Kelly | 35 Years as Breakfast Queen

Without me needing to find and watch that, what was the story there?

She was just sacked end off, she nor we ever found out why that was the case.

Presumably it was simply the case of her maternity replacement (Anthea Turner?) working out better and hence there being no role for her.

To add to my reply above about After Nine, I just remembered (after seeing a birthday tweet today) that Anneka Rice also presented that slot - as well as the main show - for a while as well. She may have been in the seat for the few months when Lorraine was “sacked”. Can’t specifically recall.

That was much earlier, Anneka was on TVam in the mid-eighties, usually as a stand-in for Anne Diamond.

We've had the discussion about Lorraine being "sacked" before, but I find it a bit hard to believe, no matter what she said on Piers Morgan, I think it's a story that's been a bit embellished over the years. I don't know why GMTV would have wanted to have sacked her given it was still in the very early days of the station when it was in a bit of a state and she was about the only person there that was popular - if this is 1994, then a year earlier she'd been hurriedly parachuted in as main presenter when Fiona Armstrong quit, so it seems a bit unlikely that a year after she'd done them a massive favour and steadied the ship she was being booted out the door.

In addition, sacking someone is reserved for things like gross misconduct, you can't just do it on a whim, even 25 years ago - especially when they were on maternity leave. It would be a massive breach of employment law. They may not have renewed her contract, but that's a very different thing.

What I assume probably happened is that Anthea Turner had worked out OK as her maternity cover so she was told that when she came back from maternity leave they didn't need her on the main show anymore, thanks very much, and that was was presumably interpreted as being got rid of.

Don't forget that Lorraine was never employed by GMTV.

To say it's unlikely that she would have been axed after helping to save the station underestimates how much of a mess GMTV was in during that time.

That makes no sense. If GMTV wasn't her employer, who was?

Perhaps her contract was novated across from TV-am to another freelance company? Dunno.

She was made redundant by TV-am. She was never employed by GMTV. They had a contract with her company Albatel which then provided her as a presenter.

That's semantics though surely? No different to so many other freelance talent.

We were talking in context of employment rights such as maternity leave, gross misconduct etc. Such rights are not automatic with a freelance contract. So it's more than semantics.

How can she be 60? She just can’t be. Who’s messing with us?