Brooke Boney Doesn’t Know What’s Next… And She’s Ok With That

You're listening to a mother and me a podcast. Mama mayor acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on.

You know that you're looked at, or that you sort of look a certain way. But I didn't kind of realize how much of an impact, not just physically, but like even like emotionally or like the way that I expressed myself was like filtered through some sort of subconscious

I got to say, Hi, I'm Kate Langbrook. Welcome to No Filter. Brooke Boney had one of the best gigs in the world for years. We woke up with her on morning TV. It was a job that changed her life until one morning she made a decision that would change her life again. She announced live on air on the Today Show that she was done not just with breakfast television, but with Australia. She was heading overseas to

Oh thank you for having me.

Now I have your book, which I have read twice. You don't buy I don't believe you, because that's so kind. That means I probably read it more than you have.

You definitely have read it more than I have.

But I do feel like I've read your book a couple of times as well, because remember I did the interview with you after you did it.

Yes, Now, this is just kind of strange happening that a few years ago at the Sydney Writers' Festival, I was my book chow Bella had just come out, and I did a session and you were my interviewer.

Yes, And it's a weird experience when you read someone's book that you sort of know publicly, and you know, we kind of know each other anyway, yeah, probably, But then you get to read what their thoughts are and you feel like, oh, I really know this person.

Now. Yes, it's true.

It's lovely, isn't it. But it's a bit weird.

Well, so your book, which is called All of It, and I don't think there's ever been a more accurate title for a book.

Like this book.

There's animals, dogs, beautiful dog, Oh, I love them so much, fertility, ah, sport and heat injuries. It's just everything in igeneity.

Because I think everyone thinks it's just like a straight up memoir. And when I try to explain to someone like no, no, no, it's just a bunch of essays that I've written, the things that I think about all the time, care about, and they're like, oh, like what, And I'm like, well, there's.

One on dogs. There's one on egg freezing. Yes, there's one on sports. I love cricket. Yes. But I think we are all of.

Those things, right, Like you know, if I was just to focus on like one part of it, then that wouldn't be all of it. It'd be some of it.

No, And then you couldn't call it all of them.

I'd have to change the title.

However, you have come to the knowledge of most people through breakfast Television, through your stint on Today as a showbiz reporter, and in fact, the start of your book is you contemplating quitting the show?

Now?

Did you write that in real time or did you write that in retrospect and when was that?

No, I wrote it in real time, so it was this time last year, right, And it's so.

It's so weird to think about now, because you know when you make a big decision like that, and you know that once once you make it, or once you start telling people you can't go.

Back, no, once it's once it's.

Done, Yes, it's done. And so I remember thinking like, is this really what I'm going to do? Am I really going to do this?

And who had you discussed it with? Because people probably know this, but that is primo job that for many people, Richard Wilkins, it's the pinnacle, do you know what I mean?

So many people people would kill for that job.

You probably have killed for that job at the cerferent stages of the I think when you know that you've done as much as what you can possibly do in a job, and that you know you can sort of see exactly what your life looks like for the next five, ten, fifteen years, I think for me, I was like, there's so many other things that I want to do.

Well, because I think you always had this. Maybe I think this more from having read your book. I don't think this was probably apparent to viewers, but there was always like a slight tension within you because being a showbiz reporter is this and requires a certain sort of skills, which you had in spades, but it also requires a limitation of your interest.

I think like before I was on Triple J, on their breakfast show, I was in Parliament House as a political reporter for SBS and ITV, and so then to go I think, from that really serious news and then go and work at ABC and be reporting on Indigenous affairs, which is also just so serious and so heavy.

Then to go and do entertainment.

It was it felt like such a weird shift for me, even though for other people it was like, oh, this is a natural fit because she's just come from Triple J.

Which is you know, the youth popular.

Yeah, it's a popular show and you know it's all about music and you know, there's a big focus on entertainment as well. So it felt like for a lot of people it was natural, but for me it felt like deeply unnatural in some ways, like there was I felt quite limited by doing that, and.

I think and also intensely commercial, and none of your indev prior to that point had been particularly commercial.

Yeah, I think.

For me that would have always had like an expiry date because I felt like even though towards the end, I was.

Doing news as well, which I absolutely loved, and.

It's such a great show, and it does stretch you in terms of, you know, your technical abilities, you know what it's like when you do live TV, and we had to do it every day for like three and a half hours, and it doesn't matter if there's something really big happening, then you stay on air and you're sort of you know, flying by the seat of your pants or you know, like when we went to the Olympics.

That's sort of broadcasting.

People make it look easy, but technically it's so challenging because there's so many different environmental factors. You're dealing with the elements and with the people around you not knowing what they're going to do. But also you have to know everything.

And you have to be able to repeat it without repeating it exactly. You have to maintain the relay ships, which for people who were getting up at four o'clock in the morning, quarter past three, quarter past three.

Yeah, it's hard. It's really hard.

And so it's not that it wasn't technically challenging or professionally challenging, because it was in lots of ways. But I think my idea of myself was really quite different from doing entertainment only.

