Inside Erin Molan’s life, career and controversies
She went from a fresh-faced presenter trying to make a break on community TV, to a career in the spotlight. But Erin Molan’s personal life, sudden job changes and online bullying campaign, proves it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. WATCH THE VIDEO
Entertainment
Don't miss out on the headlines from Entertainment. Followed categories will be added to My News.
From stardom on community TV to prime time radio, Erin Molan’s climb to the spotlight did not always come easy.
Molan’s personal life and career has been laced with controversies, sudden job changes, success and harsh challenges.
The now-2Day FM radio host and Sky News TV host’s career in front of the camera has often left Molan in the headlines. Here is how it has all unfolded.
CONTROVERSIES
In January 2021, Erin Molan revealed she put herself on a self-imposed booze ban after drunk-dialling the then-NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian during a girls night out.
Molan fessed up while interviewing Berejiklian on her Hughesy, Ed & Erin breakfast show.
But not all of Molan’s hiccups ended with a laugh.
Molan sued the Daily Mail for defamation over its coverage of a conversation on 2GB which the Daily Mail claimed was directed at the names of Pacific Islander NRL players last year, The Australian reported.
The Channel 9 host said “hooka looka mooka hooka fooka” which left co-hosts of The Continuous Call Darryl Brohman and Mark Levy puzzled.
In court filings Molan has alleged the news website defamed her in its coverage of the controversy by falsely portraying her as racist, callous and arrogant. In August 2022, Molan was awarded $150,000 in damages and in September, Daily Mail Australia appealed the federal court decision.
In 2018, Molan was forced to respond to the wave of criticism levelled at Channel 9’s Sunday Footy Show panel over their segment on former NRL star Dave Taylor.
Taylor’s rugby league club claimed the show was making fun of the towering prop’s weight, at the time.
Taylor, who was playing for the Central Queensland Capras in Queensland’s top league after playing for the Canberra Raiders in the previous season, was labelled the “Gutsy Player of the Week” during a segment on the show.
“He was a gun player in his day, wasn’t he?” asked host Molan, to which NSW Blues coach Brad Fittler responded, “What an athlete”.
Former Tigers player and co-host Joel Caine also joined in. “Well Dave, look, it’s a three-letter word, fit, OK, but it’s very easy to turn the ‘i’ into an ‘a’, that’s all I’m saying — get that ‘a’ back to an ‘i’,” he said.
Molan added at the end of the segment the panel was “not shaming Dave Taylor at all”.
But the segment was not well-received on social media and in a statement to news.com.au, Capras CEO Peter White said the piece was “very disappointing, but sadly not surprising”.
In 2017, news.com.au reported how Molan was innocently dragged into a court case brought by police on behalf of Kelly Landry, seeking an AVO against her husband Anthony Bell. The AVO did not go ahead.
Fairfax Media later settled a defamation proceeding brought by Molan and issued a formal apology, saying suggestions Molan had been involved in an inappropriate relationship with Bell were incorrect.
On The Footy Show in 2017 Molan said: “We’re very devastated to be dragged into what is a very sad situation, particularly given the insinuation of an inappropriate relationship.”
She has a longstanding professional relationship with Bell, who is her accountant.
PERSONAL LIFE
In April, The Australian reported that Molan’s father Liberal senator for NSW Jim Molan would step back from his duties to treat an aggressive cancer.
Senator Molan, 70, said he would take leave after receiving the shock diagnosis.
Senator Molan is a former major general in the Australian Army.
“For my siblings and I, we couldn’t be more proud of the person he is. He cares deeply about this country. He cares deeply about the defence of this country, and every single person in it,” Molan was stated saying on The Daily Telegraph at the time.
It is not the family’s first shock cancer diagnosis with Molan’s sister Sarah Sutton diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer, at the age of 29, after doctors discovered the disease almost by chance.
In March, Molan revealed she completed her first colonoscopy, calling on others to see their GP if “something doesn’t feel right”.
“I’ve had the genetic testing but not this procedure. I’d honestly been scared and kept coming up with excuses to put it off,” Molan posted to Instagram.
Molan’s personal life blows didn’t end there.
In 2020, she was forced shut down rumours she had split with her homicide detective fiance Sean Ogilvy, saying the couple were perfectly happy together.
“We are very happy, I don’t talk about Sean a lot because his job is quite a unique job so we’re quite private when it comes to our relationship,” Molan told The Daily Telegraph’s Confidential.
She also told Stellar in February: “I did say to Sean, I’m going to have to tell some stories and he reluctantly agreed. I don’t have a filter and unfortunately for Sean, he knew that when he met me,” she said before joking, “But if you’re writing break-up stories in six months, you’ll know why.”
But in September 2021, Molan confirmed her split from Ogilvy, The Daily Telegraph reported.
“Sean and I have separated,” she wrote in an Instagram post.
“We are entirely committed to co-parenting our three-year-old daughter, who is the most important person in the world to both of us.
“Any breakdown of the family unit is incredibly difficult and we ask for our privacy at this time – especially given the private approach that we have taken to our relationship. We won’t be making any further comment.”
Molan and Ogilvy started dating in 2016, were engaged in 2017 and Molan welcomed her first child, a daughter named Eliza Emily Ogilvy in June 2018.
In April 2017, Molan’s jeweller revealed the price of her engagement ring.
Zena Kaddour, from House of K’dor in Chatswood, told Confidential at the time, the ring was worth in the $100,000 range.
Ogilvy proposed to Molan during a trip to Tasmania.
