British Guyanese Lauren Layfield is a TV presenter, radio broadcaster, DJ, journalist and writer.
In April 2024 Lauren landed her dream job: joining the BBC Radio 1 family. She currently co-hosts Life Hacksand The Official Chart: First Look, leading the conversation about issues that affect young people today before counting down the twenty biggest songs in the UK. The move follows five years at Capital, where she fronted their Early Breakfast slot as well as covering The Capital Breakfast Show with Roman Kemp.
A highly experienced live TV presenter, Lauren has been on our screens since 2014. She has regularly reported for both The One Show and Morning Live on BBC One and is particularly passionate about covering female-centric topics, fronting films for them about subjects such as cosmetic surgery and cyberflashing.
On BBC Three, Lauren recently co-hosted Game On! for BBC Children in Need alongside Vick Hope and Steffan Powell. The two-hour, live, studio show brought together the worlds of gaming and charity and successfully picked up a Broadcast Digital Award 2024.
Part of the BBC Eurovision presenting line-up, she hosted the BBC Official Eurovision Pre-Party LIVE alongside drag queen Tia Kofi, as well as guesting on various other Eurovision programming including The Weakest Link: A Eurovision Special. It follows the success of Junior Eurovision in both 2022 and 2023 where Lauren stepped into Graham Norton’s iconic shoes to become commentator, broadcasting live on BBC Two.
Lauren started her on-screen career at CBBC and was at the helm of some of the biggest entertainment shows on the channel: BAFTA-winning makeover format The Dengineers, weekly music show The Playlist and she took over from comedian Iain Stirling on comedy panel show The Dog Ate My Homework. This was all alongside going live on weekday afternoons from CBBC HQ, (otherwise known as ‘the bits inbetween the shows’) making her one of the channel’s most recognisable faces. Her debut teen novel ‘Indi Raye is Totally Faking It’ was published in August 2023 by Hachette UK.
Lauren is a BJTC-qualified journalist, making her the perfect choice to host two documentaries for BBC Newsround; Let’s Talk About Sexism and Let’s Talk About Periods; the latter nominated for both a Royal Television Society Award and a prestigious International Emmy Award.
As a big football fan, you may have seen Lauren presenting for BBC One’s Match of the Day and its youth-oriented spin-off MOTDx on BBC Two and she has been booked as a guest on a range of shows including Celebrity Mastermind, Sky Atlantic’s The House of the Dragon Finale Special, Celebrity Bridge of Lies, ITV2’s How We Move as well as BBC Radio 2, Woman’s Hour and BBC 5Live.
In the world of podcasting, you can hear Lauren recommending new releases every week in Your Next Podcast. She previously hosted Channel 4’s Hollyoaks podcast and is frequently requested as a podcast guest appearing on Love Island: The Morning After, Russell Kane’s Man Baggage and The Official Doctor Who Podcast.
Outside of TV and radio, Lauren often hosts live events, having worked with the likes of the V&A, BAFTA, Bath Literature Festival and AllBright. She’s fronted content for the Premier League, the England Lionesses and Manchester City FC and worked with online platforms including LadBible. She is often asked to bring her expertise to judging panels such as Sky Arts, BAFTA TV and the Youth Music Awards. And she regularly collaborates with major brands including Coca Cola, Barclaycard, SkyQ and Adidas.
As a DJ, Lauren has played for the likes of Superdry, Tinder x Love Island, Subway and Vaseline, sporting events such as the ICC Cricket World Cup and the Women’s Six Nations and festivals like All Points East and British Summer Time.
She is an ambassador for mental health charity Young Minds and period poverty organisation Bloody Good Period and has recently starting writing as an opinion columnist for iNews.
Predominantly though, Lauren is known for the wildly-viral “Normal Men, Innocent Men” meme.