Sami Lukis doesn’t count sheep before she goes to sleep. She counts men. Specifically the ones she has slept with. The 47-year-old presenter and radio host has been dating for 30 years. And she’s taken her dating stories and turned them into a book, Romantically Challenged. She talks to Mia about the good, the bad and the ugly of the dating world. CREDITS: Host: Mia Freedman With thanks to special guest Sami Lukis Find Sami's book Romantically Challenged at apple.co/mamamia Producer: Elissa Ratl...
Feb 18, 2018•54 min
Aly Raisman is one of the most famous, successful and popular gymnasts in the world. She's a six time olympic medalist and captained the gold medal winning US team in both 2012 and 2016. She’s also one of 250 young girls who was abused by the Doctor of the American Gymnastics team, Larry Nassar. She talks to Mia about her experience and how she’s advocating for change... CREDITS: Host: Mia Freedman With thanks to special guest Aly Raisman Producer: Elissa Ratliff GET IN TOUCH: Call the PodPhone ...
Feb 11, 2018•36 min
Anne Tonner didn’t know much about eating disorders. As a human rights lawyer and mother of four, she knew they existed but she didn’t know how they could take someone to the brink of self-destruction and sometimes beyond. But then one day her 13-year-old daughter Chloe told her she wouldn’t drink water because she thought it would make her fat and suddenly she was faced with a frightening reality. Anne has written a book about that time, called Cold Vein, in the hopes she can educate people abo...
Feb 04, 2018•51 min
Vanessa Grigoriadis has spent years thinking about consent. The American journalist and author interviewed 120 students, 80 administrators, victims, perpetrators and accused for her book Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus. What she found out was that, when it comes to sexual assault, things sometimes aren't black and white. Vanessa seeks to discover whether, when the lines are blurred and one person believes consent was given and the other doesn't, can both things be tru...
Jan 28, 2018•42 min
When you think of Jana Pittman, the first thing that usually comes to mind is hurdles. Right? Hurdles, the Olympics, and maybe that memorable headline - “Drama Jana.” But what if we told you that was by far the least interesting thing about the former two-time world champion? Because it’s the truth. Jana is 35 now and she’s a single mum to three kids - how that happened is a fascinating story. And, because she likes a challenge, she is studying medicine and the type of doctor she wants to be has...
Jan 21, 2018•52 min
If you open up a fashion magazine in Australia you'll most likely be greeted by a group of size six models smiling/grimacing back at you. Sure, they're beautiful and their clothes are amazing but they only represent 20% of the population. And this is what model, agent and soon to be author, Chelsea Bonner is trying to change, one body positive model at a time... Show Notes Your host is Mia Freedman. With thanks to special guest Chelsea Bonner Find out more about Bella Management here. This podca...
Jan 14, 2018•46 min
Jelena Dokic has lived a very extraordinary life in just 34 years. From the outside, she seemed to have the perfect story. She was a refugee turned world number four on the tennis circuit and by 16, she had defeated world number one Martina Hingis at Wimbledon. But on the inside, Jelena was struggling. Her father and coach, Damir, started abusing her when she was just six years old. He’d beat her, take her money, lock her out of hotel rooms and taunt her. At one stage, he even made her change na...
Jan 07, 2018•37 min
Over the next two weeks, we will be dipping back into two of Mia's favourite episodes. The second? Magda Szubanski... Magda Szubanski has written and created some of Australia's best comedy shows and characters. And this year, she's even been instrumental in changing the law when it comes to Marriage Eqaulity in Australia. So what is it like being Magda? What's life been like since coming out? And how has her family history impacted on her life now? Mia chats to her about it all... Show Notes Yo...
Dec 31, 2017•46 min
This is the first of a two-part series over the Christmas break where we'll look back at some of Mia's favourite interviews. This week it's Turia Pitt. At the age of 24, Turia Pitt was caught in a bushfire while running an Ultramarathon in Western Australia. She suffered burns to 65 % of her body and has since had over 200 operations to get back to full health. Turia could have been defined by that fire in every sense. But she wasn’t. She has gone on to become one of the most influential women i...
Dec 24, 2017•37 min
American journalist Anne Helen Petersen has been writing about celebrities since she was at uni and over that time she's noticed one thing - the rise of unruly women. Unruly is described as disorderly, disruptive and not amenable to discipline or control. And, if you look around Hollywood you'll see this kind of behaviour everywhere. So Anne decided to collect her thoughts and research into a book and that’s how Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud was born. Show Notes Your host is Mia Freedman. With t...
