Catt Sadler recalls the ups and downs of her tenure as anchor at E! News. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Ilya S. Savenok/FilmMagic, Christophe Simone/AFP via Getty Images, Bauer-Griffin/GC Images, Frazer Harrison/Getty Images, Jun Sato/WireImage)Catt Sadler remembers where she was when she was hired by E! in 2006."I was a local TV girl [and] in the newsroom at the Indianapolis station where I was working," Sadler, 51, recalls. "I'd just done the morning news and was in an edit bay when my agent called. He told me, 'I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is: You have two weeks to pack up your life, home, children and everything. The good news is: You got the job.'"It was a life-changing moment for the then-31-year-old reporter and mother of two young boys to be hired by the network that took entertainment news as seriously as 60 Minutes treats its hard-hitting journalism.
AdvertisementAdvertisement"It was February, snowing outside and cold in Indiana," she tells Yahoo. "I didn't even call my then husband because I wanted to tell him in person. When I got home, I said, 'We're moving to Los Angeles! I'm going to be on this show called The Daily 10!' It was an absolute dream come true."The audition process spanned three months and saw Sadler go up against "all of these nationally known faces and names who I had been watching on TV." While she had done entertainment news reporting after college in California, she didn't think it would be a career. "The chances that I would actually get the job were so slim," she says. "I had to believe I could do it. I dreamed the dream."Sadler, pictured here on the red carpet of the 2007 Golden Globes, was a mom of two living in Indiana when she was hired by E!.
As a new hire, Sadler cohosted The D10, a daily show counting down the top entertainment stories of the day, which debuted in March 2006. She was also a Live From the Red Carpet correspondent, interviewing stars at awards shows. One of her first memories of being on the job was covering the Daytime Emmys in April 2006."That was the first time that not only was I live on E!, but I had the pressure of opening the show," she recalls. "I had the first words - 'Welcome to Live From the Red Carpet' - and I was so nervous. It was the most out-of-body experience I ever had. I thought I was going to stop breathing."AdvertisementAdvertisementLuckily, Sadler didn't stumble and became a key part of the network's coverage. The Daily 10 ran until October 2010, when, after its cancellation, Sadler was integrated into the expanded E! News team first as a correspondent and later as a host.
Sadler with her Daily 10 co-anchors Sal Masekela and Debbie Matenopoulos in 2007. (Alberto E. Rodriguez/ Getty Images)E! News debuted in September 1991 and was at the core of the cable network's entertainment coverage. Like Entertainment Tonight, it covered celebrity news, gossip, trends and red carpets. Yet E!'s younger personalities were known for their style and access to A-listers.
The network's flagship newscast ran for nearly three decades before it was canceled in 2020 during the pandemic. While it was revived in 2022, its end - after more than three decades - was announced in July. The show goes dark on Sept. 25, though it will continue as a digital brand.
Sadler walked away from her dream job in December 2017 amid an equal pay dispute, but her memories of working there are largely happy ones. She looks back at that chapter and on a bygone era in entertainment.
Appointment television"It was such a charmed moment in Hollywood history," Sadler says of her era on the show. "It was appointment television. People scheduled their days around tuning in to be entertained and escape their own lives. We weren't changing the world with entertainment news, but it served a purpose for so many people, and that felt good."Sadler on the E! News set in 2014. (Brandon Hickman/E!)She joined the ranks of high-profile anchors over the years, including Giuliana Rancic, Ryan Seacrest, Jason Kennedy, Maria Menounos, Adrienne Bailon-Houghton, Jules Asner, Steve Kmetko and currently Keltie Knight and Justin Sylvester. Some of her pinch-me moments included interviews with stars she grew up watching on the big screen.
AdvertisementAdvertisement"There's a lot that's happened in the world of Johnny Depp, but as a little girl from Indiana who literally was not only obsessed with him as a beautiful human being - I was so in love with all of his movies - being face-to-face with him on red carpets and interviewing him with regularity was the coolest. He was always so gracious, professional and kind," she recalls. "Meryl Streep also pops in my mind because she's such a legend and was always so maternal, lovely and thoughtful. I just was in awe of her every time."While the show was known for its steady stream of celebrity gossip - breakups, divorces, arrests and other drama - Sadler says her true interest was always in the "humanity side of celebrity.""It felt like my