Voices 2025 - In the Spotlight with Laura Whitmore
While Laura has enjoyed many roles, she notes that her motivation across all of them can be boiled down to one thing: the ability to tell stories. “Whether it’s journalism, writing a book, acting on stage or presenting: it is all about telling someone’s story. Whether it’s your story or someone else’s, it’s a privilege,” says Laura.
“Speaking up for someone who is voiceless and using your voice to tell someone’s story is so important.”
Opportunity knocks
Laura was born in Dublin and grew up in County Wicklow, where she attended secondary school before studying journalism at DCU, graduating in 2007.
Her television journey began just a year later when she competed to become the face of MTV News in Europe, opening a pathway into the news world that lasted until 2015. Since then, she has appeared on several series, including Strictly Come Dancing Survival of the Fittest, as well as being a host on Love Island. In 2023, she began hosting her chat show Laura Whitmore’s Breakfast Show and later released her ITVX documentary series Laura Whitmore Investigates.
But her career hasn’t been confined to journalism. You may have seen her modelling, making headlines with her self-branded clothing range, and gracing several high profile magazine covers.
For Laura, one size doesn’t fit all. Reflecting on her early days, she recalls going from an internship at Newstalk to interviewing Coldplay on her very first day at MTV.
“What I learned from the basics of the internship was important because it was tough. It is where I met my good friend, Sam Barry, who is now the Global Editorial Director and Editor-in-Chief of Glamour magazine,” says Laura.
True crime
Her roots in journalism and an interest in true crime has led to more recent developments in podcasts and television series. Since 2023, she has co-hosted a BBC Radio podcast alongside her husband, Iain Stirling – Murder They Wrote with Laura Whitmore and Iain Stirling – which delves into true crime cases.
“I’m very lucky because we get to do it remotely from a studio in our home, so I’m blessed that it works around my schedule,” says Laura.
“The podcast is very niche, working in the true crime area, which comes from my journalism background. I do it with Iain, who’s known as a brilliant comedian, but his background is in law so it was nice for us to use the other sides of ourselves and showcase sides that people don’t necessarily know us for.”
Most recently, she presented and produced Britain’s Killer Teens, a new series, which launched on ‘Crime+Investigation’ in early September, exploring why some teenagers turn to murder.
“I had done three separate films two years ago on incels and cyberstalking and I had so many more questions, talk about asking the ‘why’, that I wanted to explore. We made Britain’s Killer Teens at the end of last year off the back of a 300% increase in homicides by young people,” she explains.
“This was before Netflix’s Adolescence, and I thought, ‘I’ve made the real-life version of this’. It gripped people because it was so real. I learned a lot: I learned that no two cases are the same and that there is no way to know that someone is going to do something terrible. It also gave me a lot of compassion for the families of the victims and how they keep going afterwards. I am proud of what we made.”
From books to theatre
Laura’s work as an author and actor also feed into her interests and passions. Her first book, released in 2021, No One Can Change Your Life Except For You, draws on personal experience.
“I had written a lot before coming from a journalism background, and from my time at DCU writing for the College View. I had already written for publications like the Huffington Post, Elle Magazine, Glamour and Grazia, and I wanted to put a collection of all these together in one,” says Laura.
“I had written a poem called She for International Women’s Day, and I ended up using each line of that poem for each chapter heading and that brought it all together. I wrote the book in 2020, so I had plenty of time to sit down and write.”
She also speaks about her love for live theatre, something that was sparked during her time at university. “I love live theatre; I just love it! It goes back to my DCU days. I was quite overwhelmed and when I first started at DCU I felt quite lonely as I didn’t know anyone else living on campus, so I joined the drama group. I met Maeve who cast me in Antigone and that was my first experience of doing theatre at DCU. Then I ended up being in the Scottish play as Lady M, as well as Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and a big role in Sweet Charity in the Helix. I did a lot of acting on stage at DCU which I loved; it was what I did for fun and now I get to do it as a job.”
Looking back
Reconnecting with her alma mater is important for Laura and she reminisces with great affection on her time at DCU. “I look back at those years with such great fondness but also to appreciate the importance of them; not just from an academic point of view, but also they were such important years for my growth as a person.”
She continues: “[Being at DCU] enabled me to do things for myself, living away from home. It taught me to take every opportunity you possibly can. I met some of my best friends by living on campus and I’m still friends with them today.”
And even though she now spends much of her time in the spotlight, she still makes sure to give back to her alma mater. In November 2024, she returned to DCU as a panel guest for the launch of the London Alumni Chapter.
“It was lovely to reconnect with people, classmates and professors from all over the world. I grew up in Wicklow and the closer ones were Trinity or UCD, but they didn’t have a journalism course and so I took a chance going to DCU which people weren’t so familiar with. Now it’s grown so much with its academic and extracurricular offering.”