Kevin O’Sullivan TalkTV: Age, Career & Bio (2026)

In 2016 a newspaper dropped him for being too rude about television. He now gets fifteen hours of live television a week to be rude on.

Kevin O’Sullivan presents Drivetime on Talk, weekdays from 4pm to 7pm, and hosts What Just Happened? and Plank of the Week. Before that he spent roughly thirty years in newspapers, including a decade in Los Angeles and ten years as the Sunday Mirror’s television critic.

His X biography reads: all my opinions are someone else’s. That is the register.

There is also a problem with his name that trips up half the pages written about him, and it is worth clearing up before anything else.

Kevin O’Sullivan: quick facts

Current role	Presenter, Drivetime, Talk
On air	Weekdays, 4pm to 7pm
Also hosts	What Just Happened?, Plank of the Week
Best known previously	TV critic and columnist, Sunday Mirror, 2006 to 2016
At the Mirror since	1998
Los Angeles years	Ten, as West Coast correspondent, showbiz editor and features editor for the Daily Mirror
Also in LA	Hollywood correspondent, New York Daily News
Earlier	The Sun: showbiz reporter, TV editor, Bizarre editor
Earlier still	Sunday People; Today newspaper; Wimbledon News; Sutton Herald
Long-running TV slot	Reviewer on The Wright Stuff
Football	Fulham
X (Twitter)	@TVKev
Age, date of birth	Not published anywhere reliable
Wife, partner	Not something he discusses publicly
Net worth	No verified figure exists
Wikipedia page	None. The Kevin O’Sullivan on Wikipedia is a different man

Is Kevin O’Sullivan on Talk the same as the Irish Times editor?

No, and this is the single most common error made about him.

There is a Kevin O’Sullivan with a Wikipedia page: an Irish journalist, born around 1960, who edited The Irish Times from 2011 to 2017. That page carries an explicit line stating he is not the presenter of the same name on Talk.

The details attached to that man are the ones that leak into biography pages about the broadcaster. The degree from University College Dublin, the diploma from Dublin City University, the years at the Connacht Tribune, the wife, the three children, the birth year. All of it belongs to the newspaper editor in Dublin, not the presenter in London.

If a page about the Talk presenter tells you he was born around 1960 and studied in Dublin, it has merged two people. Close the tab.

Kevin O’Sullivan’s career before Talk

He came up through local papers and tabloids, and the route is documented in his own speaker biography.

He started as a reporter at the Wimbledon News and became chief reporter at the Sutton Herald. He then worked freelance and on staff at the Sunday People. At The Sun he was a showbiz reporter, TV editor and Bizarre editor, which is the paper’s celebrity column and one of the more demanding jobs in tabloid journalism. He was also media correspondent at Today.

Then he left the country for ten years. In Los Angeles he was West Coast correspondent, showbiz editor and features editor for the Daily Mirror, and Hollywood correspondent for the New York Daily News, interviewing film stars and covering the industry from inside it.

That decade explains a lot of what came after. A man who spent ten years inside press junkets and studio publicity operations comes back with a low tolerance for being managed, which is roughly what his television criticism reads like.

He joined the Mirror group in 1998 and moved to the Sunday Mirror as television columnist in 2006.

Why did Kevin O’Sullivan leave the Sunday Mirror?

His column was dropped at the start of 2016, after ten years, and the reaction became a media story in its own right.

A petition calling for his reinstatement gathered hundreds of signatures within days and passed 800. Piers Morgan, who had edited the Daily Mirror, called him one of the best critics in the business and said he hoped the waspish literary tongue would appear elsewhere soon. Matthew Wright, whose programme The Wright Stuff O’Sullivan reviewed television on, said the paper had lost its best columnist.

The support was not only from journalists, which is the unusual part. Ruth Langsford said she loved the column even when it said something horrible about her and Eamonn Holmes. Eamonn Holmes said the paper were fools and that being fair and giving insight apparently no longer counted. Les Dennis, reviewed by him for years, called him measured and fair. John Challis, Boycie in Only Fools and Horses, said the column was the only thing worth reading in the paper.

