Lorraine Kelly will receive a special prize at the Bafta television awards in recognition of her 40 years in broadcasting.
The TV star was surprised with the news by Susanna Reid on her ITV daytime show.
Opening a gold envelope, Reid told her: “On behalf of the Bafta board of trustees, we are delighted to offer you, Lorraine Kelly, the academy special award to be presented at this year’s Bafta television awards.”
Kelly replied: “Where’s Ant and Dec? It can’t be a prank because it’s Susanna!”
Reid said the award recognised Kelly’s “outstanding contribution” over her 40-year career in broadcasting, since she joined TV-am in 1984.
READ MORE: Omnipresent gal from the Gorbals is now so famous she has no need for a surname
She added: “You’re not just an inspiration to viewers, you’re an inspiration to to people like me, women in broadcasting.”
Reflecting on the start of her career, Kelly said: “I was a baby, I got my chance in breakfast television because they were willing to take a risk on somebody who was told I’d never make it to TV because of the way I speak.”
She added: “The boss of TV-am at the time was Australian and they needed a Scottish reporter, and he heard a Scottish accent and it was one of those things where it was like ‘Give her a go’.”
She continued: “I’ve got the best team. They’re incredible. They work so hard. And it’s quite a tiny team, as we know, and they just work so incredibly hard. And this is crazy.”
Kelly’s show Lorraine is already nominated at the Bafta television awards in the daytime category.
The ceremony will be held at the Royal Festival Hall on May 12 and comedians Romesh Ranganathan and Rob Beckett will return to host.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here