Elaine "Lainey" Lui (, born September 26, 1973) is a
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
television personality and reporter. She pens a website, LaineyGossip, is an anchor on
CTV's ''
etalk'', and is also a co-host on CTV's daily talk series ''
The Social''.
["Elaine Lui gets Social on new talk show; Gossip hound adds TV series to busy schedule". '']Calgary Herald
The ''Calgary Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Publication began in 1883 as ''The Calgary Herald, Mining and Ranche Advocate, and General Advertiser''. It is owned by the Postmedia Network.
History
''The ...
'', August 31, 2013.
Early life and education
Lui was born and raised in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
. Her parents, Judy and Bernard, immigrated to Canada from
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
in 1970.
They worked odd jobs, including washing dishes and cleaning hotel rooms. Eventually, her father found stable work as an accountant. When Lui was 6, her parents divorced and her mother returned to Hong Kong. Lui spent many summers in Hong Kong to visit her mother.
Her parents reunited when she was 16.
Lui attended middle school and high school at the
Toronto French School
The Toronto French School (TFS), founded in 1962, is an independent, bilingual, co-educational, non-denominational school in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Charles III, as King of Canada, is the royal patron of the school. The school rebranded in 2 ...
and graduated from
Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute. In 1996, she graduated with a
B.A. in French and history from the
University of Western Ontario
The University of Western Ontario (UWO), also known as Western University or Western, is a Public university, public research university in London, Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land, surrounded by resident ...
.
Career
After graduating from Western, she worked for
Rogers Communications and trained employees to install Internet connections.
Lui worked in not-for-profit fundraising. She had been living in
Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
and working for the
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...
when she returned to Toronto to care for her mother, who needed a
kidney transplant
Kidney transplant or renal transplant is the organ transplant of a kidney into a patient with end-stage kidney disease (ESRD). Kidney transplant is typically classified as deceased-donor (formerly known as cadaveric) or living-donor transplantati ...
.
She then took a job with Covenant House
Covenant House is a large, Catholic, privately funded agency in the Americas, whose primary purpose is to promote Catholicism. It provides shelter, food, immediate crisis care, and other services to homeless and runaway young people. Covenant H ...
, which offers shelter and services for the homeless.[ LaineyGossip.com grew out of an email that Lui sent to two friends to keep them up to date on celebrity gossip.][ The subscriber list quickly grew and she started her blog.][ She left Covenant House in 2006 to commit herself full-time to her blog.]
''etalk'', CTV's Canadian entertainment newsmagazine, hired Lui in 2006.[ Since joining ''etalk'', Lui has covered the Oscars, the ]Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game ...
, the JUNO Awards, Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...
, Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...
, Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...
(TIFF) and the MuchMusic Video Awards
The iHeartRadio MMVAs were an annual awards show broadcast on Much to honour the year's best music videos that was last held in 2018.
Originally debuting in 1990 as the Canadian Music Video Awards, the awards were renamed in 1995 to the MuchMu ...
(MMVAs).
''The Social'' premiered on September 2, 2013 with Lui as co-host alongside Melissa Grelo
Melissa Grelo (born June 30, 1977) is a Canadian television personality, best known as a co-host of ''CP24 Breakfast''"CP24 opens a new front in breakfast TV wars". ''Toronto Star'', March 27, 2009. and the moderator of '' The Social''. Since Augus ...
, Cynthia Loyst
Cynthia Loyst is a Canadian talk show host and media personality. She currently co-hosts CTV's '' The Social'', along with three other women. Loyst is also the creator of Find Your Pleasure, an online hub to help readers find pleasure in their l ...
and Traci Melchor
Traci Melchor is a Canadian television personality. She is known for her role as an entertainment reporter for CTV's series '' etalk'' and as a judge of the reality competition series ''Canada's Drag Race''. Melchor is also the former co-host o ...
. The show airs daily at 1 p.m. on CTV.
Lui participated in the 2015 edition of '' Canada Reads'', where she advocated for Raziel Reid
Raziel Reid is a Canadian writer, whose debut young adult novel ''When Everything Feels Like the Movies'' won the Governor General's Award for English-language children's literature at the 2014 Governor General's Awards. 's novel ''When Everything Feels Like the Movies
''When Everything Feels Like the Movies'' is the debut young adult novel by Raziel Reid. The novel is narrated by the protagonist, Jude Rothesay, from a first-person perspective, and details his experiences and difficulties over a few days as a g ...
''.
Hosting the Smut Soiree
Lui hosts the Smut Soiree, an annual event at which she talks about the latest gossip in pop culture and Hollywood. The event was first held in 2005.
Personal life
Lui married Jacek Szenowicz when she was 28 years old. They now reside in Toronto with their dogs Barney and Elvis. Jacek helps to run LaineyGossip.com. Lui has stated that she and her husband do not wish to have children.
Controversy
In June 2020, comments made by Lui on her website resurfaced, causing scandal, after Lui accused Jessica Mulroney of using her white privilege against lifestyle blogger Sasha Exeter, the niece of Lui's co-star at the time on ''The Social'', Marci Ien
Marci Ien (born July 29, 1969) is a Canadian politician serving as the minister for women and gender equality and youth since October 26, 2021. A member of the Liberal Party, Ien represents Toronto Centre in the House of Commons. Previously, s ...
. These included comments described as body-shaming, slut-shaming, homophobic, transphobic
Transphobia is a collection of ideas and phenomena that encompass a range of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger tow ...
, racist
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
, sexist
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primaril ...
and ageist
Ageism, also spelled agism, is discrimination against individuals or groups on the basis of their age. The term was coined in 1969 by Robert Neil Butler to describe discrimination against seniors, and patterned on sexism and racism. Butler defi ...
. These comments sparked outrage and were widely discussed on social media. However, unlike Mulroney, Lui faced no disciplinary action and retained all of her jobs. In April 2021, Lui was quoted as saying, "For me, part of restorative justice is making contrition an ongoing process ..I don’t ever plan to get to a point where I say, ‘I don’t want to talk about this anymore.’ I’ll talk about it as much as anyone wants me to talk about it. I don’t think an apology is a one-and-done thing ..I’m trying to be much more aware of not benefitting but also taking responsibility — but not being praised for taking responsibility. It’s a very uncomfortable place to be.”
Writing
*
References
External links
LaineyGossip
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lui, Elaine
1973 births
Living people
Canadian infotainers
Canadian people of Hong Kong descent
Canadian television talk show hosts
Canadian television reporters and correspondents
Writers from Toronto
Writers from Vancouver
University of Western Ontario alumni
Canadian bloggers
21st-century Canadian non-fiction writers
Canadian memoirists
21st-century Canadian women writers
Canadian writers of Asian descent
CTV Television Network people
Canadian women memoirists
Canadian women television journalists
Canadian women bloggers
21st-century memoirists