And what do you think drew their eye to you in the first place? How did you get offered that job?

I remember exactly what it was.

So when I was on Triple J I did an episode of back Roads and I went up to the Tiwei Islands, and you know, it's that lovely show where they go to the country.

Beautiful, it's so good. I thought you might have gone to Muscle Brook.

No, I think we were.

I think we were nearly going to go to somewhere like Tamworth or somewhere.

Around, which is where you're from.

Up around that area, like in the Upper Hunter Valley.

We went up to the Tewe's and they have like this big pretty carnival and arts festival, and it's so beautiful, it's heaven. And they have these these these trans women and they're called Sister Girls, and they were they took me out bush and we were eating these like gigantic slugs.

Oh, they're supposed to be like.

Medicinal and they just sort of like crack open and these big pillars of wood and then pulled them out and there you go, eat one of these and I was like, oh, of course, is it like a witchity grub but bigger and softer and squishier and without the ridges. Without the ridges, it's almost like, yeah, like translucent and

To come across the Channel nine.

We just absolutely love her, Like she was so funny and you know she was doing all this stuff.

And if she grabs and so you got the phone call, yeah, And where were you at that point in your life?

So like just personally, emotionally, spiritually.

Anywhere, physically, all of it, all of it, all of them.

I think I was ready to move on from Triple J.

Anyway, I was kind of hoping to get a reprieve from the early mornings and then like, so when I got the call and I was like, oh, this means my life is going to change, because it's one thing to be famous, you know, on the Triple J audience with the Triple Jen, it's still a huge amount of people.

No, that's true.

You know, like you were you're a celebrity when you're on that sho show. Yeah, like the Daily Mail will write stories about you, and you know, it's a completely different beast. And so I knew my life was going

Well, I love that you say in the book, that sweet spot of fame where you get invited to really nice things, but you don't get annoyed at the supermarket.

It's a sweet spot, isn't it.

It is? But I don't know who has that sweet spot.

I feel like we're probably in that sweet spot.

Actually, I think I am.

Do you get bothered at the supermarket?

I get bothered by the supermarket? Actually, if I think it, maybe.

You just want to be richer so then you don't have to go to the supermarket.

Your sweet spot is just absolute to have domination people to work for you.

But so you didn't end up in that sweet spot though, did you.

I feel like I can still easily go to a supermarke like something. But I mean.

Then when you were dressed into morning TV and it's attendant. I mean, you know Karl Stefanovic.

Like Carl probably can go to the supermarket without getting harrassed. I don't think like, oh no, he'd just be getting annoyed everywhere. Yeah, And like I think, I don't know.

And that's why it's a curse when extreme fame happens to people very young.

Yes, it's unfair because there's no way on earth that they could be that they could have the mental capacity to deal with that sort of thing because you don't get any human experience, You don't get experiences in the way that anyone else does.

No, it's isolating, it would be totally isolating.

You know how they say the Queen, the Queen thinks the world smells of chicken and fresh paint.

What do they say that?

Yeah, okay, it's very interesting. Well, because you know when people are the Queen doesn't just pop up anywhere unannounced.

Of course, I've always got fresh paint feet, it's.

Always freshly everything's freshly painted. And they are never serve chicken because it's the dish. Apparently the royals can eat.

Yeah.

Right, So that's what happens to people who are thrusted into intense fame at any stage really, but particularly young that there's it's got a real atrophye quality.

I think that's why they always try to like sort of become a bit reclusive and try to keep their circle small and stuff like that. Right, like they try to sort of take it back, but you can't take it back.

No, you can't take it back.

But then you move to Oxford.

Well, who would do that?

Who would do that? That's been insane?

Who who did you tell first? From the on air team? Was it were you on with Allie Langdon Stefanovic? Who was there in yours?

I think oh, I'd already told Ali while I was applying she's one of my best friends, like I just I absolutely adore her and.

Everyone loves her.

Oh, she's just she's the best.

And then I told Carl and Sarah h And obviously, like when you start telling people, we're like, oh no, this is going to get out because you feel sort of nervous about what if they someone whover hears them talking to someone you know, like they're not even gossiping, but maybe they're telling their partner. Like Brooke told me this today. You know what, you don't know. You just don't know who's gonna hear what. So as soon as you start telling people we get so nervous, so so nervous.

So I told my agent and then I told my boss.

You know, I think every time I went to tell someone, I feel like they would just assume, like in their mind they were like, she's pregnant.

Because if a woman comes to you and they're like, can you just sit down, I've got some big news. Yeah, of course they're going to be like.

Oh, yeah, you know, it's either cancer or pregnant.

Exactly exactly, it's not anything else. It's never I'm going to Oxford.

And also because people, like we said before, in this industry are not used to people leaving. Like it was like when I left to go live in Italy. Yes, yeah, people were like, what how could you leave that job? People only ever lose the job because they die or they get pushed down the stairs by someone who wants their job.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, people just don't walk away.

And yet you.

