You're listening to a Mama Mia podcast.
Mama Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on. I'm Meya Friedman and the team at Mumma Mea are bringing you over one hundred hours of the very best of the podcasts that we've made from across our podcast network. Do you know that we have something like fifty six different podcasts here at Mamma Mia. And if you follow this one, we have selected some others that you might like to listen
to as well. And we've also brought back some of our most popular and most riveting stories from No Filter, which is what you're going to hear today. We first brought you the story of Stuart Diver in twenty twenty one, and as you're going to hear, Stuart was the sole survivor of the nineteen ninety seven Threadbow Landslide. His name
that will be familiar to so many people. It was absolutely iconic, the image of him being pulled from that rubble after many days when everybody thought that there was no hope, and indeed under that rubble he was lying next to his wife Sally, and the experience and the losses that he would go on to survive in the years to come, were not over because unbelievably, Stuart lost
his second wife as well. I was kind of dreading this interview, and I think I said that to Stuart because it sounds from what I just told you like it would be really sad. But it is actually so enjoyable, so funny. Of course, not all of it's funny, but it's one of those things that if you are in the groups of grief and thinking that you will never move past it, or heartbreak or something impossibly difficult to
cope with. Stuart isn't a remarkable man, and it is truly a remarkable story, and I really enjoyed my time with him, which is why I wanted to pop this in your ears. It was an ordinary day on the thirtieth of July nineteen ninety seven in Threadbow. Thousands of people from across the country and the world had flocked to the ski town to enjoy the snow, along with the tight knit community of men and women who worked on the ski field as instructors and lift operators and
in the village in hospitality. But at eleven thirty five pm that evening, the earth moved. It literally moved, and lives were changed and lost in just a few minutes. The Threadbow landslide happened fast. It hit two ski lodgers where nineteen people were sleeping. It destroyed the buildings, ripping them off their foundations, and plunged all of those people inside under tons of debris and concrete. For the first
two days we were told that there would be no survivors. However, on the morning of the third day, sixty six hours after he was buried, my guest today was found alive. He was the lone survivor of one of the most famous tragedies in Australia's history.
We live from Threadbow. This is a special one hour edition of ten News. I'm Sandra Sully News. Just a hand. I'm hoping you can see these pictures. They are wonderful pictures. Philart Diver has been freed. His stretcher is being moved slowly up incrementally towards the ambulance. Sixty to seventy emergency workers are waiting there anxiously to receive him and of course assess his condition.
From Momma Maya.
You're listening to No Filter, the podcast where people from all walks of life, tell their stories very candidly and aren't afraid to be vulnerable. My name is Mia Friedman. Stuart Diver has been through more in his fifty one years than most people go through in their entire lives. When he was just twenty seven, he was the sole survivor of a landslide which took the life of his wife, Sally, and in twenty fifteen, Stuart lost his second wife, Rosanna.
Their daughter was just four years old at the time. You might say that Stuart has every right to be angry, to feel sorry for himself, to be pissed off at the world. But here's the thing, he's not. He's really, really not because on that day in nineteen ninety seven and on that day in twenty fifteen, when the world dealt him two unthinkable blows, Stuart decided to live, not just to survive, but to live in a big way, to be happy, to laugh because when things get tough.
Stuart asked himself two questions, what is it that I'm actually living for and what is it that's driving me forward? And his reasons are pretty amazing, I mean looking forward to this, so I actually, like everyone else over the age of about thirty. I remember exactly where I was when Stuart Diver was pulled blinking from the rubble on live TV. I can still picture his wife, Sally's face from all the media coverage. It went on for days
and weeks and months. It was one of those tragedies that the whole country felt, which is why, to be honest, I've been reluctant to interview Stuart until now, especially after learning that his second wife had passed away. But then I realized that Stuart's story and his resilience could help so many people, especially right now and his bloody great company. Stuart Diver is the host of a new podcast called
The Elements. He's the single dad of twelve year old Alessier, and he's the general manager of Threadbow Resorts, and that's where he joins me from right now. I wanted to ask you prepare for an interview like this, Like when you sat down, you said, I'm looking forward to this. And I said to someone today, I'm interviewing Stewart Diver today and I'm really looking forward to it. And they said, are you being sarcastic? And I went, no, I'm actually
really excited. My feelings aside, How do you prepare knowing the stuff we're going to talk about?
