Maria Menounos made headlines in May when she left the popular syndicated show “Extra” — which she had co-hosted with Mario Lopez since 2011 — and signed a multi-year contract with E!
Now the first part of that deal, her newsmagazine “Untold with Maria Menounos,” is premiering Thursday at 8 p.m.
And the 36-year-old host says working on the hour-long show has given her a nice change of pace.
“Being able to host my own show and being able to use a little more of my journalism chops and getting deeper into stories is exciting to me,” she tells The Post.
Described as a “Dateline” for pop culture, “Untold” will seek to go behind the headlines of entertainment news. Thursday’s premiere, for instance, looks at Gen-Y royals like Prince William and Kate, the selfie-fueled plastic surgery craze and the campy Syfy sequel “Sharknado: The Second One.” Each episode will cover three stories — a deeper dive on topics than Menounos was able to take at “Extra.”
Being able to host my own show and being able to use a little more of my journalism chops and getting deeper into stories is exciting to me.
- Maria Menounos
“Those shows, if you have a piece of longer than a minute-and-a-half you get bored because you just want the quick highlights,” Menounos says. “The whole purpose of this show is to really dig deeper and give you what you would watch on ‘Dateline.’ I really like to let things breathe.”
And while “Extra” shoots at Universal Studios Hollywood, “Untold” will have Menounos traveling on location to where the story is, combining iPhone video, GoPro, FlipCam and XD-Cam footage for a behind-the-scenes visual style.
“I’ve been an iPhone queen for a really long time,” Menounos says. “I’ve always gathered really big moments, [like] finding Oprah in the crowd of millions of people in Chicago on election night [in 2008] and getting an interview with her on the iPhone. I’ve always used that and thought it was really a cool way to incorporate little, grittier stuff into pieces.”
Future shows may focus on the EDM (electronic dance music) empire, celebrity stalkers, the rise of heroin in Hollywood and transgender civil rights issues. In between shooting stories for “Untold,” Menounos’ deal has her appearing on the “Live from E!” roundtable series and various network specials, and prepping projects for the production company she runs with longtime boyfriend Keven Undergaro.
The first eight episodes of “Untold” will air on select Thursdays through the end of the year (future premiere dates include Aug. 7 and Aug. 28) but despite her busy schedule, Menounos is open to upping their frequency.
“I’m a workaholic so for me, more is better,” she says. “It depends on how it all works. I just started so we’ll see.”