Made that decision. And I think, having read your book, that it's all tied up with who you are, who your people are, who your family are, what the expectations are, and the opportunity that you see that can be afforded to you that have been hard one. Am I overthinking it?

No, no, no, I think you're right, and I think you're like, you can have all of the money in the world, Like you could stay in that job and you know, have a really amazing life and be so lucky because it's such an incredible job even though the hours are hard, but you only get one life, like you.

I'm never going to keep saying I mean, we don't know, but we do have to work off it.

We have to work off that assumption because we don't really know.

Yes, like I'm only ever going to be thirty seven once, before I know it, I'm going to be forty, and then I'll be forty five.

And time goes so quickly. And I just.

Knew that if I didn't do something like this now, then I never ever would and I would have regretted it. I would have regretted it, not just because it's an amazing experience to go over there, but to prove to myself that I could do it and to stretch myself like that.

It's such a gift to be able to indulge in thinking that it's amazing.

And like to learn in the you know, the best university in the world and to think about things in a way that I've never thought about them before. It's to me, like the pain of not doing that is greater than the pain of leaving. And I think once the balance tips like that, and like there would be moments where I would be laying in bed at night thinking like I've got to do this. If I don't do this, I'm going to be filled with regret, like

There's a but.

You don't come to us just as yourself or do you have sixty five thousand years behind you? And you were the first I didn't realize this, the first Indigenous woman in commercial sull television in.

That role, yeah, and that sort of substantial role, the first one on Breakfast TV. Man or woman, Yeah, like Stan had man or woman, Stan had Tony Armstrong. I love Tony, but like Stan Grant had been on Channel seven in the nineties and early noughties, but it hadn't really been anyone else, Like Norelda had done Perth and I think MALANDERI maybe had done some stuff in Darwin, but in terms of like one of.

Those big TV gigs.

Yeah, like it hadn't really been done before, and it feels weird to say now because then after that, you know, they all kind of did it, Like then Norella got her job and Tony got his job, and it sort of seemed like a really normal thing to do, as it should be.

But when you started, was that so weird? A lot of the focus of attention on you.

Yeah, right, it was this weird moment where everyone was like, oh, what are they doing?

Really?

It was like, on one hand, people were like, oh, she's not really black, look at her.

Look she's just a bit caramel.

But then on the other hand, they were like, what are they doing putting a blackfither onto here? You know, like, oh, this is a diversity high Like, I don't know, people had a very strange reaction to it.

And what was your reaction to their reaction?

I knew it would be.

Like a big deal, but I just kind of didn't understand how big of a deal it was going to be. And you know, there's always so much of a fuss around like who's going to be on the Today Show and.

Yees, what they're going to be doing, and yes, you.

Know who's been sacked and who's been hired and you know who's feuding with her? Yeah, exactly, Like people are a bit obsessed with it and it's weird.

I don't know why we are like that with Breakfast TV. What do you think it is? I don't know. I don't know.

Television's got it. You know my backgrounds in breakfast radio. Predominantly there's something about, particularly the Today Show, even if it's not necessarily winning the ratings, it's always the subject of much discussion. I don't use I do not lie, but you're right, it really is.

Like we always know what's going on with the hosts.

Yes, always, like if someone's getting engaged or if someone's well.

I remember you said even before you were a part of the show, and you knew when you know, Carl and Jazz got in games.

Yeah, and I remember yeah.

And I remember when I was sitting in Parliament House in the afternoon and I saw a tweet from Lisa talking about.

About leaving. So like all of these things, like you you sort of know about the show.

You know so much about the show even before you're on it, and then when you're on it, you're like, oh my gosh. Yeah, it's so weird, and people always want to note gossip about it, like they think that you're going to what's he like? And so I always used to joke to and I didn't actually say this to anyone, but I used to say to him, Oh, every time someone asks me what you're like, I tell them that.

You've got bo And.

Well they did wear the same suit for a year, so maybe I was sticking.

Who knows.

But then when you started the job and you said you told your family, they must have been extremely excited.

Oh they were. They were just thrilled. I think.

It's really hard to comprehend how big of a deal it is until it happens, and then they were like, wow.

My god.

Coming up after this break, Brook tells me about her family, how proud her parents are of her career and not just hers, all her siblings, and the hard life her mother has had. Don't go anywhere, because I think when you have a child, or the parents of children who end up going into show busy sun, I think they never really have any faith in us. If we haven't come with a pedigree, if we're not net bow babies or whatever. They always just struck by how precarious it

I know.

But I think my mum and my family felt proud every time I did something, Like I remember I worked on Corey Radio, the Aboriginal community radio station in Sydney, and they were super proud then, Like they used to come into the studio and like turn the radio on and like listen and stuff. And then when I got a cadet ship at the airBC, they was super proud of that. And then when I was on NATIV when it launched as a freeway channel in twenty twelve, they

Know, Like you know, really that's parental currency they're allowed to out there, isn't it then social currency as well?

And also I.

Think particularly so there's five kids in your family, and I gather, and you don't go into it in sort of any graphic detail, but I gather that things were not always easy for your mother.