Yeah, I mean I think the easiest way for me is the only reason that I do and talk about my experiences and what I've been through is to try and share what I've learned from those experiences and then hopefully through that others can get a positive outcome or I can influence, you know, and change something in someone's life.
So I come in to a podcast or to an interview thinking what is the outcome going to be and is it worth me then delving into those emotional depths and sharing my story, and if it is, then it's actually really really easy to do because you know, my life is about trying to find the positives and trying to live in that way, and I see this is just an addition to doing that and being able to share.
That with others, that idea of purpose, finding purpose, because otherwise it becomes grief point, doesn't it just someone rummaging around in your trauma?
Yeah? Absolutely, I mean I base a lot of what I've done on my belief system and what is it that I'm actually living for? So, you know, how do you survive those traumas in your life, big or small. What is it that's driving me forward? And I think that's really key because you know, you can go and wallow in that grief and you're allowed to be in that place, like you're allowed to feel sorry for yourself.
There's no problem with that at all. But if you spend all of your time there, then you're not going to have a very positive life. So I think it really is working out what is it that I'm living for? And you know, for me, it's the fact that I love people. I love sharing life with people, I love caring for people, and that's what drives me forward. So whether it was living for that or living for those people, that's what gets me out of bed every day.
Will you like that before the landslide?
I definitely think that I was. I mean, my mum and dad definitely instilled that in me from a very young age, you know, that caring spirit. We did a lot of charity work, you know, as kids. There was a lot of things that I didn't like doing, getting forced into. But I think that whole attitude of community and looking after each other and pulling together, you know,
was definitely instilled in me. I think It's definitely been refined because of what I've gone through, obviously definitely focused me more on what is truly important and probably given me a lot more clarity around that. And I think that that's probably the difference. But you know, a lot of people say, oh, you know, did the landslide change you know? You know? And I think you can speak to a lot of people who knew me before and afterwards,
I'm the same person. I've definitely, hopefully because that's a long time ago, hopefully I've matured and some of my points you may have changed and developed, etc. But yeah, overall, I think deep down I'm exactly the same person that I've always been.
You're the same person, but people no doubt see you differently since the landslide and everything that's happened to you than they did before. So I was going to ask you. When people are famous for whatever reasons, when someone meets them, sometimes the onus is on that famous person to make
them feel less intimidated or at ease. I had someone who said to me recently, after they lost someone, people would do this thing where they'd tilt their head and go, how are you you know, and there'd be a lot of subtext in that head tilt.
Do you find that, Yes, absolutely, a lot of it is looking after the other person, And that's what can become really really difficult, because you know, you're sharing your story, you're sharing some of the most emotional things that happened in your life, like the landslide, fairly traumatic a point in my life. Yet sometimes people come to you even you know, I look at you know, when Rosanna died the same thing. People come because they want to be
made to feel more comfortable about them. So you spend half the time actually making them feel comfortable about the death of someone or whatever it is, rather than them because if you're okay, then they can be okay. I mean,
it has some benefits, you know. And I always say for me, you know, my notoriety or you know, hate the word celebrity, but that it's always been such a positive experience because people are coming out to me going wow, you know, it's amazing, and you're still here and you love this place and you know, so it's not like I'm a criminal, So the experience is actually really positive.
But in doing that, it puts a lot of pressure on me to make sure that I'm in a mental space that I'm able to share that and do that, and I don't just snap back at people and tell them to go away and do whatever, which is what you see happen a lot when you get pushed, you know,
you turn the other way. So there was a huge impetus early on, not that that was the main focus for me, but definitely for me to be able to work on my mental health so that I was able to talk about everything that I'd been through and share it in a way that was positive, because you know, the reality is if I can do that to someone who's walking down the street in Threadbow, you know, and it's five minutes of my life and it's a hug, and you know, that can be in some ways, not
to put say that anything special, but that can be a really really positive experience for that person. And that's how I look at it. So yeah, I never look at it as a threat.