That is the detail worth holding on to. Television critics are usually resented by the people they review. O’Sullivan lost his column and the presenters he had spent a decade criticising publicly defended him.

He said afterwards that he was astonished by the response.

What does Kevin O’Sullivan do on Talk now?

Drivetime, weekdays from 4pm to 7pm. Three hours of live output every weekday, plus What Just Happened? and Plank of the Week, both of which also run on YouTube.

The slot has moved around. In July 2023 he signed off from a Saturday Drivetime show and switched to a weekday programme from 3pm to 5pm, and the current listing is the 4pm to 7pm weekday shift. Schedules at the channel have changed repeatedly, so check a current listing rather than an old profile page.

His subject matter now is politics and the news agenda rather than television, though the royals remain a fixture. Recent output covers Prince Harry and Meghan, digital ID proposals and crime stories, argued in the same register he once used on soap operas. He is not a neutral presenter and does not present himself as one.

How old is Kevin O’Sullivan?

Not published, and it has been a running joke on television for years.

Matthew Wright, who hosted The Wright Stuff for two decades, built a recurring gag around O’Sullivan’s supposedly advanced age during his review slots. That is unusual: most people whose age is a public joke have a published age. His does not appear anywhere reliable.

The career gives a rough shape. Local newspaper reporting, then tabloids, then a decade in Los Angeles, then a Sunday Mirror column from 2006 to 2016, with the Mirror group since 1998. That is a working life of several decades before the current job. It is not a birth year, and anyone offering you one should be asked where they got it.

Be especially careful with the figure around 1960 that circulates. That belongs to the Irish Times editor.

Kevin O’Sullivan’s wife, family and net worth

He does not discuss his private life publicly, and no established outlet has reported on it.

Entries about him appear on user-edited databases where anyone can submit a personal detail, and those entries include a marriage. User-edited sources are exactly where namesake confusion happens, and this is a man with a documented namesake problem already. Until he says something himself or a newspaper reports it, there is nothing to state.

One personal detail is on the record and harmless: he supports Fulham.

Net worth is the usual invention. He draws a presenter’s fee from a channel that does not publish individual pay, after a newspaper career that also did not. No filing exists. Every number online came out of a template.

Frequently asked questions

Who is Kevin O’Sullivan?

A British journalist and broadcaster who presents Drivetime on Talk, weekdays from 4pm to 7pm. He spent around thirty years in newspapers first, including ten years reporting from Los Angeles and ten as the Sunday Mirror’s television critic.

Is he the Kevin O’Sullivan who edited The Irish Times?

No. That is a different man, an Irish journalist who edited the paper from 2011 to 2017. Wikipedia’s entry on him states explicitly that he is not the Talk presenter. Details such as the Dublin education, the birth year around 1960 and the family belong to the editor, not the broadcaster.

Why did Kevin O’Sullivan leave the Sunday Mirror?

His television column was dropped in early 2016 after ten years. The decision drew a petition for his reinstatement and public criticism from Piers Morgan, Matthew Wright, Eamonn Holmes, Ruth Langsford and Les Dennis, among others.

How old is Kevin O’Sullivan?

His date of birth is not published in any reliable source. His age was a long-running on-air joke on The Wright Stuff, but no figure has ever been printed.

What shows does Kevin O’Sullivan host?

Drivetime on Talk, plus What Just Happened? and Plank of the Week, which also appear on YouTube.

What did Kevin O’Sullivan do in Los Angeles?

He spent ten years there as West Coast correspondent, showbiz editor and features editor for the Daily Mirror, and as Hollywood correspondent for the New York Daily News, interviewing film stars and covering the industry.

Does Kevin O’Sullivan have a Wikipedia page?

No. Searching his name returns the Irish Times editor of the same name, which is the source of most of the wrong information about him.

He spent a decade telling the country which television programmes were badly made, lost the job for it, and now makes fifteen hours of live television a week.

The internet still cannot tell you how old he is, and half of it thinks he edited a newspaper in Dublin.