BBC star Laura Kuenssburg's life – pulled off air, safety threat and Chris Packham fury

Laura Kuenssburg may be the first woman to hold the BBC’s Political editor position, but off-screen, she usually enjoys evenings with her husband, James Kelly in their East London home.

Not much is known about their life together, as the presenter is famously tight-lipped about her private life; however, here is what we know about Laura’s life so far.

Laura firstly prioritised a career in politics from a young age after starting her career at NBC News while studying journalism at Georgetown University.

She was born in Italy on August 8, 1976, to Sally Kuenssberg and Scottish businessman Nick Kuenssberg.

Her paternal grandfather, Dr. Ekkehard von Kuenssberg, was the German-born founder and president of the Royal College of General Practitioners. In contrast, her maternal grandfather was Lord Roberton, a Scotland High Court judge.

She grew up in Glasgow with her brother and sister and attended Laurel Bank School, a private girls' school.

After finishing school, she pursued history at the University of Edinburgh before moving to Washington, D.C., to study journalism at Georgetown University.

While there, she worked on a political programme for NBC News.

After returning to the UK, she worked for local radio and cable television in Glasgow before joining BBC North East and Cumbria in March 2000.

She won a regional Royal Television Society award for her work as a home affairs correspondent and produced segments for the social affairs editor, Niall Dickson.

Later, she was appointed as chief political correspondent for BBC News, where she reported for BBC One bulletins, Daily Politics, and BBC News.

In May 2010, her presence was so ubiquitous between the general election and forming a coalition government under David Cameron that journalist David Aaronovitch coined the term “Kuenssbergovision.”

Laura joined ITV News in 2011 and contributed to business reporting on tonight’s current affairs programme.

In 2013, she co-hosted News at Ten with Alastair Stewart, and later that year, she announced that she would leave ITV to return to the BBC as chief correspondent and presenter of Newsnight, replacing Gavin Esler.

During her time as BBC political editor, she faced severe backlash, particularly during the 2017 general election when her safety was threatened, and a bodyguard was hired to protect her.

She faced further scrutiny back in April this year when Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg from was removed from iPlayer following a complaint about comments made by Chris Packham.

Toby Young, the journalist, claimed that Packham made “false and defamatory” allegations about him.

In a panel discussion about carbon emissions on last Sunday’s episode, Packham referred to Young’s Daily Sceptic blog as the “Daily Septic”.

He alleged that the website “is basically put together by a bunch of professionals with close affiliations to the fossil fuel industry”.

The comments went unchallenged by Laura, who later tweeted the clip from her X account. The BBC Politics account also shared it, and at the last count it had been viewed more than 845,000 times.

The BBC said in a statement: "We received complaints from people unhappy Laura didn’t challenge a comment made by panel member Chris Packham regarding the Daily Sceptic.

"During a discussion with the panel about various issues including climate change, broadcaster and conservationist Chris Packham claimed that the Daily Sceptic, whose editor in chief is Toby Young, is 'basically put together by a bunch of professionals with close affiliations to the fossil fuel industry.'

"We acknowledge we would ideally have asked him to present his evidence on this, but in a fast-moving live programme it’s not always possible to pick up on every point made by our guests. We’ve removed any posts on X with this part of the discussion."