It's quite a heavy load to carry though, because I was thinking that other people who involved in traumatic events, including many of the people that you interviewed for your podcast, the elements. If someone's in a car accident, other people aren't going to want to tell them where they were when that car accident happened, but I imagined that people always want to tell you where they were when you were pulled out of that building.
You nailed the number one opening. Yeah, when they approach and it is amazing. I mean, the Threadbao Landslide was really that first big Threadbow media event. It was the first time satellite dishes were in an area. It was just new technology, but they were here. It was live, it was getting broadcasts. I mean, stuff that's done every single minute of the day now in today's society. But then it was big. And I always say, you know that my face. People say, you know, twenty four years on,
wouldn't people forget your face? But I say no, because what it is, it's the emotional attachment that's linked to my face. So it's going to be there forever. I have two choices to make, and that is either you deny that that's happening, you put your head down, you put on the dark glasses, and you go away, or you use it for something positive. So that story of where that person was on that day usually leads them to them talking about something else, and it'll be maybe
their daughter died or their daughter had breast cancer. Or whatever it is. And for me that's the most amazing part of it, because my psychologist always says to me, Stuart, don't become a pop psychologist, So I'm not there offering
people advice on the street. But it's a great way of being able to share and say, you know, one of the big things that we need to do more as a society is we need to share that stuff with each other because the more we do it, the more we realize it normalizes it and it makes those experiences seem as not as traumatic as they really should be. I realized, Wow, it's a lot of other people in the world going through unbelievable amounts of pain and suffering
and trauma every single day. So what is it we can do as a collective to help each other rather than me just focusing on myself, which we all do as an individual. And I just need to look after my mental health and I'll be fine. But the real good test for me is that working is that I can talk about it to you today. That shows me that all of that work that I've done on my mental health with my psychologist over twenty four years has paid off.
Three enormous things happened to you in a very short space of time, a matter of hours. Twenty four years ago, you were involved in a major trauma and nearly lost your life.
You lost your.
Wife, and you became the most famous man in Australia. All of those three things happened and no doubt inextricably linked, but they're three very different things to process. How do you go about unpicking them from each other?
It took a lot of work with my psychologist in the months and years afterwards. Is the reality of it, because there's bits there that are me surviving and coming out and that celebrity that was forced upon me or thrust upon me in some ways was a hugely positive experience. In other ways there were negativities that went with that as well. Obviously my life in the initial stage is me surviving, a huge positive but then to be followed up by sixty five hours of horrific drama, and then
couple that, as you say, with Sally dying. We basically had to separate all of that out and work out okay, So within all of those points, there's some huge positives and some huge negatives, So we had to deal with what are the negatives? And how are we going to deal with those so they don't just keep resurfacing through my life and being reliving that traumatic experience. And that's not to say the traumatic experience goes away. It stays with you for life, you know. That is the greatest
myth ever. Anyone who goes through any sort of trauma, it generally you can do as much work as you want. It stays with you for life. So for me, it was not only separating those experiences, but then working out what was it that I was going to keep and use as the positives to go forward. So, you know, me living that's a pretty easy one because I got
to live and share my life with everyone else. Coming out and being a minor celebrity and doing that well, really that, you know, in some ways is just operational stuff. You get a good media manager around you, and life goes on. So the biggest one in there was obviously the death of Sally, you know, and that's horrific and I sort of can look back on it now having lived through the death of Rosa when she died of
breast cancer. Two very very different experiences, you know, same outcome, but two very different experiences, And I now realize why. You know, Sally's death was so traumatic, it's that no goodbyes. Really you look at that and you go, there are no real positives you can drag out of that. You know, you're twenty seven years old, the love of your life dies in two and a half minutes next to you.
