Her television career has been long and varied, but Gretel Killeen will forever be associated with hosting Big Brother Australia in its early 2000s heyday.
So when it was revealed at last week’s Network 10 Upfront event (where next year’s slate of shows are revealed) that the iconic show would return to its home in 2025, TV insiders – and fans – expected the announcement to include the exciting news that Gretel, 61, would also return to helm the program.
The snub has shocked fans of the iconic reality TV show.
“Gretel IS Big Brother Australia,” a TV insider tells New Idea. “So when the show’s return was announced, some present were surprised that hosting duties are being handed to Mel Tracina, a newcomer to TV.”
Mel, 34, currently hosts a daytime radio show on Nova and presents an entertainment wrap-up segment on Network 10’s The Cheap Seats.
“She’s definitely a TV talent, but with Big Brother set to air – totally live – six nights a week, it’s a huge gamble by Ten to give the show to someone so relatively inexperienced,” our insider explains.
Since Gretel wrapped up hosting Big Brother in 2007, after launching it in 2001, the program aired for three seasons from 2012 on Channel Nine, and was then picked up by Channel Seven in 2019, where it aired each year until 2023.
But fans have complained about how the show changed at both Nine and Seven, particularly lamenting the loss of its live format and public voting system used to eliminate housemates.
With Network 10 returning to the show’s original live format, it would’ve “been a real TV moment” if experienced host Gretel were to return to the franchise, our
insider says.
While her absence from the reboot could be interpreted as a snub, our source also explains that as Gretel is now a successful author and artist, “she probably feels that Big Brother should well and truly remain in her past”.