She revealed in December 2017, she put her wedding on hold. At the time Molan told The Wentworth Courier she had planned to say “I do” in a secret ceremony on an island in Sydney in front of family and friends — but the couple’s plans changed once she discovered she was pregnant.
“There were no plans [for the pregnancy], we were just kind of whenever it happens it happens,” Molan said at the time.
Molan debuted her new romance at her father's book launch in August 2022, where it was revealed she had been dating Todd Selby since May.
In May, Molan revealed on her radio show she was dating someone but has been careful not to divulge Selby’s identity to protect the relationship when it was in its "early-ish days".
“I was driving into the car park, he was driving out,” she said at the time.
“That’s the first time we saw each other but we didn’t meet until a couple of months after that. I’m not a believer in fate … but the timing of it was pretty incredible. We locked eyes and I felt something.”
Molan revealed to The Daily Telegraph in November 2020 how a conversation with her daughter Eliza in the bath had a big impact on her parenting. Among all the toddler babble, the two-year-old pointed at the sports presenter’s stomach asking what it was.
“I looked down and I went to say, ‘Yucky Mummy!’. My first thing was to be self-deprecating but I stopped myself and I said, ‘Beautiful Mummy. This is Mummy’s tummy’. Molan recounted at the time.
“I thought this is when [Eliza] is forming ideas about herself and it’s my job to make sure she absolutely loves herself. I just take that part of my job as a mother really seriously.”
In a wide-ranging interview with Stellar Magazine, Molan revealed her heartbreak at the tragic road accident that killed four Victorian police officers.
![Erin Molan in an interview with Stellar Magazine said: “I thought this is when [Eliza] is forming ideas about herself and it’s my job to make sure she absolutely loves herself.”](https://content.api.news/v3/images/bin/127e3e88ae57b83cab7f3db89de58d0c?width=650)
Being a mother, engaged to a policeman at the time and having a father who served in the army shaped Molan’s response to the devastating accident that killed four police officers when a truck travelling along one of Melbourne’s busiest freeways swerved into them.
“I feel things quite deeply anyway, but that made me feel physically ill,” Molan said at the time.
As a victim of online abuse herself, Molan became a champion for abolishing cyber-bullying.
In December, her efforts were rewarded when the Federal Government announced, in a world-first, the introduction of fines of up to $111,000 for individuals who abuse, threaten, intimidate, post revenge porn or bully children online, The Courier Mail reported.
In October 2022, Molan released a gripping Sky News Australia documentary called 'Haters Online: Erin Molan Fights Back'.
EARLY LIFE
Erin Molan was born in Canberra and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia, and attended 16 schools due to her father’s career in the Australian Army.
Molan confessed she was so “naughty” in her early 20s, she opted to live in her car over her family home, news.com.au reported.
![Jim Molan with his children Michael 11, Sarah 18, Erin 16 and Felicity 15 after he received his AO [military] for distinguished service to the Australian Defence Force in Jakata.](https://content.api.news/v3/images/bin/836c62f9226f53b9f88615289c5d5cda?width=650)
“I would have been early 20s, I was working at a TV station for 250 bucks a fortnight,” she said on air in January.
In 2017, Molan spoke out about her father following his controversial comments surrounding Australia’s immigration strategies.
The retired major general had told 3AW Radio he advocated the suspension of migration from certain “extremist” Islamic nations, prompting several media reports linking his comments to his daughter.
“God, he has done far more than I have ever done or will ever do in my career and he is so distinguished and he served this nation in the military,” Molan said in response to the headlines.
CAREER
Molan landed her first TV gig at Channelvision, Canberra before joining WIN News. In 2010, she moved to Sydney to work for Channel Nine.
In 2012, Molan was appointed to The NRL Footy Show on a more regular basis, used primarily for the League of their Own segment. She was also on The Sunday Footy Show.
Two years later, Molan was placed as a permanent Footy Show panellist alongside Paul Vautin, Darryl Brohman, Beau Ryan, and former test cricketer Michael Slater.
In 2018, The NRL Footy Show was suddenly axed after a dramatic dip in ratings, which led to a string of career blows for Molan.
Molan’s contract was also not renewed at 2GB Continuous Call Team because of financial pressure around Covid, The Sunday Telegraph reported in February.
When her three-year contract was nearing completion towards the end of last season, network executives told Molan’s adviser, celebrity accountant Anthony Bell, in writing there was no money for a new deal.
Bell and Molan declined to comment when contacted at the time.
The Herald Sun reported how Kate Langbroek was returning to Melbourne radio in 2021, while her longtime co-host and great mate, Dave Hughes would join Sydney breakfast radio Ed Kavalee and Erin Molan. The 2Day FM Morning Crew with Hughesy, Ed and Erin kicked off on January 18.
Molan told Stellar that she had been previously overlooked for jobs. “There have been openings on Today and I would have absolutely loved to have had a call-up, and it hasn’t happened. That’s life. You deal with that a million times over in any industry.”
In early 2022, Molan became a columnist for The Daily Telegraph and in June was announced to replace Sharri Markson while she is on maternity leave for the Sunday 7pm timeslot, hosting a weekly show, Erin, on Sky News.
More Coverage
Originally published as Inside Erin Molan’s life, career and controversies
‘Disgraceful’: Aussies slam Oasis prices
Australians have been left fuming at the “exploitative” and “disgraceful” cost of tickets to the Oasis reunion show that went on sale today.
‘Disgrace’: Outrage over ‘extinction event’
One of the great Australian summer traditions is rapidly disappearing, with industry insiders taking aim at a “disgraceful” practice.