Where do you get the positive? But that's where I come back to, you know, where we started talking initially, What is it that I'm living for? In that situation there, I tried to save the life of the person I love the most in the world. I tried to care for the person I loved the most in the world. I was unable to do it. You know, I tried to stop a drowning. She drowned, and that was it
hugely horrific. But when I look back at that, in the most stressful time of my life, what I did was I tried to take care of the person that I loved and cared for the most in the world. So my fundamental belief came to the fore. So when I look at that now, I look at my life
and I say, that was really devastating. But I look at Sally and I go, wow, you know, would she want me to still be at that spot thinking that I failed in doing that, or would she want me to be going on to live a life focusing on what I believe in, focusing on my values and using that to drive me forward. And that's what I believe
she would want me to do. People could say her life was wasted, but I look at it and say, yeah, her life was definitely cut short, but there is a real duty on me to then live my life to the fullest in the most positive way, in memory of her and what a beautiful person she was and all of those amazing beliefs and traits that she had, And
that's what drives me forward. And that's happened again. You know with Rosannah, the same process happens hugely traumatic, but you know, and sometimes it can sound a bit facetious, but it's not. You know, you can get positives out of these huge tragedies, and that's the only way I see to go forward.
Post Traumatic growth is the term for that, isn't it. A lot of people aren't familiar with that term. Most people understand post traumatic stress disorder, but post traumatic growth is when I remember a friend who lost a baby said that she felt that the light in her life was turned up by the loss of that baby, not extinguished and not turned down.
Yeah, it's that thing. Do you go nuts and go wow, you know I'm out? Yeah, every day is going to be my last. You know, you can try that, but that doesn't last very long. You can do that for a couple of months and you can pretend, but the reality is your.
Life just goes back to normal. And I always said that, you know, my whole aim of my life has been to get my life back to normal. Now what the normal is is it's a new normal and it's changed. But a big part of that is making sure that you're comfortable with the past. Growth is about that. You have to be comfortable with what's gone on, you know, the feelings of guilt, all of those such negative emotions. You need to have dealt with all of that so that you can grow. And the really big thing is
to not feel guilty about that. You know, society sometimes has a lot of these norms that go around that put pressure on us to stay in that spot. Oh you haven't quite grieved enough. You can't go on and have a new relationship. What's he thinking? That's terrible? You know, all of those sort of things you have to say, actually, this is me. If I dealt with that grief in one week, probably highly unusual, But if I did, that's me. And if I felt that I've dealt with that, that
I'm allowed to move on with my life. If that grief also takes five years, or if it's with me forever, which is generally what happens, then that's okay too. And I think that, you know, we need to give ourselves when you go through those sort of traumas, that space to be able to deal with it. But yeah, you have to be able to really, really comfortable with your
past to be able to go forward. Otherwise you just keep delving back and it's just becomes a circle round and round and around, and you never get to go forward.
What was Sally like?
She was amazing. I mean it's hard now. A lot of the memories have gone. You know, it's a long time. Twenty four years is a long time. But you know, the bits that I remember of Sally is that she was well liked by everyone around her because she was always bright and bubbly, and she was happy and she had that carefree attitude. Yet she had this really deep determination. She knew where she was going and she knew what she was doing. It was sort of like, don't cross me.
I'll be nice and if you're nice, and we'll keep going. But she really did have that drive, and that's what I've thrived on. When she was alive and I was with her, you know, we were great duo together in all of the things that we experienced, and we drove each other. But I've used that going forward to say, you know what, would Sally actually accept that behavior? Probably not? So you know what, am I accepting it before? Let's use some of her traits to make my life a more positive place to be.
To be pretty resilient and secure to date a widower.
I think you do. Because the great thing is I can always refer back and this has happened. So Rosanna used to say, so, what would Sally have done this situation? I said, ah, well, obviously Sally would have just let me do whatever I wanted because that was the sort of person she was. Maybe you should model your life on her.
No, it's that sort of bit you can't compare, can you.
No, that's right, but as a humans we do. So you're looking and going, oh was she more beautiful than me, or did Stuart's friends like her more than me? You know? And then on top of that, then you've got the family members, so you've got Sally's mum and dad, You've
got all of these other complications that go on. And when you look at it like that, yeah, I'm amazed and you I take my hat off to Rosanna for taking on the challenge and going out with me, because there was an enormous amount of baggage that came with me, not necessarily caused by me, but caused by who I was and what was around me, and whether that was
the attention of media, friends, all of these things. There's a lot of pressures that come from every and she had to put up with a huge amount in her life because of the fact of the landslide, and more so probably in a lot of ways because Sally had been my partner.