Dec 17, 2017•39 min
Andrew Daddo does a lot of things. From writing kids books, to hosting parenting podcasts to acting in Round The Twist. Oh....and being a dad to his three kids. But behind the public profile he's just a normal guy who likes to make his own surfboards and hang out with his family. So what was life like inside the famous Daddo household? How did he wind up in the jungle on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here? And how easy it is to write a children’s book? Show Notes Your host is Mia Freedman. With ...
Dec 10, 2017•57 min
Sophie Monk has been a celebrity for almost 20 years. During that time she has been in a girl band, been a solo singer, an actress, a TV star, engaged 2.5 times, posed for Playboy, starred alongside a cast of famous faces for UberEATS Australia and most recently been Australia’s 2017 Bachelorette But that last fact is probably the least interesting thing about Sophie. She spent a decade in Hollywood being told she was too thin, too fat and too blonde. She developed a thick skin. And she realised...
Dec 04, 2017•40 min
Justine Clarke has been performing on stage and screen for decades but most people will remember her as Roo from Home and Away in the 80s. So what was it like to have that level of fame as a child and how did she deal with it? She also tells us what it's like to work on a show as iconic as Play School and what really goes on behind the scenes. And what is it like being 46 in an industry that prizes youth and beauty above most other things and why she's chosen her face over her career. Show Notes...
Nov 26, 2017•44 min
Until a few years ago, professional violin player, former presenter of the Classic Breakfast program on ABC Classic FM and music teacher Eddie Ayres had presented to the world as female. You might remember his name being Emma back then. But while on a solo bike ride of Pakistan in 2013, Eddie watched the Oscar Winning film Boys Don’t Cry - and it was here that he realised he was not a self described ‘butch lesbian’ but transgender. What happened next was quite literally life changing. Show Notes...
Nov 19, 2017•54 min
“People want to see people who look like them on television - the true diversity of the community - but traditionally male, middle-aged white executives would choose women based on their penises” Ever since news broke last month about Harvey Weinstein's alleged history of sexual assault journalist, feminist and author Tracey Spicer sent out a tweet asking if there were women in Australia who had similar stories about men in the Australian media. What happened next floored her. She was inundated ...
Nov 13, 2017•45 min
Kerri-Anne Kennerley is simply described as the Queen of Australian TV. Since she was 13, "KAK" has been a presence on our screens - interviewing thousands of people, singing, dancing and making politicians do the Macarena. Kerri-Anne has just released a memoir called, fittingly, A Bold Life. And when she came into Mamamia to talk about it, we couldn’t possibly contain that much razzle-dazzle star power in our tiny podcast studio so we sat her down in front of the whole Mamamia team to talk abou...
Nov 05, 2017•57 min
Marian Keyes is one of the most successful authors in the world. She’s sold 35 million books in 35 languages and she’s done that by writing about women’s lives….in all their messiness. She writes the words and the feelings that are inside your head and she makes women feel seen and heard and understood. In a laugh out loud way. She’s able to do this because she - like most of us - has had some bloody tough times in her own life. She’s battled addiction, crippling mental illness….and it’s those e...
Oct 29, 2017•1 hr 2 min
This is not your ordinary No Filter. Today, the tables have been turned. Mia Freedman has been a parent for 20-years and we invited her son Luca into the studio to grill her about their unique relationship. Mia tells Luca about the time she dropped him as a baby, what her first thoughts were when she gave birth, and how she reacted when she first found out he was watching porn. This interview will have you laughing, crying and a little bit in awe of how a mother and son can be so open and honest...
Oct 22, 2017•42 min
Andy Gourley is a 47-year-old pastor, former accountant, skateboarding fan and the founder of Red Frogs, a volunteer group providing support and a positive peer presence to large groups of young people. Nowhere is that more important than at schoolies. Every year, since 1997, Andy and his team have travelled to the Gold Coast to help partying teens stay out of trouble. So where did it start? What are the best tips for parents sending their kids off to schoolies? And what's this got to do with re...
Oct 18, 2017•35 min
You know that Tiffiny Hall is the energetic personal trainer with the long blonde hair who has appeared on several seasons of The Biggest Loser. What you probably don't know is that she’s also the author of four fiction novels and five nonfiction books. She’s one of the highest qualified female martial artists in the world for her age. And just a week after giving birth to her first child, Arnold, she flipped the usual post-baby-body Instagram selfie on its head. Instead of sharing a picture of ...
