Karen, who has presented the show since it started in 2007, is expecting her first baby in December, and as excited as she is about becoming a mum, she’s worried about taking time off.
She plans to work right up until late November, and be back on our screens by summer.
“I don’t know if taking a year off would be an option,” Karen said. “TV3 would keep my job open but a year is a long time to be off TV.”
Fellow presenter Holly Willoughby was criticised for returning to the Xtra Factor just six weeks after she had her second baby, but Karen explains that in media you just can’t afford to be gone for long.
“She was getting some slack for going back to work so soon but she said six weeks is a long time when you’re working in the media,” Karen recalls.
“If you’re gone for too long you worry about your job. You can’t just walk into another job, it doesn’t work like that in media.”
"It would be daunting. I would worry that I would be forgotten.”
Karen has booked herself six months of maternity leave, the same as her fellow presenters.
“I’m taking six months maternity. That’s what Aisling and Sybill would have taken.”
“I was feeling a bit conflicted about it because Xpose was going through all these format changes and we were going live and I was thinking ‘oh man, I’m going to really miss this.”
