A former Sky producer who worked with Kay Burley has told Guido of how Sky’s soon-to-return presenter has a “divide and conquer approach to how she treats her team”, ensuring loyalty from those she likes, and shunning those who upset her. In one anecdote from the whistleblower, Burley is accused of turning against one senior producer and treating her “like a bit of a slave”, humiliating her by having her carry Kay’s shoes around. Resulting in mockery from Burley’s loyalists.

The former producer confesses she was very young at the time, however became aware that Kay was running “weekends away” at her Cotswold holiday home in Lechlade, something Guido’s source said felt like “grooming”:

“What Kay does is this divide and conquer thing, but she has her favourites. And suddenly they’re getting the best stories. And suddenly, they’re kind of working on her programme

And then she ran the sort of weekends away, where she would invite people to come away to her Cotswolds place. I think if you were invited, obviously you had to go. I mean, I had a friend who was invited, she said ‘what the hell do I do?’ They didn’t want to go but sort of thought, Well, I better go. And in a funny way, I was always quite relieved, not to.

I thought it felt like she was grooming people really.”

Another producer tells Guido that a mere issue with a printer on set resulted in Kay pushing him aside socially, despite getting along “really well” with her up until that point. Referencing the infamous image of Kay grabbing a photographer by the throat, Guido’s whistleblower said it was “absolutely” her revealing her true colours…

Media sources point out that in the US Ellen DeGeneres’ long-running daytime TV show was wound up amid similar toxic workplace claims. Degeneres’ show ran on the Comcast-owned NBC network. Comcast also owns Sky…