Sonia Melissa Kruger (born 28 August 1965) is an Australian television presenter and media personality, who has been a prominent figure in the media for over 20 years. Kruger is currently the host of ''

Big Brother Australia ''Big Brother Australia'' (also known simply as ''Big Brother'') is an Australian reality show based on the international '' Big Brother'' format created by John de Mol. Following the premise of other versions of the format, the show features ...

'' and a presenter on ''

The Voice Australia ''The Voice'' is an Australian singing competition television series. It premiered on the Nine Network on 14 April 2012, before moving to the Seven Network in 2021. Based on the original ''The Voice of Holland'', and part of ''The Voice '' ...

''. She is best known for co-hosting the popular Australian version of ''

Dancing with the Stars ''Dancing with the Stars'' is the name of various international television series based on the format of the British TV series '' Strictly Come Dancing'', which is distributed by BBC Studios, the commercial arm of the BBC. Currently the form ...

'' and for the role of Tina Sparkle in the dark 1992 film '' Strictly Ballroom''. Kruger has also been a co-host of '' Today Extra''. During her time at the

Seven Network The Seven Network (commonly known as Channel Seven or simply Seven) is a major Australian commercial free-to-air Television broadcasting in Australia, television network. It is owned by Seven West Media, Seven West Media Limited, and is one of ...

, Kruger has also reported for numerous other events, including the network's coverage of the

Olympics The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...

, the

Melbourne Cup The Melbourne Cup is a Thoroughbred horse race held in Melbourne, Australia. It is a 3200-metre race for three-year-olds and over, conducted by the Victoria Racing Club on the Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, Victoria as part of the Melb ...

and the

Australian Open The Australian Open is a tennis tournament held annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia. The tournament is the first of the four Grand Slam tennis events held each year, preceding the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Ope ...

Early life

Born in

Toowoomba Toowoomba ( , nicknamed 'The Garden City' and 'T-Bar') is a city in the Toowoomba Region of the Darling Downs, Queensland, Australia. It is west of Queensland's capital city Brisbane by road. The urban population of Toowoomba as of the 2021 ...

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

, she attended Beenleigh State High School, completing Year 12 in 1982. Kruger completed an arts degree at the

University of Technology, Sydney The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) is a public university, public research university located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Although its origins are said to trace back to the 1830s, the university was founded in its current form ...

, and taught dance at the

National Institute of Dramatic Art The National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) is an Australian educational institution for the performing arts is based in Sydney, New South Wales. Founded in 1958, many of Australia's leading actors and directors trained at NIDA, including Cat ...

(NIDA) in Sydney.

Career

In 1992, Kruger came to prominence in her acting debut as "Tina Sparkle" in the AFI Award-winning film '' Strictly Ballroom''. She also served as a ballroom adviser for the film. This remains her only acting role to date. Following her film debut she hosted the children's variety show '' Wonder World!'' on the

Nine Network The Nine Network (stylised 9Network, commonly known as Channel Nine or simply Nine) is an Australian commercial free-to-air television network. It is owned by parent company Nine Entertainment and is one of five main free-to-air television netw ...

. Kruger has been an entertainment reporter for

shows ''

Today Tonight ''Today Tonight'' is an Australian current affairs television program produced by the Seven Network. It aired from January 1995 to November 2019 in Adelaide and Perth. Editions in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne were previously produced befor ...

'', ''

Sunrise Sunrise (or sunup) is the moment when the upper rim of the Sun appears on the horizon in the morning. The term can also refer to the entire process of the solar disk crossing the horizon and its accompanying atmospheric effects. Terminology A ...

'' and '' 11AM''. She previously hosted the morning program on the Sydney-based radio station

Mix 106.5 KIIS 1065 (call sign: 2WFM) is a commercial FM radio station in Sydney, Australia, on a frequency of 106.5 MHz. KIIS 1065 is one of the flagship stations on ARN's KIIS Network. The station's headline show is ''The Kyle and Jackie O Show'' ...

with ''Dancing with the Stars'' judges Todd McKenney and

Andy Grace Andy Grace (born 24 July 1970 in Melbourne, Australia) is a commercial radio and television broadcaster and computer software developer. Grace started his career in 1995 on Fox FM in Melbourne, but became best known for the national Net@Nite I ...

. In 2004, Kruger joined the Seven Network reality dance competition series ''

'', the Australian version of the UK BBC television series ''

Strictly Come Dancing ''Strictly Come Dancing'' (informally known as ''Strictly'') is a British dance contest show in which celebrities partner with professional dancers to compete in mainly ballroom and Latin dance. Each couple is scored by a panel of usually 4 j ...

''. She co-hosted the series with both Daryl Somers and Daniel MacPherson over the course of the eleven seasons in which she appeared. In September 2008, Kruger was confirmed to host the Seven Network makeover reality show ''

10 Years Younger in 10 Days ''10 Years Younger in 10 Days'' is a reality make-over show that screens on the Seven Network in Australia. The series is presented by Sonia Kruger and is based on the British series '' 10 Years Younger''. With the help of experts the participa ...