No, yeah, she's she has had a roughtaurant.

And how how is your familial structure like with the other kids.

Oh, it's so good. We're into we're all really really close. So they've got their own kids now, right, and moms around them all the time, like all the time. She's always like picking them up from school or doing like little sort of craft activities with them, or like baking cookies or whatever. It's so sweet when you see your parents become grandparents because it's like they like finally figured out like exactly like the perfect way to be like a sweet like a TV show parent or a movie parent.

And I love that you use the word sweet because there's a passage in your book where you talk about your mom and it's quite it's so eloquent and sort of heart rending, and you use the expression sweetness and I think, let me see if I can find it. At some point, my mum's sweetness and her ability to direct it towards her children faded. I remember her screaming down the phone one day when my stepdad was in jail, and when he asked her what happened to the lovely

Gosh, it's so hard hearing that back. It's so weird when you write things that are so deeply personal and you forget that everyone's going to read them. I think, like one thing that I feel so strongly about in terms of like sweetness and joy and levity and why never shy away from being like bubbly or silly or having fun, is that like us, there are so many awful and difficult things that happened in the world at any one time that you could just like jump into

The statistics tell us that.

And so I think, like joy and sweetness and not succumbing to that, you know, being harder. I guess you'd say the same about breakfast TV, Like it's hard. It's really hard work when you're you know, in the public eye all the time, and you know, sometimes the general public are saying mean things to you or about you, or like the tabloids are or whatever.

I think, just process in the news, which is heavy.

It's heavy. I think making a conscious decision to not succumb to that is It's hard.

It's a choice, you know, like any one of us could just be like, oh well, woe is me?

Like you know, I don't.

Things are too hard, you know, like this is the world is terrible and filled with horror. But to be able to hang on to sweetness in spite of it is.

I think I'll just always try to do that.

You talk about and it's quite a bit in your book, and it's such it's it is of itself a very sweet way well to convey that element.

Can I tell you something?

Please tell me anything?

Filter I I listened to a podcast that my friend asked me to go on maybe like four or five years ago during COVID, and we said something and I was like, oh, that's a bit dicey, like I hope they cut that bit out. And so I went back and listened to it and like listening back to my own way of like speaking and talking. In my mind, I was like tough and brave and strong. And then when I listened back to it, I was like, oh my god, I'm so like soft and sweet like the

That well, you know.

So then once I had that moment, I was like, oh, no, I am very sweet.

And it's like a touchstone, isn't it that that is what you always want to stay connected to in yourself. I think, particularly for women, not that men can also be sweet, but it's a it's a gentler attribute.

I think it's a nicer way of being like because you're not doing it. I mean, I guess you are doing it in response to things, but it's I don't know, like I think hardness or like.

You know, carrying something that's like heavy with you.

It's like, you know, you're sort of letting the world win a little bit, or like letting.

The worst of things win.

Yes, but if you like tried desperately to sort of cling to that, it's it's sort of like, well, you know you're not winning today.

Do you think there was a period in your life in which you weren't as successful in Rye sing above that, I think.

No, To be honest, I think like if it was like if I didn't have to have that experience personally, because I'd witnessed it so closely, you know, like I'd seen it firsthand, and so it wasn't like I had to go through it to learn the lesson. It was like I watched other people go through it and just sort of witnessed all of these women around me who have to be tougher to in order to be able to survive.

So that you don't have to be yes, serially.

Yes, exactly, it's almost like a favor to them isn't.

It, Yes, to live the life. Yeah, that they didn't necessarily get to live.

Yes, exactly.

And like, when you think about it, I'm part of the generation, the first generation of women who's been able to do things like hold on to my sweetness, have my own credit card, which probably isn't a great decision sometimes, well it live by myself or travel overseas and let you know, choose to leave a career and go and

Well, this takes me to another one of your Revelations meditations, which is fertility. That you talk about freezing your eggs and that whole the decisions leading up to it, the deciding to do it was what was your thought process about sharing that in the book and also what was your process in life that you just kind of are very prosaic about it.

I think that I didn't realize that it was such a brief thing to talk about, to be honest, Like it just sort of felt like, oh no, like, if I have the resources and the wherewithal to do it, then I should because it just sort of makes sense

And that you don't have the relationship and that yes, maybe like a hunger for something.

That's exactly like I didn't kind of put that together until afterwards, and then I was like, oh my gosh, people I think I'm some desperate loser who can't get a boyfriend.

I didn't realize.

That's that's why they were like, Oh my god, you're so brave to admit you're a desperate loser I can't get a boyfriend.

It's like, no, I.

Just wanted to be able to have more choice, you know, like I wanted to be able to make the decision for myself. And I really still like I don't want to miss out on motherhood. Like I know, one thing like for sure is that, like I just love being around babies and around children, And there is nothing that gives me more joy or makes me feel more like

But well, you've given yourself that option.

I've given myself the option.

But is there also a romance? You don't need to give me any details. Just tell me everything.

Just tell me it's every single thing.

No, No, I'm not romantically involved at the moment.

