Mylee Hogan, an Australian TV presenter, was first taken off-air for a few days and then demoted to a field reporter by Channel 7’s Sunrise for her distasteful joke on legendary cricketer Glenn McGrath. Hogan, who had recently been introduced as one of the hosts of the morning show, miserably failed while trying to follow a TikTok trend on-air. On December 29, after a segment on a bizarre TikTok trend, in which children and teenagers were shown pranking their parents by saying some of their favourite celebrities were dead – when in fact they weren’t – Hogan came with the most shocking and unexpected gig.
Just after criticising the TikTok trend visuals, fellow host Mark Beretta started to talk about their next segment with their guest and former Australia fast bowler Glenn McGrath on the Boxing Day Test against South Africa. That is when Hogan jokingly said, “Glenn McGrath died”.
Her comment attracted no laughs and it stunned her co-hosts Beretta and Edwina Bartholomew who quickly disassociated from the comment. “Don’t even…that’s not funny,” Bartholomew said.
“I don’t get that at all. That’s so not funny… it’s crazy,” Beretta added. Hogan, still not understanding the situation, kept on giggling on-air.
The show went on with the McGrath interview after Bartholomew apologised to the viewers.
Quite expectedly, her “McGrath died” joke was criticised heavily on social media with netizens calling her “immature and insensitive.” There were calls of even boycotting Sunrise’s flagship show if Hogan stayed on-air.
After the heavy backlash, Hogan was taken off-air without any official announcement from the channel. On Tuesday, Bartholomew had taken Hogan’s spot as news presenter host at the end of the desk, with Monique Wright moving into the spot next to Mark Beretta.
Hogan was back on-air on Thursday but not from the studio. She was seen reporting from near Sydney Harbour Bridge on the city’s population growth.
Channel 7 and Sunrise are yet to make any official comment on the incident but it does appear that Hogan has been demoted to a field reporter’s role barely 13 days after being introduced as a host on December 23. Hogan had expressed her delight of being inside the studio as a presenter saying, “It’s good to be here, guys. It’s a nice temperature, I know where the bathroom is, where the coffee is – it’s very comfortable.”