Emmy Award-winning reporter Maurielle Lue looks like the picture of confidence. Her long locks are coiffed, her makeup is perfect, and her laugh is boisterous. Whether she’s co-hosting Good Day Detroit or The Noon on FOX 2, it’s clear she’s well prepared and confident in front of a TV camera. But what you can’t see is that she struggles with anxiety and depression.
“I live by myself and hit one of my lowest points coming out of the pandemic,” says Lue, who had been experiencing bouts of anxiety and depression since around 2016. “We now see that loneliness is actually being declared as an epidemic.”
Ever the reporter, she did her research, hunted online for tools, and ended up booking a therapist, calling her pastor, and asking her doctor questions about sleep and stress.
“It felt like a dirty little secret,” Lue explains. “From the outside, people see success and think, ‘If I had her life, I wouldn’t be depressed.’ No one ever said that to me; that was my own perception. But it created shame and kept me quiet.”
With guidance from professionals, Lue utilized tools that resonated with her to improve her mental health. She listened to faith messages when her spirit was low and watched short breathwork or cognitive behavioral therapy videos when her stress was high. Eventually, she says, she rewired her brain.
“I built tiny rituals I could actually keep,” she says. “Ten minutes of prayer and meditation, sunlight before screens, lake walks, gratitude lists, and a hard cap on doomscrolling.”
Now she’s growing a wellness-meets-lifestyle brand that she plans to launch this year, centered on community, mental health, and the power of positivity.
Her goal is to build a community that includes in-person meetups, conferences, and tools to help a wide variety of people in different phases of life.
“I’ve gone through this complete transformation with meditation and prayer and am really trying to level up my life,” she says. “If that’s something that I can help other people do, then I want to be a bridge for that.”
Lue stresses that the easiest way people can help others who are struggling is paying attention. “Sometimes texting ‘Let’s hang this weekend?’ is a cry for help. During my lowest season, one plan with a friend could be the thread holding my whole week together. Keep the date. Show up. And if you notice they’re struggling, be the friend who gently says, ‘Let’s find you someone to talk to.’”
Connecting with others is not new to the Atlanta native, who was previously at NBC station WVVA in Bluefield, West Virginia, and WEWS in Cleveland.
Shortly after starting at FOX 2 in December 2011, Lue gained her own fan club after posting videos of herself doing her makeup and talking about news stories. She met up with some of these loyal viewers at Buffalo Wild Wings in Royal Oak, and shortly after, one of the attendees started the Lue Crew Facebook page. Eight years later, there’s a Lue Crew group on nearly every social media channel with thousands of members.
Of course, being in the public eye often means backlash and cruelty in the comments section on social media.
“I’m a woman on camera; people have opinions about everything from hair to hemlines,” she says. “What still surprises me is how casual cruelty can be online. Sometimes folks forget there’s a human being on the other side of the screen.”
Still, Lue has carved her own lane, connecting with the audience by being herself and being empathetic.
“Empathy isn’t a strategy; it’s how we keep a community together,” Lue explains. “When you see yourself in me and I see myself in you, the conversation gets kinder, the world feels smaller, and common ground gets a seat at the table.”
This story originally appeared in the February 2026 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. To read more, pick up a copy of Hour Detroit at a local retail outlet. Click here to get our digital edition.
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