Because it's very different to the idea of someone's ex isn't it when it's a relationship that didn't end by your choosing? And in the most traumatic way. Was there any competition? Was there any feelings of rivalry jealousy, even though they're not logical or rational.
I don't think she ever did. I mean, not that we really spoke about. In her I mean, Rosanna was in a lot of ways very similar to Sally. She's very very strong, probably more so, and she knew where she was going and what was happening in her life, and probably if she hadn't gone out with me and married me, should have been just happy on her own and continued on her life. So she was very much her own independent person, and I think that helped her a lot. So I don't think there was doubt there
in her mind. I think the doubt probably came in through some of those people around who weren't so positive about that relationship, and that negativity crept in, and then you start doubting yourself, and then you start feeling more pressure, and then you sort of imagine that. And I think that that was probably a bigger struggle for her within our relationship and definitely put a lot of pressure on her that shouldn't have been there.
If this isn't too personal, I was going to ask about your relationship with Sale's parents. The three of you have lost the person you're closest to. What happens after that as your life continues, But hers doesn't.
Sally's parents were separated at that time, and I had a great relationship with both of them. I have a great relationship, but very different relationships currently Sally's dad, I'm very close to her. He treats me like his own son. So he basically said, you're my son, then, you're my
son now. And he's been hugely supportive of everything that I've been through relationships, and the same thing when Rosanna and I started going out, he was one hundred percent there to support her and said you are now my daughter, which was an amazing way of doing it. You know, he's a hugely intelligent guy. He processes things really, really well,
and that was his way of dealing with it. And I have great respect for him and he's been a great mentor and a real support for me over the last twenty four years and even prior to that, when I was married to Sally. With Sally's mum, it was people deal with things differently, and I think mothers, you know, from that female perspective, deal with things differently. So you know, we've given each other a fair bitter space over the years.
You know, we're still keep in contact. You know, we text each other you know, we call occasionally, but Sale's mum definitely struggled with Sally's death, and I understand that, and I understand all of those processes. But the better thing for both of us was just to give ourselves a bit of space so that could work through that, and sometimes that can take a very long time.
I'm mea Friedman and you're listening to No Filter with Stuart Diver. When you got back from your honeymoon and Rosanna discovered that she had breast cancer, did a part of you think this isn't fair about yourself, Like, haven't I been through enough?
There were two things that happened. One is I went straight into survival mode again, so you know, just click into that mode. What can we do? I've got to make her live. I've got to this is the person I care and love for the mostly well, I've got to know just shooting off in all those directions, which is what you do. I mean, anyone who goes through a cancer experience knows, oh, we've got to get an operation, and we've got to get scans, and then chemo a lot to do, and it just goes on and on
and on. So that in some ways was a good thing. It gave me that focus and I was able to for that next twelve months to two years just focus on Rosanna living. That was it, and that in some ways helps you deal with things emotionally as well. The feeling sorry for myself bit always comes in. I'm going to feel that today. I feel sorry for good because you're allowed to let some rubbish that goes on.
Glad you say that, and it's not rubbish like it's kind of like if you were going to say no. It's all about everything. Like, you have every right to be pissed.
Off, absolutely, and the key is it's what you do with that. So if that becomes a negative in your life and you're sitting in the corner and you've got the earphones on and you're not socializing and you're not moving on or doing anything, then that's an issue. Yeah. My psychologist Alway says, feel sorry for yourself as much and as often as you want. That's no dramas. Just don't do it all the time, you know, make sure
that you're getting out of that. And there'll be days there where I will even now where I'll turn around and go, this is really shit. I just don't want to continue. This is garbage. What am I doing here? I am pretending, you know, I'm pretending for everyone that I'm happy all the time and life's amazing, and I just don't want to do it, so I'll go into those dark spaces. But luckily, you know, I've done enough work on myself that I've got the tools to be
able to pull myself out. And I think that's the key with Rosanna. You know, those first couple of years were highly emotional, but we probably weren't dealing with a lot of that emotional side because you're just especially living remotely, you're driving two and a half hours to hospital, You're doing all of that sort of stuff. It consumes your life.