''. Despite high ratings for its series premiere, Seven Network did not renew the series for a second season. In November 2011, Kruger announced she was leaving both ''Dancing with the Stars'' and the Seven Network to pursue other opportunities. Kruger then signed a development deal with the Nine Network in November 2011. She was confirmed to host her own daytime talk show, '' Mornings'', with singer and actor David Campbell. The series was designed to replace '' Kerri-Anne'' which ended that same month. The series premiered on 6 February 2012 (and continues into 2016 rebranded as '' Today Extra''). Kruger was also announced to host Nine Network's reboot of the competition reality series ''

''. Kruger replaced

Kyle Sandilands Kyle Dalton Sandilands (born 10 June 1971) is an Australian radio host and television personality. He is currently the co-host, with Jackie O, of the weekday morning radio program '' The Kyle and Jackie O Show'' on Sydney's radio station KIIS ...

and Jackie O, who hosted the series on

Network Ten Network 10 (commonly known as Ten Network, Channel 10 or simply 10) is an Australian commercial television network owned by Ten Network Holdings, a division of the Paramount Networks UK & Australia subsidiary of Paramount Global. One of fiv ...

in its eighth season, after which the show was cancelled in 2008. '' Big Brother Australia 9'' premiered on 13 August 2012 to 1.6 million viewers, the franchise's highest ratings since the series' third season. On 22 February 2015, it was announced that Kruger would be joining the fourth series of ''

'' as a co-host with Darren McMullen. In November 2017, Kruger was announced as a co-host of Vision Australia's '' Carols by Candlelight'' alongside David Campbell. She replaced Lisa Wilkinson who had resigned from the Nine Network. Kruger was replaced by Allison Langdon after defecting to the

. In August 2018, Kruger was announced as a presenter on the

new travel series, '' Helloworld'', which aired on 7 October 2018. But she, Lauren Phillips, Denis Walter and Steven Jacobs were replaced by Giaan Rooney as a presenter, now on the Seven Network, from series 2. In November 2019, Kruger announced her resignation from the Nine Network. She hosted '' Today Extra'' for the last time on Friday, 15 November. Seven Network CEO James Warburton confirmed her joining the network and announced that her roles would include hosting their upcoming reality show ''Mega Mini Golf''. In February 2020, the Seven Network announced that Kruger would host a revival of '' Big Brother'', but due to filming commitments would no longer be hosting the upcoming series '' Holey Moley''. However, in October 2020, Kruger was confirmed as the host of the show. In 2021, Kruger again hosted ''The Voice'' after Seven picked up the rights to the franchise following the Nine Network's failure to renew its contract with the show. Kruger is the current co-host of Channel 7’s Dancing With The Stars: All Stars, starring alongside her original co-host Daryl Somers.

Personal life

Kruger was married for six years (2002 to 2008) to James Davies, a British-born banker. After the marriage ended in September 2008, she began seeing her current partner, Craig McPherson, executive producer of ''

''. She and McPherson had been trying for a child for years, through both IVF and natural methods. She became pregnant several times, but they ended in miscarriages. In August 2014, she announced she was pregnant, having conceived via

in-vitro fertilisation In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a process of fertilisation where an egg is combined with sperm in vitro ("in glass"). The process involves monitoring and stimulating an individual's ovulatory process, removing an ovum or ova (egg or eggs) ...

(IVF) using a donor egg. In January 2015, Kruger gave birth to a daughter, Maggie.

Controversies

In 2008, during an episode of ''Dancing with the Stars'', Kruger made a comment about a "sweat shop of illegal immigrants" working on her wardrobe for the

carnival before referring to the show's musical director, Chong Lim, the show's Malaysian-born musical director with the words "How's the family, Chong? All right?" Channel 7 later issued an apology for her statement. On 18 July 2016, during an appearance on the morning show ''

Today Today (archaically to-day) may refer to: * Day of the present, the time that is perceived directly, often called ''now'' * Current era, present * The current calendar date Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Today'' (1930 film), a 1930 ...

'', Kruger called for a complete ban on

Muslims Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

entering Australia, in agreement with an opinion piece by commentator

Andrew Bolt Andrew Bolt (born 26 September 1959) is an Australian right-wing social and political commentator. He has worked at the News Corp-owned newspaper company The Herald and Weekly Times (HWT) for many years, for both '' The Herald'' and its succ ...

. Kruger defended her comments saying "I believe it's vital in a democratic society to be able to discuss these issues without being labelled racist."Gavin Fernando (2016
"Television personality Sonia Kruger calls for Australia to ban Muslims"

News.com.au news.com.au is an Australian website owned by News Corp Australia. It had 9.6 million unique readers in April 2019 and covers national and international news, lifestyle, travel, entertainment, technology, finance, and sport. Staff The organiza ...

, 18 July 2016. Retrieved 18 July 2016. The firebombing of a Perth radio station initially linked by media reports to the presenters disagreeing with Kruger's views was later determined by police to be coincidental and to have "nothing to do with the Islam discussion". A racial vilification complaint against Kruger was made to the Civil and Administrative Tribunal over her statement about Muslim immigration. The

applied to have the complaint dismissed without a hearing, but this was refused. The complaint was made by Sam Ekermawi, who was described by ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'' as a "serial offence-taker". The tribunal heard that Ekermawi had been involved in thirty-two hearings before courts and tribunals. The matter proceeded for directions in June 2018.Daily Telegraph, 2018-5-30, p.7

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kruger, Sonia 1965 births Australian people of German descent Australian women television presenters Australian television newsreaders and news presenters Australian game show hosts Big Brother (Australian TV series) Television personalities from Melbourne Living people University of Technology Sydney alumni