Freya Fires Up

Freya Leach, a conservative political commentator and former Liberal Party candidate, joined Sky News Australia in 2025 as a co-host of The Late Debate.^[4] On 6 August 2025, she was announced as the host of her own program, Freya Fires Up, which debuted two weeks later on 17 August 2025.^[5][6] One of the program's inaugural guests was socialist activist Jordan van den Lamb.^[7][8]

On 21 September 2025, Leach hosted a panel on the program with Scottish Asian social media personality Ryan Williams (also known online as thescottishkorean) and American political strategist Joey Mannarino.^[9] After being asked by Leach about his reaction to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Williams made multiple anti-Islam remarks while wearing raw rashers of bacon across his chest.^[10] Leach responded by saying there were "great moderate Muslims" in Australia, and briefly apologised for Williams' comments moments later, before continuing the remainder of the interview with Mannarino alone.^[11][12] The comments were not republished by Sky News, but Williams posted the segment on his own social media accounts.^[13][14]

The following day, Sky News initiated a review into the program, describing Williams' comments as "wholly inappropriate and unacceptable".^[15] A full apology was also issued by Leach in a pre-recorded statement during The Late Debate later in the evening.^[16] Following the review, Sky News chose to pre-record future episodes of Freya Fires Up instead of continuing to broadcast the program live.^[17] Ben Espiner, the program's producer, was sacked on 25 September 2025.^[18]

Although Freya Fires Up was expected to continue, the program did not air on 28 September 2025 and was replaced with a rerun of Sunday Agenda.^[19][20] The following day, Sky News confirmed the program had been cancelled after six episodes, and Leach continued at the channel as a co-host of The Late Debate before leaving the show in January 2026.^[21][22]