So it probably wasn't until about three years after Rosanna's initial diagnosis when things are looking good and you know she was in remission and you're never quite in remission, but yeah, the cancer pretty well gone away, and so we're looking then at planning our future, and so you're starting to talk about babies and do we want to have babies or can Rosanna have a baby? I know, probably not due to all the treatment she's been through, all of those complexities, and that's when really we both
went and started seeing my psychologist. We reached a point there where you just can't you know. And I've always said that psychologists are great mind's given me awesome tools to get through things. But I don't ever want to be the person like in some ways the US model where you have a therapist for yourself, a therapist for your dog, a therapist for your cat, and you use them all day, every day, and you end up relying
them all the time. I think there's individual responsibility to make sure that you're doing the hard work and you're going forward. So yeah, there were periods of five or six years there where I hadn't seen my psychologists a talk because everything was going well, but obviously Rosanna's diagnosis and then obviously all of the other stuff that comes with that as you go through that whole survival experience.
We went back and I saw him again and in the same thing, gave us some great tools and things that helped us work out what was our future, where were we going to go? And then obviously then as Rosanna the cancer came back and all the secondary cancers came back and Rosanna got sicker, then that became even more prominent again, and by then Unlessia had been born, not to jump too far in front, but unless you had been born, and then Alessia only being four years old.
But we involved her in all those sessions as well, and then it became a big pre grieving experiment in some ways for us, but able to do what you would say is do death the right way? Having experienced it the very traumatic way with Sally, to try and what did we learn from that? And how am I going to make sure that Rosanna's death, although it's going to be hugely traumatic for both Alessia and myself, how
do we do that as right as we can? And then that became the focus that thread goes all the way through all of those experiences in my.
Life, her diagnosis and particularly when the cancer returned. To say that would be truering for you would seem like an understatement. So how did the dynamics shift between her looking after you and being painfully aware of what was going to be afflicted on you for a second time, and you looking after her not just the physical side, but emotionally dealing with her devastation at leaving you and Alessia, it.
Just becomes an amazing team. So it's just going back and forwards and trying to look at what each person needs. So what physically you need and what I physically needed to survive. And it's a huge amount of things that
go in there, you know. And it's simple things like, Okay, we've got to get to the doctor, We've got to get this test, through to more physically intimate things like your sex life and what's going on there and all of those difficult all the way through to what is actually going to happen to a lessier when I die? Do you have the skill set to be able to do this? And all of those things. There's so many
other factors that go in there. We just had to work on them as a team together and just make sure that if our focus was on a Lessier and her having the best life after her mumma died, then that's what united us. So everything we did was basically focused on her. So because Rosanna knew that I was going to be fine, I could cook, I can clean, I could do all of that sort of stuff, all of those simple things. I can get a lessier to
school daycare. She wasn't at school at that time, so I had a job there was no real issues in there, so we just put all that to the side. We don't have to worry about that. What do we need to worry about. We're going to worry about the fact that we've got a four and a half year old here who's going to grow up without a mum.
You know.
