It’s safe to say that Kiri Bloore, 30, isn’t camera shy.
Bloore, a resident of London, has spent the past 13 years of her career as a television personality conducting interviews with celebrities on the red carpet, covering sporting events, and corresponding from landmark events such as Prince William and Catherine Middleton’s Royal Wedding.
“There was no other job that I wanted to do. I started when I was about 17, just making my way, trying to get work,” Bloore explained. “I just don’t think I ever thought I would be in an office.”
Her initial jobs in the sports and home shopping industries provided Bloore with experience and skills that would eventually help her cover larger stories, including the Royal Wedding and the “Twilight” movie premiere in Leicester Square.
“My very first job was doing a motorsport TV show covering the Clio Cup, which was quite fun for my first job. And then I had done things like QVC, which has been an amazing way of learning your craft because you learn everything there. So then when it came to doing things like the Royal Wedding, when it was live and there was so much pressure, I didn’t feel the pressure as much as everybody else because I had been in a live studio for so long,” Bloore said.
Bloore, who was TLC television network’s correspondent for the wedding, called the experience one of the most memorable of her career. From her position at Westminster Abbey, Bloore not only reported on the wedding but was also able to witness British patriotism firsthand.
“The British way of life sometimes is to be a little bit negative. The Royal Wedding was absolutely amazing because every single person there was so overwhelmingly happy and just supporting the wedding. It was just such a lovely experience. To see how many people are in the U.K., and I know loads of people that traveled from America as well, to meet in crowds. It was complete roadblock. You couldn’t move.
“To get to Westminster Abbey we left our studios, ITV Studios, at 6 o’clock in the morning and I don’t think we got there until 8 because of the crowds. We had to go on foot. Previous to that we had had taxis, and the night before at Clarence House, which is where William and Harry were staying, we had to walk as well, and we had a deadline. We had to get back to ITV Studios by 10:30 and we didn’t finish filming until 10 and it’s quite a way across London. We had to run the whole way just to get through the crowds. That kind of stuff you’ll never forget just because of the scale of the events,” Bloore recalled.
In 2015, Bloore can be seen in E! Entertainment Television’s first scripted series, “The Royals,” along with stars Elizabeth Hurley and William Moseley. On the show, Bloore plays a news correspondent who reports on the dramatic lives of the members of a fictional British royal family. Bloore explained that, despite her experience as a Royal Wedding correspondent, her work on live television did not prepare her for the series.
“It’s funny because a lot of the TV work that I do is live and it’s instant, you know, on the red carpet. It’s all really rushed and you don’t have time to think; it’s all automatic. Filming [‘The Royals’] was a completely different experience,” she said. “They brought in extras and all sorts of things. There were so many people around me. I normally never get nervous and I remember feeling quite nervous my first time.”
The television industry can often be ruthless for those who work within it, especially for females. Bloore said she has only experienced adversity just recently during an interview with a man in the sports industry.
“I was filming a football show and I was interviewing quite famous pundits and one guy went to me, ‘Oh what football team do you support, princess?’ And for the first time I was just like, ‘My gosh,’” Bloore recalled. “That was quite fascinating for me. I know people sort of say, ‘Run like a girl,’ but for me that’s never been. I have a brother and I’ve always been as an equal to him.”
Bloore learned the importance of maintaining confidence on camera after she interviewed Kate Adie, the U.K.’s first female war correspondent.
“I interviewed [Adie] and she was really hard-nosed. She was just so fierce, basically. I wondered how she’d got to the top of her game and been in a war situation for so long,” Bloore said. “She gave me an insight into her world and I think it is about being tough. Everybody’s got an opinion and everybody will always have an opinion about everything you do, because you’re putting yourself in that situation.
“I think you just have to learn to be confident in yourself and not always take everyone’s opinion so seriously. Someone will love you; someone will hate you. Someone will think you’re fat, someone will think you’re thin. It’s the nature of the world, so I think you just have to have a bit of a tough skin,” she continued.
Bloore’s broadcasting career expanded after she listened to her mother’s advice and took a course in journalism at London School of Journalism.
“It wasn’t until maybe five years ago or so that I went and studied my journalism and I think that that actually was a big point for me because before then I’ve never done any writing, and I now edit a magazine in London. So it’s been quite a progression for me because I never would’ve done that without that course,” she stated.
Bloore is the fashion editor for Viva lifestyle magazine London. The magazine strives to capture the offerings and essences of England’s major cities. It uses photographs and interviews to showcase fashion, local businesses, events, music and beauty.
Bloore’s passion for clothing and accessories led her to develop her own website dedicated to fashion called Fashion Forensics. She started the website, FashionForensics.com, while she was filming the show “Front Row” for Fashion One TV.
“I was going to a lot of fashion shows. I was in fashion situations all the time so [Fashion Forensics] was just a really nice outlet to be able to put up as much fashion information as possible,” she explained.
“I felt like there was bit of a gap in the market. There’s a lot of blogs and a lot of people talk about themselves on the blogs, and then there’s a lot of magazines, and they talk about high-end designers. And so [Fashion Forensics] is a place where, say, someone like me, or some of my friends, can go to find our stuff – our clothes, our shoes. You want high street stuff that looks like designer stuff,” she continued.
Bloore believes that fashion impacts people’s lives everyday, whether they realize it or not.
“It can sound really shallow but its true, every single person puts on clothes everyday. It’s one of the staple parts of our lives. Every handbag, every pair of shoes, every dress we put on is a reflection of us,” she said. “A person that hates fashion [or] rejects fashion still is creating an image by what they’re wearing. A lot of people reject fashion but actually it is us.”
Bloore said she has no plans to slow her career aspirations anytime soon. Her future goals include covering Formula 1 races and the Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles, an all-female motorsport rally that takes place in the Moroccan desert. All this, she said, she hopes to accomplish within the next year.
Christina Raus is a creative writing student who plugs her ears with her fingers whenever anybody tries to tell her that a degree in writing is good for nothing more than to guarantee her a lifelong, fulltime job as a barista. She works as a tutor at the Western New England University Writing Center, where she empowers students of all academic disciplines to express themselves through written language. After graduating with her Bachelor of Arts degree, Christina intends to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree in fiction writing.
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