Lainey Lui
ETALK senior correspondent, co-host of The Social and scribe of the immensely popular celebrity gossip blog, LaineyGossip.com, Lui does what she does for one reason – to provide a gossip education to the Canadian public.
The Toronto-born, self-proclaimed gossip maven trailblazed her own way into the gossip game. What started as an email to two friends grew to a website with millions of readers from around the world. As friends told friends about Lui’s non-sycophantic email updates, she received so many requests to get on her mailing list that her server crashed.
More than one million readers and Twitter followers read LaineyGossip.com every month and listen to her two in-house podcasts, making it a leading international celebrity and pop culture source. Recognizing Lui’s talent, she joined the ETALK team in 2006.
In February 2010, Lui reported on entertainment and gossip news for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Leaving little time for sleep, she also penned national columns for The Globe and Mail and Metro newspapers, and appeared daily on Canada’s official Olympic morning show during the Games. The following year, Lui travelled to London, England to cover the Royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton; she also reported from the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle; and she has covered major international entertainment events from the Oscars to the Golden Globes, the Cannes Film Festival, the Sundance Film Festival, the Super Bowl, and more.
Lui is regularly called upon as a celebrity expert by media outlets worldwide, including CNN.com, USA Today, Vanity Fair, Buzzfeed, The Guardian, and the Los Angeles Times. In 2016, Lui was named to Canada's Top 100 Most Powerful Women 2016 by WXN and has been profiled by The Washington Post, The Cut, and TheRinger.com. Lui’s first book, Listen to the Squawking Chicken: When Mother Knows Best, What's a Daughter To Do? A Memoir (Sort Of), debuted at #1 on the Globe & Mail bestseller list upon publication. Most recently, Lui is part of the teams who won a 2020 Canadian Screen Award for THE SOCIAL, Best Talk Program or Series, and ETALK, Best Entertainment News Program or Series. Lui also won a 2019 Canadian Screen Award (CSA) for Best Host in a Web Program or Series for ETALK AT THE OSCARS and was named to Toronto Life’s 2019 Best Dressed List.
In 2018, Lui returned to her alma mater, Western University, as a visiting professor, teaching a fourth year Faculty of Arts course on the power of gossip. Lui lives in Toronto with her husband and beagles. She is a consultant for Covenant House, which offers shelter and services for homeless youth and a celebrity ambassador for Special Olympics Canada.