One of the concerns that I spoke about before we'd even had a lessier was this exact thing happening. So we're already spoken about this years before with the psychologist because I said to Rosanna, my aim, because I'm selfish, is I want you to live if having a baby puts a strain on your body or does anything and you die. It's not the fact that I'm going to be left as a single dad. I had no fear of that. It was the fact of Alessia wasn't going to have a mum, and then where were we going
to go with that? So I think we'd already had all these discussions, so we already knew that Alessia was going to be the key, and I think it was for her. I mean, Rosanna did some amazing things unbeknownst to me. It was Alessia's eleventh birthday, on Friday, and I didn't realize Rosannah left a whole lot of boxes. I opened them up a year after Rosannah had died, and in it was a birthday card written for Alessia for every year until she's eighteen. And they are just
the most amazing cards. She didn't tell me she was doing this. She put this away. I knew she'd put away clothes. She loved clothes. She loved the Prada and she loved her Gucci bags, and so she'd put away all her favorite pieces so that when Alessia gets to an age, she can get them out. And it's about locking away those beautiful memories, whether they're in physical items
like or whatever they are. She did this amazing recipe book of all her favorite recipes, so Alessia because her Unlessa used to cook together all the time, and so for me, now that's the thing that Alessi and I do, and we get that cookbook out and we make some of her mom's favorite recipes and so just you know, those positive memories out of something that can be so negative. So Rosanna was doing all this stuff while I was at work. Yeah, and she was very, very sick at
that point in time. And she knew she was going to die. And then yea, I looked on my phone. I only found a video probably eighteen months after she died, which was like a goodbye video. Alessia and I are playing in the parking camera and she'd basically being diagnosed with a brain tumor that day and it was not going to be good. And she's writing the crying doing this video to the two of us playing in the park, saying, you know this is your mom. I know your dad's
an amazing guy. He's going to look after you so much. I'm just like I'm going. And she never told me. She didn't say, here, have a look at this. We've done this, and we never sat down and did any of that. We didn't do the big photo shoot and the pre death video and all of that sort of stuff. It just came from her innate ability to understand what I would need after she was gone. And those things are so important to me in being able to hold the positive memories of her life and to make sure
that that's what I'm instilling into Alessier, you know. And Alessia, she comes to me her biggest fear is I've forgotten my mum. I don't have any memories of mummy. And I'm saying, well, okay, what's one thing that you do remember, because that's all we need to hang on to, and
she goes her hug. They used to lie on the couch for hours because Alessia was young, and Rosanna from the age of zero to four and a half, she spent every day except one with Alessia, so it was pretty cool for Alesia to have her mum around that much. But she remembers the hugs and I'm going, well, that's beautiful. So what do the hugs mean? That means that mummy love me. That's all we need. We don't need anything else.
You know, we can discuss in more depth as she gets older, any of those stories, and it's those sort of things a key. It doesn't always go perfectly all the time, where there's always massive lows is all of those things. It's a rollercoaster for her as well, But at least the over riding sentiment for her and for I is that the memories of her mum and what comes back are positive and that's how we're trying to
live our lives. And we don't always get it right, but you know, we're given out our best shot.
Rosanna herself was proof that you could learn to love after losing the love of your life again, did you guys ever talk about you dating meeting someone else after she was gone?
Yeah, we had a list.
You had a list.
Who was on the list to you?
Well, it was like there was someone called Mia. I can't remember.
Me.
That list is gone. You worry.
Rosanna sent us all from the grave.
She was doing it probably in some ways because she wanted to choose who was going to be Alessier's mum. So she wanted to be sure that I wasn't just going to go out and go out with a nineteen year old and yeah, waere we go, you know, unless you would be left off to the side. So in some ways from her, her list was a little bit selfish, and it was a very unrealistic list. It was never happening because two of the people were married and it was not gonna happen anyway. But in a lot of
ways comfort No, that's right. But what it did was it bought that discussion forward and from my side, and you know, this is something very personal, but from my side. When you know that your wife is going to die and you're going to be on your own. You need some beacons, you need something to say it's worth living for. And if I think that I was never going to have a loving partner again and this was the end of two wives and that's it. You're done, that's a
horrible place to be. So in my mind, I would also then fantasize, and it sounds you're a nice bloke, you know your wife's sick, but I would fantasize about, oh maybe I go that person or that could be just to give some relief in your brain. The person surviving, you know, through cancer, it's a horrific experience for them. And I do a lot of work with Breastcancer Network Australia and a lot of the cares that I speak to, whether they're males or females, it's also horrific for them
as well. You know, they're going through enormous amounts, so you need these little bits of escapism to get away. And that was one of them. But we talked openly about it and we always got a good laugh out of it. Yeah, it was one of those ones, and I think it really helped me because it was like saying Stuart, You're allowed to get a partner when I'm gone.
