Television presenter and journalist, known for her cheery personality. Born in Glasgow, Kelly grew up in Bridgeton and East Kilbride, where she was educated at Claremont High School. In 1982, she began as a trainee reporter for the East Kilbride News. She then became a researcher for BBC Scotland, but quickly moved to TV-AM as a reporter. By 1988, Kelly was a presenter of the TV-AM breakfast show Good Morning Britain. When the morning TV franchise was lost by TV-AM (1992), Kelly joined the successor company, GMTV, as their anchor. After time out to have children she returned to breakfast television as a key presenter. She also has a lunchtime show on Talk Radio, hosts House Hunters for ITV and writes a column for the Sun newspaper. Kelly has produced various lifestyle books, and Lorraine Kelly's Scotland (2014), but published her first novel The Island Swimmer in 2024, inspired by her passion for Orkney and its people.
Renowned for not taking herself too seriously, Kelly appears regularly on talk shows. Having become almost a cult figure, she has an enthusiastic and diverse fan club, made up from housewives, students and, surprisingly, gay men, for whom she has become a most unlikely icon, following her appearance on the cover of the magazine Boyz. In 2004, Kelly's student fans elected her Rector of the University of Dundee, a position she held for three years. She is an ambassador for the Shackleton Foundation, her childhood hero having been the explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874 - 1922). In 2017, she was able to visit South Georgia and Antarctica, stopping at places with connections to Shackleton.
She was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Dundee in 2008, a further honorary degree from Edinburgh Napier University (2018), an OBE in the New Year honours list of 2012 and a CBE in 2020.
Kelly married Dundee-born Steve Smith at Mains Castle in Dundee in 1992. The couple met when he worked as a cameraman for TV-AM. They now live near Maidenhead (Berkshire, England) but maintained a home in Broughty Ferry between 2010 and 2017.
