The 'horrific' reason presenter Louise Minchin left BBC Breakfast after 20 years

The TV host, who joined the flagship BBC show in 2001 and woke the nation up every morning with the latest news until her departure in 2021, also said the “utterly gruelling" demands of the job became too much.

The 56-year-old was speaking on The Energy Equation Podcast when she said that she made the decision to leave the show after getting up at 3.45am most mornings became too much and had a “horrific” impact on her sleep.

She said: “There was nothing [I could do]. I tried really hard, all these strategies that I have like exercise, yoga, and lots of different things that I do were to really try and help myself for being sleep deprived. I was getting up at 3:45am in the morning.”

She added that she had no choice about what time she got up as BBC Breakfast begins at 6am, but she couldn’t go to sleep too early as if she did she would miss out on valuable time with her family. “Having two children, two dogs and a husband that I wanted to see. If I didn't want to see them, you can hear my voice rising already, then I could've gone to bed at seven o'clock a night but I have a family, I couldn't do that so I was constantly struggling with it."

Louise added that she "had no idea" how badly it affected "so many different parts" of her life. The mum-of-two said she found it it hard to eating healthily too because the early wake-up call meant she would have two meals by 9am.

“I tried to eat healthily but it's really difficult to eat healthily at that time. I genuinely did because I learnt very early on. It sounds so silly but I took my own overnight oats every day, because otherwise I found I would eat something like a croissant at 6am and then by 9:15 I'd need another meal. I was eating another meal a day when I first started which is not great."

Louise sat on the BBC red sofa for more than 20 years. She became a main presenter in 2012, and worked alongside Bill Turnbull, Charlie Stayt and Dan Walker. Her last day co-presenting BBC Breakfast was September 15 2021.