Brian Kilmeade struck out a lot trying to make it as a news anchor before becoming one of the most beloved faces on Fox News.

The veteran host is now celebrating an epic 30 years at the network.

“I got thousands of rejection letters…I kept a lot of them,” Kilmeade, 62, told The Post, recalling his time as just another 30-something-year-old man trying to catch his break in the 1990s. 

“Some people look at my tape and say, ‘One thing I know for sure is I’m never hiring that guy,’” the broadcaster, who is known for his self-deprecating humor on “Fox & Friends” each morning, quipped.

But Long Islander never pouted. Instead, he used the rejections as emotional fuel.

“I found it inspiring,” Kilmeade said, “‘I just said, ‘Okay, it’s not going to stop me. The more I get, the closer I’m going to get to a yes.” 

After persistently bouncing around stations on the East and West coasts, his big break finally came 30 years ago on Oct. 7, 1996, when a startup called Fox News took a chance on him.

Kilmeade began on the network’s first-ever day with a ground-floor fill-in gig at Fox’s then-basement studio space and newsroom inside an old Sam Goody music store.

“It was like what I imagine it felt like walking into the Yankee locker room when they were the Highlanders,” he said. 

“You could tell this place was built to win.”

The new network took tons of flak after its launch over its news structure and headline formatting, Kilmeade said — but it didn’t deter the newfound staff, who were excited to be disruptors.

“It was like the Bill Parcells attitude: ‘show the experts why they’re wrong,” the host said. 

“That whole attitude still exists today.”

Kilmeade, a former soccer player at Long Island University, was eventually offered a full-time contract for a sports show in 1997, but he could read the writing on the wall. 

He saw the “world going turbo speed” between the death of Princess Diana, the Bosnian War, and the Bush vs. Gore election, and knew formatting changes were a guarantee.

“It became pretty clear that there was no room for a sports show,” Kilmeade said. 

“But if I could do news, I could probably stick around.”

Kilmeade cemented himself as a viewer favorite in the years that followed, covering iconic news cycles like Sept. 11, the War on Terror, and the historic election of President Barack Obama.

It wasn’t just his sharp interview skills — or willingness to get only four hours of sleep a night — that helped win over the national audience and celebrities alike.

The “Fox and Friends” host earned trust and admiration through relatability, still taking the Long Island Railroad home from work like anyone else.

“They treat me like I’m a neighbor,” he said, adding that fellow commuters ask about the state of the world on the ride home from Manhattan. 

He also didn’t come from aristocracy or a broadcast legacy like others in the business – instead, an Irish-Italian, soccer-loving Massapequa family that inspired his unrivaled work ethic.

“You can’t take a day for granted,” Kilmeade said. “I never think to myself, ‘well, I’m set now.’”

Kilmeade’s upbringing also impressed upon him the importance of news, as he would always see his politics-loving dad, James, read Time Magazine. 

They would watch debates, Vietnam protests, and speeches from Martin Luther King, Jr. before he tragically died in a car crash while Kilmeade and his brothers were teens.

“He would have probably just loved to have been a part of all this,” Kilmeade said, reflecting on three decades at Fox. 

“Going to the White House – interviewing the president, going to Kuwait.”

Kilmeade is also celebrating his 30th year at the network with a nod to America’s 250th birthday.

He’s releasing the book “Uniting the States: Six Crucial Moments That Forged the American Miracle” on Oct. 13th. 

The book was inspired by interviews he conducted with historians for Fox Nation’s “What Made America Great,” as well as his previous books on the origins of the USA.

“I was able to talk to them and get an idea of what I thought were the six moments that really made our country what it was today,” Kilmeade said.

“And how easily we could have been something totally different or no country at all.”

Kilmeade will be on tour for “Uniting The States” in Red Bank, NJ, at the Count Basie Center for the Arts on Oct. 16, then on Long Island on Oct. 17 for the Flagstar at Westbury Music Fair in Nassau County.