Popular 7NEWS Queensland presenter Kendall Gilding is leaving Channel 7 after 12 years.
The journalist, who welcomed her second child in September 2022, says she wants to focus on her young family and explore other opportunities.
Kendall has anchored the 4pm news bulletin in Queensland since it began in August 2015, helping shape it into its unique style.
Stream the world’s best reality, entertainment and true crime shows for free on 7Bravo on 7plus >>
She is leaving Channel 7 on December 29, with an announcement on a new 4pm presenter to be made in the near future.
Kendall began her career in journalism in 2011 as a presenter with Brisbane radio station 96five Family Radio.
Later that year, she joined Channel 7.
Kendall and partner Tim have two children, Olive, four, and Moses, one.
The mother has previously been candid about her struggles with fertility and how she knew the feeling of “desperately” wanting a family, explaining she fell pregnant with Olive because of IVF treatments.
“The desire of my heart was still to fall pregnant naturally,” she wrote on Instagram in April 2022.
“After trying and trying – we were headed down the same medical road.
“Then at the 11th hour, just a few days before surgery – I took a test & for the first time in our lives we watched that little window turn positive!”
‘Really stressful’ road
Kendall, has endometriosis and polycystic ovarian syndrome, also spoke about her pregnancy struggles in 2020, after welcoming Olive.
On attempting to conceive, she said in an entry on her website, “So you’ve timed everything perfectly, taken a fortnight of drugs by injecting yourself with a needle every morning, your partner produces sperm, it gets put in and then you have to wait two weeks to see if you’re pregnant.”
“In my case, four rounds of this were unsuccessful.
“I can’t describe the heartbreak of getting your period each month.”
With this failing, the couple tried IVF, which Kendall found “really stressful”.
“It’s a fairly basic procedure – it’s a transvaginal operation, so not invasive like the endo surgery and they don’t have to cut you open and it’s pretty quick,” she went on.
“When I woke up, I had a circle on my hand and the number 20 written inside.
“This was the number of eggs they were able to retrieve and that’s a pretty phenomenal result.”
Following the IVF treatment, Kendall recalled receiving a call from her gynecologist while she was in the make-up chair preparing to present the news.
“I was sitting in the makeup chair at work, so I couldn’t speak very openly because no one knew what was going on,” she wrote in 2020.
“My doctor told me I was pregnant and I literally just kept saying ‘You’re kidding.. no, you’re joking…
“I could not believe her, and I couldn’t react because there were too many people around,” she said at the time.
For more engaging celebrity content, visit 7Life on Facebook.
