As a single mother of three with a primetime slot on Fox News, Laura Ingraham gets asked the same question over and over again: How do you balance it all?
The 61-year-old’s response is surprisingly honest: “I don’t know.”
While viewers of her 7:00 p.m. there is.
In fact, as he tells the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview, some days he feels like he’s barely managing to get by.
‘I don’t think I’m any different to any other mother who has a fairly demanding job and at the same time I have the added excitement of being a single mother. At any time of the day we feel like we’re not doing enough,” he says.
But over the years, the glamorous cable news host has put together a routine that helps her manage stress and stay on top of her hectic workload, all while looking perfectly balanced.
On a typical day, Ingraham wakes up at 6 a.m., makes breakfast for her sons, Nikolai, 14, and Dmitri, 16, usually eggs and bacon, sometimes blueberry pancakes, and takes them to the school. His daughter María, 19, is at university.
Ingraham then turns to a daily workout routine, usually a circuit training class at Orangetheory, a boutique fitness chain where memberships start at $129 a month.
As a single mother of three with a primetime slot on Fox News, Laura Ingraham gets asked the same question over and over again: How do you balance it all? The 61-year-old’s response is surprisingly honest: “I don’t know.”
While viewers of her 7:00 p.m. there is.
On a typical day, Ingraham wakes up at 6 a.m., makes breakfast for her sons, Nikolai, 14 (left), and Dmitri, 16 (right), usually eggs and bacon, sometimes pancakes. blueberries, and takes them to school.
Laura’s 19-year-old daughter Maria (pictured right) is in college.
“I don’t sleep very well,” Ingraham admits, “but for me, exercise is the absolute key.” I have always been athletic. In high school, my entire class voted me their class athlete.’
When she’s not working out, Ingraham stays active, whether throwing a soccer ball with her kids or sprinting in the yard of her home in Northern Virginia.
“For a long time I was able to beat them,” he jokes, “but then getting older means learning to give things up gracefully.”
Not that you can say she’s getting older: Ingraham, who joined Fox News as a contributor in 2007 and began hosting her own late-night slot in 2017, still maintains a schedule that many 20-somethings would struggle to keep up with.
After his workouts, he has an 11 a.m. call with his Fox production staff to brainstorm before his late-night show. Despite a salary of more than $10 million a year, Ingraham still makes her own lunch.
Then it’s time to start writing for the show. The staff says she takes pride in writing most of her opening monologue and most of the show herself, while an editorial team helps with edits.
At 6 p.m. she is in the studio to do her hair and makeup. “For me, less is more, but you have to wear makeup on TV or you look pretty bad,” she says. And at 7 pm sharp, it will be live.
Of course, Ingraham is the first to point out that her life is made easier thanks to Fox’s entire styling team, which diligently presents her wardrobe options and helps her style her to perfection.
‘I have a person who helps me with (my clothing), she designs a lot… I really like blues. I really like turquoise. I like the color. “I like pastels too, but especially blues and certain jewel tones make me feel good,” explains Ingraham.
But it is not always a complete look.
Letting us in on a TV secret, Ingraham says she sometimes leaves her jeans on under her broadcast desk, out of sight of the cameras.
A favorite brand: Los Angeles-based Mother Denim. “I could wear them all day,” he says.
Off the air, Ingraham ditches heavy TV makeup and maintains a simple skincare routine.
‘In normal life, I wear very little makeup. “I think I buy most of my makeup at the drugstore,” she says. “I have some nice foundations and things like that, but I tend to keep them very clean and polished.”
He also eats and drinks focusing on maintaining his health.
“I drink water whenever I can and then I don’t drink alcohol during the week,” he says. “I’m one of those people who thinks it’s fun to have a margarita once in a while, but that’s it.”
Religion also plays an important role for Ingraham and for her children, whom she adopted, the children of Russia and Maria of Guatemala.
“Staying alert means taking care of your body and mind,” he says. “For me, that means making sure I go to mass and making sure I put God first in what I do.”
Choosing to adopt, Ingraham says, has been the key to her happiness: “We have a very unusual family and it’s not perfect, we have our moments, but it has been a beautiful blessing for me.”
Despite the glamorous lifestyle viewers might expect from the never-married host of a top-rated cable news show, Ingraham opts for a quiet life and tends to return home after broadcasts.
“It’s hard, because I’m not a big cocktail party person anyway, but you really miss working at that time of day, and that’s also the time to do the kids’ homework,” she says.
‘My day ends after our post-show production call at 8:15 pm We do a quick post-mortem of the show and chat about ideas for tomorrow. But I’m never too far from the news.
Ingraham’s dedication to the job has certainly been rewarded. She is now the highest-rated woman in the history of cable news, according to Fox data, with her show averaging around three million viewers per show.
After his workouts, he has an 11 a.m. call with his Fox production staff to brainstorm before his late-night show. (Ingraham is pictured with Fox and Friends cast members Lawrence Jones, Steve Doocy, Carley Shimkus and Brian Kilmeade.)
Ingraham’s dedication to the job has certainly been rewarded. She is now the highest-rated woman in cable news history, according to Fox data, with her show averaging around three million viewers per show. (He is pictured here with Fox’s Jesse Watters.)
Still, his high-profile personality has its difficulties. Ingraham is known for her outspoken political views, which often provoke a fair amount of public ire.
Ingraham is strongly pro-gun rights and is a strong supporter of Donald Trump, sharing in particular his belief that America’s borders must be secured.
“People have now seen what left-wing radicalism has had on our schools and our government,” he says. “I think more Americans just want to get back to common sense.”
Most of the negative responses he has received (often in the form of trolling on social media) are reactions to his opinions on these topics, he says.
But sometimes insults can be very painful. Her own brother, Curtis Ingraham, called her a “monster” in a 2018 interview with the Daily Beast for not supporting gay marriage.
But it’s important for her, Ingraham says, to draw a line between her work and her family life.
‘I have literally never Googled myself, ever, not once. People never believe that. But I don’t care,” he says. ‘I care what my family thinks, my closest friends. But as for the anonymous critics, what the press thinks, I don’t care. If I had wanted to please the press, I would have continued a very different career path.’
It’s hard to argue that the one he took hasn’t been worth it.