But you've been in Oxford and all those highly attractive english.

Men, so do you know.

No, But this is the funny thing about Oxford because I think everyone thinks, oh, everyone's there's a bunch of nerds, like you know, everyone's got like glasses and they're like trying to figure out you know, some sort of mathematical problem. Be really posh. Some of them are really posh. It's very funny. Actually, some of them are like, oh you're from the colonies.

There's that sort of English person there who was just so weird.

Like I remember the first I went to this one of the old oldest scholargs is this one called Ballyol and they're having a party.

My friend is at that college, so I.

Went and this English guy comes over to me and he's like, oh, I hear from one of the colonies, like old.

Timey voices, And I was like, what are you talking about?

Is he flirting or.

Is In hindsight I think maybe he was flirting, because why would you say that?

It's so weird.

And then Kathy told me to say to them a.

Pan It would have been a part.

Yes loves a pun.

She said, Oh, if someone comes to you and says like mean things about Australia or being from Australia, you should say to them, oh, well, you know, my my mom said to me that to be careful when I go to England, because isn't that where all the convicts came from?

Ha. So have you applaied it?

Of course I have and Atlanta. So well, yes, it's very good, very good. That is quite good. I'm like, okay, like, can you stop talking?

Tell me much to my course so we can rubvish you.

I'm want to read you some poetry.

Yes, So you're in Oxford. How long have you been there?

Now? So I've been there since September and you're studying a master's of public policy.

Whatever the hell that is? So what is that?

So it's basically it's like all about good governance and like good policy making, and it's like a factory for politicians. I think I don't want to be a politician. No, I'm one hundred. I swear, I swear to you.

I don't.

I know you don't don't. I'm like, you swear in nice listen to me.

Are you sure? No?

Sure? The persecute to us at some point in the future, like politicians like to do.

No, I'm not. I don't have any intentions. I don't have any plans.

I mean, who knows, Maybe in like twenty years I'll be like, Okay, yes I do want to do that, but right now I couldn't think of anything worse than doing that, because it's the same thing that the Today show is right where you like, you're really public facing and there's lots of.

Scrutiny, and you know, I don't want to I don't want to do that.

But what what what do you do? I mean, I guess it's you don't need to subscribe to the notion that education is for a purpose. But what do you do with that degree?

I guess we'll find out. I mean, you don't have any idea, you don't have any plans. Did you choose it?

A couple of my friends had done it, and I really liked the look of the course, So, you know, the things that I've been learning about like have been incredible. The first term was like political philosophy economics, and then this term is like political science and like law. So wow, it's pretty incredible. Like the things that I've been able to learn while I've been there, I mean, it's beyond my wildest imagination. Who knew that I would love economics?

Not me?

No, or like, you know, there's this one guy who I had a lecture from Professor Dita Helm and he talks about climate change or sustainability, and I was like, I should probably learn more about this because I don't really know much, but everyone talks about it all the yam and like I kind of know, I get the gist of it, and he starts talking about it in a way that I completely understand and ties it in with like economic sustainability, so like you know, paying down

What's that?

So like why people behave the way the way they do? And so like you know, the way that people will make trade offs for you know, getting something now as opposed to getting something in the future, So.

Then gratification is that exactly?

And like why it's so difficult for us to implement effective climate change policy or indigenous policy because people can't see the benefit of it for like twenty years, so they're like, well, I don't want to pay for that now to huge electricity bills. I'm not even going to see the benefit of this. Like when something's intangible, it's really hard to get people.

To commit to it.

It's being able to understand people in that way when it feels like, you know, so many people are making decisions that are really self interested.

It's a gift, Yes.

It's a gift. Hey, how much does it cost to study at Oxford?

A lot?

Like I knew it would be a lot.

It's a lot of money. It's such a privilege.

And did you had you always been like when you were doing the Today Show, once you had the realization where you always like, that's what you were saving up to be able to do, That's what I.

Was working towards.

And I got a scholarship from Aurora, so I got the Charlie Perkins che Evening Scholarship, and so that that's just so wonderful, like.

And does that cover you for the three years at Hell year one year?

And actually I will give a shout out to the other woman who's doing it with me. So there's another Aboriginal woman doing the same course. She's from Darwin. Her name's Marlin And honestly, like, I'm just endlessly just inspired by her. And she's incredible. So her background is in some sort of climate work.

I don't know exactly what.

Sorry, sorry much, but she's she's incredible. Like to have two Aboriginal women in this extremely prestigious course and her like her background means that she brings like, you know, all of this knowledge to the course that we wouldn't have otherwise had.

What do the poems make of that of two Aboriginal women at Oxford or did they not have a concept of it.

I think like in our imagination, Australia is a lot bigger than what.

It is in their imagination.

So it's like one of like a lot of countries that they commonized and have that experience with. Right, So I think like they have a genuine affection for us, don't get me wrong.

Yes, yes, but it's it's.

Not as like omnipresent as they are to us. Think about them more than they think about us.

Do they understand aboriginality.