Oct 16, 2017•50 min
When couples therapist Esther Perel speaks to large groups of people about her area of expertise, sex and relationships -she asks the audience to raise their hands if their lives have ever been affected by infidelity. Maybe it was one of their parents. Maybe it was their own partner. Maybe it was them. Or maybe they were the third party. She says around 80 percent of the room raises their hand. Esther is an author, a psychotherapist and a self-described expert in relationships and sexuality. She...
Oct 08, 2017•54 min
Janine Middleton is not who you would expect to be the CEO of Australian Marriage Equality. She’s not Lesbian. She’s Not Gay. She’s not Bisexual, not Transgender, not Queer or Questioning and she’s not intersex. In fact, no one in her family is. She’s in her late 50s. Is a former investment banker. Lives on Sydney’s North Shore. And she wears pearls. And yet, she is on the frontlines, pushing for marriage equality in Australia. And she needs you to be too. Show Notes Your host is Mia Freedman. W...
Oct 01, 2017•29 min
In 2011, Manal al-Sharif defied Saudi Arabian laws when she posted a video of herself driving on YouTube. Her decision and her Women2Drive campaign landed her in jail for eight days. But it also made her passionate about changing the way her country views women. Six years after that act, Saudi Arabia has announced that it will allow women to start driving in 2018. Manal has written a book about driving, about what life is like for women in Saudi Arabia underneath the abaya and about being forced...
Sep 27, 2017•40 min
Scott Pape was just 35 years old when he and his wife Liz lost all their possessions in 2014. Everything. Every photograph, item of clothing, piece of furniture….all of it. And as he stood there looking at the charred remains of his house after the Victorian bushfires that devastated the area where he lived with his young family, he had an incredibly surprising reaction. Surprising even to himself. It would go on to be the basis for his extraordinary best-selling book The Barefoot Investor: The ...
Sep 24, 2017•50 min
During Connie Johnson's very public battle with cancer, her brother Sam was by her side spreading the word about the Love Your Sister campaign. But there were many more people behind the scenes supporting Connie and building the incredible charity that is Love Your Sister. Sam invited Mia to Canberra on the day before Connie's funeral, to meet some of the women who were closest to Connie. In the second part of this Love Your Sister special, Mia speaks to Connie’s best friend and carer, Emma, her...
Sep 22, 2017•42 min
It's been a little over a week since Connie Johnson died of cancer, and her brother Samuel Johnson is ready to talk. How is he coping? Is he okay? After years fundraising for Love Your Sister, what are his plans now? Yesterday, Sunday, Mia Freedman and her producer Elissa Ratliff headed to a house in the Canberra suburbs where Sam and Connie’s inner circle were gathering. They weren’t quite sure what they'd find when they got there, what state everyone would be in, or what the mood would be. But...
Sep 18, 2017•40 min
Samantha X describes herself as a normal person who does an unconventional job. She’s a 43-year-old business woman, journalist, author, a mother of two primary-school-age kids and she's Australia’s highest paid escort. Her real name is Amanda Goff, and before she was one of the country's most famous sex workers she was a beauty editor at a glossy magazine. So how do you manage two lives? Can you date as a normal person? And what happens when you fall in love with your client? Because that’s what...
Sep 10, 2017•54 min
Annabel Crabb can make anything interesting. Whether she’s making Cory Bernardi seem human or making paella with some obscure backbencher on her hit ABCTV show Kitchen Cabinet, she is one of the most smart and delightful women on the planet. It is no surprise then, that her new show about Parliament House is extremely compelling. Yes, you just read that sentence. From a fight over the kangaroo’s scrotum on the coat of arms, the politician who keeps a fully stocked pantry in their office and even...
Sep 03, 2017•1 hr
Nothing good happens to you after you turn 40. That’s what you think before….you know, you turn 40. Holly Wainwright did quite a lot before 40. She moved to Australia from Manchester, rose through the ranks of celebrity magazines, met her partner and had two kids. But that wasn’t the end. Soon after turning 40, Holly came to work at Mamamia where she embarked on a whole new chapter of her career. And now, she’s just released her first novel called The Mummy Bloggers. It’s the story of three very...
Aug 31, 2017•40 min
Wellness. Just reading that word makes you feel more healthy. Calmer. More virtuous. That’s why marketers are using the hell out of it, slapping “WELLNESS” on everything from yoga mats to activewear, vitamin supplements. But what does wellness actually mean? At a particularly unhealthy point in her life, journalist Brigid Delaney received an email from her editor about an assignment. Did she want to go on Malcolm Turnbull’s crash diet? It would involve eating nothing for weeks while drinking a c...
Aug 27, 2017•45 min
