Terminated Preston & Steve Cast Member Kathy Romano Tells All
She was let go from WMMR in May after decades on the show.
Former Preston & Steve cast member Kathy Romano, who was let go from WMMR in May (Photo by Steve Chris)
Update 9/15/2025: Kathy Romano just landed her own morning show on B101. We talked to her and got lots of details about it. You can read the full story by clicking this link.
Kathy Romano joined the Preston & Steve Show way back in 2003. In those days, the show aired on Y100. Two years later, the crew moved to WMMR. And in May, Romano was suddenly without a job after Beasley Media Group, the Florida-based publicly-traded media conglomerate that owns WMMR, didn’t renew her contract. Here, Romano talks getting drunk with listeners in Jamaica, embarrassing on-air moments, and her emotional and unexpected departure.
I was born in … Long Island, but when I was two, my parents purchased my grandparents’ home in Bucks County, and we moved here.
My worst subject at Pennsbury High … was history. I can rip through a museum in 20 minutes, and that’s plenty.
These days, I live in … Conshohocken. “Up-and-coming Conshohocken.” [Laughs] These new restaurants that keep opening and the prices for their food and drinks are … interesting. I moved to Conshohocken in 2005 when the Preston & Steve show was at Y100, which was located in Conshohocken. And pretty much right after I moved here, the show moved to WMMR in Bala Cynwyd. Figures.
My son is always asking me … for money to buy video games. Now he wants a dirt bike. But of course he wants the best dirt bike ever built that costs thousands of dollars.
Right before joining the show … I was a traffic reporter for NBC10, back in the John Bolaris days. [Laughs]
The moment I learned that the Florida-based corporate overlords that own WMMR were letting me go … I started to pass out. My hearing got weird and my vision got blurry.
Preston Elliot, Kathy Romano and Steve Morrison of WMMR’s Preston & Steve show on the morning she announced her unexpected departure (Image courtesy the Preston & Steve Show podcast)
My most embarrassing moment on the show was … when I realized, while we were on the air, that you can drive to Alaska.
The coolest fan interaction I ever had was … when this woman came up to me at an event and told me that years and years before, she met me and that I was nice to her and said some nice things. When she told me this years later, she told me it was a really rough time in her life and that my kindness changed things for her. So it’s all the people whose lives you touch and never even know you touched them.
If you ask me to tell you what I really think about the aforementioned corporate overlords … I will respond with the “mouth closed” emoji. I can’t talk about it!
The most famous people I met through the show were … John Travolta, Kevin Costner, Billy Bob Thornton, and the actresses who played Laverne and Shirley. They were the best.
The biggest asshole we ever had to deal with was … a person we thought was Jose Canseco, but years later, we realized that it might have actually been his brother, who looks very similar. He was an epic douchebag.
The first concert I saw in life was … Debbie Gibson at the Spectrum in 1989. My cousin Buddy was her choreographer and backup dancer. So I was getting VIP concert treatment at an early age. I actually met Tina Yothers from Family Ties at the same concert. She was a few rows in front of us.
The last one was … Post Malone and Jelly Roll, but before that, MMRBQ, which happened two days after listeners found out I was leaving the show. It was very emotional. They brought me out on stage, and with the crowd reaction you would have thought a headliner had just appeared.
To stay in shape I … work out at Vision + Fitness & Love, a heated infrared studio that’s about 102 degrees. It’s amazing.
The Preston and Steve cast poses like Queen on the cover of Queen II. Clockwise from bottom left: Casey Boy, Kathy Romano, Steve Morrison, Nick McIlwain, Marisa Magnatta and Preston Elliot. (Photo by Linette & Kyle Kielinski, courtesy of Preston and Steve)
If you’re making me a drink, I’ll take a … margarita.
My secret phobia is … germs. I’m a complete clean freak. I was cleaning my Target cart two decades before COVID.
I am very good at … playing private detective. When a friend starts dating someone new, I’m the person who gets all the dirt on them.
Since leaving WMMR, I have been … sleeping and exploring a number of different avenues, some within the media but also some private entrepreneurial possibilities. And, of course, designing my jewelry.
My favorite on-air stunt … was when they brought a horse into the studio for my birthday. An actual horse. This was just after we moved from Y100 to ’MMR, and I think the station manager was like, what on earth did I get myself into?
The drunkest I’ve been in life … was on a trip where we took listeners to Jamaica. I started drinking during our morning broadcast, drank more by the pool after the show, and then more at a party at night. Those Jamaican cocktails. Oof!
If you ask me if the show will exist after 2030, I would have to say … no. I don’t think it will. But I hope that they all get to do as much of the show as they want to do, but in the end, I’m not sure that will happen. I also hope that they all get to do what they want to do in retirement. They have plans!
The reason I lost my job is that … the owners of WMMR, Beasley Media Group, didn’t value the uniqueness that made our morning show work for 20-plus years. To have five people sit in a studio sit together for hours and have genuine chemistry and like each other… that’s something special. It’s sad that they didn’t value that.
Published as “One of Us: Kathy Romano” in the August 2025 issue of Philadelphia magazine.