They understand aboriginality, but only to the extent that, like popular culture in an international context would dictate, So like what they would see in movies or postcards or ads or whatever, you know, like it it's not nuanced and it's not it's not exactly right as being over there you feel like, I don't know, it's sort of like when you get really proud of your hometown when you leave it, but when you live there, you're like.

Oh, I hate this place. Oh this place, like it's so limiting.

Like I remember when I left a Muscle Brook and I was like, gosh, I feel so stifled here.

And now I just have so much love for I love going back there. So much.

It's like not that I ever had that really uncomfortable relationship with Australia, but when you leave, you feel like weirdly patriotic, like and I talk about Australian fruit and vegetables honestly, like I'm describing like a pre depression era like fruit tree in my grandmother's yard. Like because the country, well, England is so small, but the population is huge, so they don't have any of their own fruit and veggies

So our fruit and.

Veggies are so beautiful, so so beautiful compared to other countries.

Do you think the distance And like you said, when you come from somewhere, it's you know, familiarity breeds contempt that when you've come back into the Australian landscape after this period away, that's partly also why you love it.

There's a couple of things, because I think the oppressive winter in the UK is something and I know, like everyone talks about the weather, but when you're there, it's like a character in your life, Like it is like a weird omnipresent Leeden's it's so heavy. Like I remember the first time that the sunset at like three point thirty. This is in November, so what's that four or five

And I looked at my phone.

It was four point thirty in the afternoon, and I felt a wave of claustrophobia or like just darkness come over me. To think it was like that feeling where you can't see the horizon or you can't.

See like the leak.

It was so heavy, and I was like, this is what they're talking about seasonal adjustment disorders.

Yes, SAD. Sad's real.

And the cold, like I've never experienced anything like that for that extended period, and so like every time I left the house it felt like I was going on a mission to Mordoor because you have to like cover yourself up into every single place.

It's the ease of getting around.

Or living like that, I think is something that's lost on us as Australians, Like I think that's why we're so happy and so generally carefree.

Andy and the.

Vitamin D because life is just so easy here compared to over there, because if you have to be prepared or you will suffer.

Now, you know, that's a very interesting thing to hear now in a climate in which Australians don't feel like life is easy here compared to how it was. But you are a messenger from a.

Broad an angel.

Yeah, that's a prophet who's return from.

Far away land.

Yes, yes, with messages of hope.

Yeah.

It's really expensive over there too. It's so much more expensive than you like. It's you can't do anything. There's no you can't go to the movies or like go and have a sauna or whatever. It's so prohibitively expensive unless you find a deal or like you can get some sort of secret way. You have to work while you're there, No, you can't work.

So I think you can if you get like special permission.

But like, the sole focus while you're at Oxford has to be academia.

Well you've certainly done that. You wowed me with your high for Luton academic talk. Did I really a little bit? I was like, I bet you didn't talk like that to Jason Momoa.

We definitely talked about economics.

That's not all of my conversation with Brooke Boney coming up, we talk about how animals make the world better and why she is so interested in sport. Hey, have you touched base with the Today Family?

Yes, I've called them.

I tried to get Carl, but he's on holidays because.

They work so hard.

It's true, but a lot of people work hard, and don't get that's true.

That is true for a lot of people work hard. Then I spoke to Sarah yesterday, and you get so.

Close when you're working. You would know from the breakfast.

Radio intimacy because you're peaceable, you wake up with it's exactly right and then and that's why it's important that you like the people. You wake up with the chemistry song. Yes, and also if things start to go awry from early mornings, then they really go off the skids and it.

Goes off quickly and you can't do anything about it. I think, well, I've never seen it happen, but I mean.

But we do know, we know, we're historically it's happened, and I've seen it in a lot of breakfast radio shows.

It's the relationships are so so important and you get so close because you go through everything together. So like if you're I don't know, like if your mum's sick or your sister's going through something, or you know you're going through a breakup or you know you're moving house or whatever, you all know about it.

You're all sort of in it together.

It's like it's the most intimate sort of professional relationship that you would ever have.

I think that those breakfast hours.

And do you miss the camaraderie of that, Yes.

I do, because I know I'll never have a job like that again.

What do you think your next rubblery?

I don't know. I feel like I promise I'm not keeping like a secret, and I'm going to, like, you know, in a few weeks be like surprise.

This is my new gig. You assume me on a poster going like this, that's not going to happen. I don't know.

Brook Bony's Prime Minister. Everybody, Oh my.

Gosh, yeah, no, no, no, no, I don't know what it's going to be. I think this is so uncomfortable, but I think I'm just going to see what happens.

So I finish in September, and I can't I.

Mean like, maybe someone will offer me a job and it'll be amazing and it'll be exactly what I want. Or maybe I'll stay over there and do more study, or maybe.

Can I have a dog if you stay over there?

A dog? Or both of my dogs died? I know, don't you feel? But that was do you know how to dream about the last night? I still dream about them, Jimmy and Ruben. Yeah, I don't know.

Pugs both pugs, which is the most impractical breed. But can I just say, in my defense, they can't breathe, they're.

