Decades after starting her career with her school magazine, Today host Brooke Boney announces she is leaving the show

A Today host has announced their shock resignation live on air, nearly three decades after kicking off a successful journalism career at a school magazine.

More than 25 years after starting her journalism career with her school magazine, Today show presenter Brooke Boney has shocked fans by announcing she will leave the show in a matter of months.

The former triple J newsreader and proud Gamilaroi woman joined the Today team as show business reporter in 2019 and took over as news presenter in January 2023, replacing sports presenter Alex Cullen.

“Guys, I have some very big news for you this morning. I’ve been offered a place at Oxford University later this year, which means I’ll be leaving the show after the Olympics,” she said during Friday morning’s show.

“I don’t want to go into too much right now, because there’ll be plenty of time for goodbyes and thank yous, but I just wanted to share that good slash bad news with you all this morning.

“It’s been a dream of mine to be able to study at an overseas university, and it just felt like the right time to take that step.

Brooke Boney has been with the show since 2019. Picture: Supplied

“I’m so grateful to come in here every day and I love you all so much. So it’s made the decision really difficult. But it just means that you’ll all have to plan trips to the UK to come and visit.

The tight-knit morning show panel was overcome with emotion as the beloved presenter announced her departure on Friday morning’s show.

“We are very, very proud of you,” co-host Karl Stefanovic said.

“So proud of you,” co-host Sarah Abo added.

Boney kicked off her journalism career with her school magazine.

Boney featured alongside fellow prominent indigenous women for a 2018 Vogue cover. Picture: Instagram

Boney got her big break with her primary school magazine in 1998, which she proudly boasts as her “first gig as a journalist”.

The host previously shared a photo of her shoulder to shoulder with fellow school magazine committee members at Muswellbrook South Public School.

Boney’s school magazine days were just the beginning of a successful journalism career, with Hollywood star Jennifer Aniston declaring their recent interview for TV show Morning Wars, “the greatest interview ever”.

American film writer and actor Billy Bob Thornton would also go onto to claim Boney was the most comfortable interviewer he had encountered.

Following her shock announcement the television star said she will remain a part of the team until after the Paris Olympics in July and August, before she jets off to the United Kingdom to begin a Masters in Public Policy.

“I thought if I don’t do this now, then I’m probably never going to. I am at that age where if I leave now and go and study and come back, I’ll still only be 38,” she told Nine.

“That still leaves plenty of time to sort of carve out the next part of what my career is.

“I’d love to be able to come back and still do things with Nine and figure out what that looks like.”

Brooke Boney for SBS in 2018. Picture: Instagram

Brooke Boney joins the Today show desk in 2019. Picture: Instagram

From community radio to breakfast TV star

Boney grew up in the Hunter Region of NSW with her mum and five siblings. She started volunteering with her school magazine in 1998 and later her local community radio station while still in high school.

An advertising cadetship at the Australian Financial Review brought her to Sydney before she started her university education as a mature age student, graduating from a Bachelor of Arts (Journalism) in 2013.

During her studies, she got her first taste of early mornings while producing the Blackchat program on local radio station Koori Radio before her morning lectures.

She scored her first job as a political correspondent for NITV based in the press gallery at Parliament House in 2013, before later joining the campaign bus to cover the Rudd-Abbott federal election.

She made her return to radio in 2016 joining Triple J’s breakfast show as newsreader with Ben and Liam.

Originally published as Decades after starting her career with her school magazine, Today host Brooke Boney announces she is leaving the show