So they get so fat.

That was my pug impersonation. Look you had to look away then, too.

That's just too much. It was so accurate.

I feel like, it's so weird that they never really leave you when you have a dog like that, like that sort.

Of So I just got we just got a dog for the first time, my first dog ever.

Do you love it so much?

I love him more than I ever thought I would.

It's weird, isn't it.

It was like when I had children, Because I'd never been particularly maternal, I was always like, how will I be? And then from the moment I held my first child, I said to Peter, we were still in the hospital. I said, let's do it again, right, just new, just

So I feel like every time I go back and read that one, that one affects me more than nearly

Makes them them them does that.

And that because when when they or someone you love is alive, they're so alive, they're so alive, and then there's suddenly not then what.

Like what happens?

Like that doesn't make any sense, like in a scientific way, it doesn't make sense to me, Like where does that go?

What is that?

You need to do a class on this at Oxford So they'd be running some sort of class.

There would one hundred percent be some sort of thing about life, but it really is.

You know, you were saying to be loved in that accepting sort of way. That is one half of it. But I also think that dogs activate in us our own goodness because of their extreme trust of us, Like when are you ever trusted like that?

Life? I think.

They like it's just such a safe way to pour your love out right, like every other experience that you have of love, whether it's like your parents or your partner or I think maybe your kids is different.

I don't know.

It's like it's one of those things where you can pour so much of yourself into it because you know there is like no risk. You can be as vulnerable as you want, because there's no risk that they're going to do something with your love that's like a betrayal, or that they're unworthy of it, or like you'll discover that you know that they're undeserving.

It's it's so pure, it's so so pure.

I think before I had experienced it, I think I was.

A bit I know. That's why I was embarrassed about it.

Like I was so embarrassed about being so sad because I was like, people are going.

To think I'm insane?

Who when to We first started getting really old, like after Reuben had passed away, and Mum was like, why don't you get one of those brands right and you can push him around the park, like at least you can still go down, And.

I'm like, Mum, people are going to think I'm insane. Imagine if you saw a woman pushing a freaking dog around in a pream.

You see it now, it's more common now, But this was like we have all gone insane because.

We have all lost the plot. There's nothing, there are no rules anymore. Basically, no, we're too close to the end, so everyone's just lea.

I think that sounds so grim.

That sounds so grim, But okay, I wrote a column a few weeks ago for Sunday Life, and I was talking about how it's really important not to engage in hyperbole when we talk about women's rights, because we do have far better than any of the other women who have gone for us.

And that's a very point. It's also because people do like to they're like, oh, it's the worst we've never had anything.

Yet we have and actually there are a lot of women who are still having a pretty bad experience right now,

Alway, and our allies are and who are.

Exactly yeah, and you know, like if Russia can do that to Ukraine and we let them, then what does

But there are people who live there they don't want to be Russian. But also told us that.

I think that this rapid movement of the world is also reflected by what's happening in our media and social media, Like things have never been so so quick to change and have it and so then it throws everything into overdrive. Yeah, and even people look at the past through the prism of the present and it's like you're canceled, you're you know, it's all of it is a lot.

I think I've watched a movie recently in London September five, and it's about all these people being taken hostage at the Olympics.

I actually can have vine to the premiere. I was surprised that they invited me.

Oh, but then I was like, I guess it's pretty niche, like journalists who have been to the Olympics, who are in lies.

They're in English, Brooke Bony on the red carpet, waiting to interview you, Brooke Bony.

No, they didn't care about me at all.

They're like, oh, you can just go over there and take some photos of yourself if you want. But what I was thinking about because it was sort of like right at the beginning of like twenty four hour News, and so they were broadcasting I don't want to give away the plot of the movie, but they were broadcasting parts of what was happening live this hostage situation and

Like what what does it actually do that is helpful?

And so then if we don't, like we don't need to know everything, then why do we always like there's just so much of it. There's so much of it, and I don't know that all of it is particularly helpful. And then you get this situation a lot of it is not helpful.

Then you get these.

Situations where you have to feel time for things right, and so then people are getting like weird guests on all like I don't know, we've all seen those like weird news clips, and likewise it's like up late talking about this bizarre theory. But like I guess, the natural the natural progression of that is the splintering of it all and the undermining of what's true and the undermining of journalistic ethics and people not being able to doubt.

I believe exactly what you ever be a showbiz reporter on today?

To be fair, I am talking about a movie.

Yes you are, all right?

Let me just ask you quickly about a few things from your book. All right, The interest in sport.

I love sport.

You love sport.

I love it so much.

I think it's so funny that people are surprised by that. Now tell me maybe you're one of these people, Like do you think of sport and think, oh, meatheads, Oh that's such a bogain thing to love.

Oh whykay?

I have developed respect for sport through watching my children play sport. I never knew any sport, never played any sport. We were Jiva's witness, so where was door knocking on weekends? And I do not underestimate what it teaches what it brings. But I'm still astounded by how much you love sport and your interest in cranial injuries, because.

I feel like it's just so interesting, right, Like I think sport is so wonderful because it's like theater, Like it lets you experience things really intense way in a really short period of time. Like you can go and see like like a play, and you're really laughing and crying and feeling all of these things really intensely, like in real life.

They're real emotions. And sport does the same thing.

Like if you go to the Swans, or actually if you go to like an English soccer game and you see them these Englishmen, and they're famous for being stoic, right and like quite unemotional and quite cold. Do you see them like singing in unison making up songs about these people who are their heroes, like the coaches and the players, And these are beautiful and funny and clever songs, and they're like openly weeping and like like jubilant if

Yes, a lot of work goes into it.

And I think as well, like people, if it's not something that's like intellectual, then people just feel like they're superior to it, yes, and they like if something is like physical, or if it's if it's something that's like a different kind of challenging, then then they feel like some sort of sense of superior.

Australia, I think it's a great equalizer.

Yes, it is.

I don't think people feel superior to it. In fact, the opposite way. You see politicians pretending that they go for a team because they think that that's going to ingratiate themselves with.

The thing with people.

What about there's that clip of Rishi Sooner during the election and he was trying to talk to some people because he's so right, it's like hundreds of millions of dollars pounds and he's trying to talk to like some commoners that he's like, oh, yes, what about the football or whatever?

Like what like he just.

Said like the completely wrong thing because he was just trying to grasp something that might make him popular for a moment.

He didn't speak the language, like he didn't know.

Hey, do you feel because you talk in the book about that your whole body, body image, or the way that you perceived or the pressures on a woman in the public eye, well even if a woman's not in the public eye, now that you don't have the cameras on you, do you feel do you have a different relationship with your body and your appearance?

Yes? I think so.

I think part of it will probably just stay with me forever, like that you like that you perceived all the time, you know that you're looked at, of it that you sort of look.

A certain way.

But I didn't kind of realize how much of an impact, not just physically, but like even like emotionally, or like the way that I expressed myself was like filtered through some sort of subconscious lens of always having to be perceived by others. Right, And so when you when I stopped having to like express myself all the time and like you know, tell people what I'm thinking or like you know, talk and like more sort of was going in than was going out, Like I'm learning more than

Week to no one And.

If it's it's pretty lovely, I could have say like there, it will never leave me, I don't think, But to have it dialed back and to not be super aware of like how I look all the time or whatever, it was pretty I think When I was on TV, like I think I would probably have like makeup on nearly every time I love the house, probably wouldn't leave the house in that makeup, and not because I'm like, oh, I think I'm hideous and I need to cover it up.

With how it looks. But it took me, I reckon, maybe two or three months.

To get comfortable with looking normal. And also I really this said, this is such a position of privilege, and I realized this now. I didn't realize that people felt so at war with themselves, like in the body that they live in, Like that would be like living in a house that's on fire. Like I didn't realize that

Brook Bony, I can't wait till you're Prime minister.

Oh, I don't.

Say that, don't I like that is such a huge job. I don't think I don't like that.

I don't.

I would never want to do a job that big. I shouldn't probably say that, because like what if one day I wanted to do and they'll reap, they'll play this in campaign as Yeah, they will.

I never want to do a job that's that big.

Big. I can't do a big job. I mean, it will destroy my sweetness, I'm too sweet, all that sweet with my tinted moisturizer.

I don't want to do a big job.

Well, so at this back to the start of the book, one of the things that you're positing yourself with yourself is or to yourself, is the possibility that you won't be fulfilling that part of yourself that's been rewarded by being famous once you lead the Today Show, what do you mean? Well, so there's a part of you that, even though you long to see what you're like without the trappings of, you know, being well known, there's also the fear of how you will navigate the world in

I feel like I'm going all right.

I think you are too.

I feel good.

Like the first kind of couple of weeks is hard because everything felt like so new and so weird and like so foreign, like every part of it. I didn't know how to study, I didn't know how to do any of that stuff, like even I don't know just like sort of basic admin stuff felt like really tough because it's like figuring out your school email and stalling it into your outlook, like.

Yeah, and there's no one to ask, no one to help. No, there's no assistant producer or whatever.

It's like, if you need.

Tech help or help with your admin stuff, there's people around that always help with us kind of thing, because you know, your job is to be on TV to present things like you've got to focus on that, and so I just sort of step.

Away from that. It's like, oh my god, what have I done? What have I done? But no, I feel good like it. I don't regret it.

No good. It's a good place to be, very good place to be. And when you regret it, you can come back and tell us.

Come back with my head in my hand, please.

Boney a very I'm not the first to say it, but it's a really beautiful book.

Thank you.

And you're a very lovely writer. Thank you, And you know what, you're very sweet. Whatever Brooks is actually thinks she would make a great politician. This conversation only scratched the surface of brooks life. And that's why she has written a book. It's called All of It. I loved it. I read it twice. I hope she believes me now. In fact, I could pass a quiz on her. We put all the details in the show notes. The executive producer of No Filter is Nama Brown, Senior producer is