That box has already ticked. There was no guilt, There was no you know, when Sally died, there was a whole lot more guilt and everything out of oh you know what would be going on here? But now I'm only twenty seven. She would have wanted me to go and meet someone else, wouldn't she have? But you never got to ask that question, whereas with Rosanna I was able those questions were answered before any of that ever happened.
And I think that that's, you know, for me, was really comforting and made me realize, you know, that I be able to love again. He touched on that a little bit before. You know, how much love does a human have? Do you run out at some point after you've been through so much loss and you just think I can't roll the dice again? I think it's actually
the opposite. I think what happens is, you know, I've realized what an amazing part of my life having too, loving, caring people like Rosanna and Sally in my life was, and what they added to my life. So why wouldn't that be something that I'd want again in my future? Because it just to me. It's not saying that I need someone in my life. I can't survive on my own. I'm fairly strong, independent individual. But what an amazing thing when you meet that person and what it adds to
your life. And that's where I am probably comes to my belief system about loving and caring for your fellow people and your community, etc. That you know that love is actually boundless, there's a never ending reservoir of it, and that's how I feel.
Sales interviewed you for her book An Ordinary Day. She wrote about driving away thinking that guy is a bloody legend. Which of my friends can I set him up with? And then she thought to herself, hang on a second, you know, what are the statistics of losing two wives? Does that mean that the next person he meets is
more or less likely to meet an untimely end? And then she went into this very Lee style long explanation of the statistics and showing that they were no more or less likely than anyone else.
Yes, lucky, Yeah, I love the way she looked at that. It was good.
Yeah. With her typically data led brain. So I was thinking the difference between when you married Rosanna, you were Australia's most famous grieving widower. Did it feel like a relief to put that down and say this is the next chapter?
Yeah, one d percent. I mean for me, it was about getting that normal see back in my life. I mean that's what it was. I mean I always wanted with Sally we were married, I always wanted to have kids, you know, all of that sort of stuff. So with
Rosanna I was able to recreate that again. You know, it was just I mean, obviously unbelievably unfortunate that she was diagnosed with breast cancer so early into our marriage, because obviously we're planning to have kids right then and there, and you know, it didn't happen for another twelve years after that, so it was long. But all of those experiences,
it is amazing. And I do look back at it sometimes and think that maybe I'm a little bit crazy, But all of those experiences, they didn't detract from the fact that how crucially important a loving relationship is in your life. And for me, you know, it highlighted that despite all the negativity and everything that went on with Rosanna, the positives far outweighed that. What she taught me about myself and everything that we shared together far outwigh to
any of that. Now, logically cut short, that's the real tragedy, But the rest of it was actually an amazingly positive experience.
Still, you're not a man who invites pity. You're just not someone that I'm inclined to feel very sorry for. You. Just don't invite that. There's something about you. How much of that is intentional, because pity is not something that's nice to feel. People are directing towards you, right, But I imagine you had that a lot after the landslide.
Yeah, oh absolutely. I mean, and everyone can project what they're feeling towards you in any way they want. I mean, after the landslide, there was a little bit of I did want to portray a really positive image. I didn't want to be the person crying on sixty minutes, you know, getting that pity in, and I made it conscious of it not to do that. In two ways that was really detrimental. One was it was really really emotionally hard
to do, so it destroyed me after those interviews. And number two, it's like you said, it actually portrayed this image of maybe I am a little bit cold, or maybe I am a little bit emotionless. Even in some of the straightforward ways that I talk about things today, you could definitely read that in. But that's how I process things. I don't want people feeling sorry for me.
What I want is I want people to be able to look at me and say, here's a guy who's gone through something in his life, and look at that he's living and enjoying life. That's as simple as that. You know, the podcast, the elements that we did, a lot of those people very similar experiences. They just happen to be people throwing in an unfortunate situation who came out the other side. You know, we all have or they all had that humbleness to say, I'm no one special.
I've never felt special. I sit here talking to you today, Maya, and I don't feel special. I just feel that I'm someone who's been through something unfortunate and happened to come out the other end. And I think that's really key. The people who think that I am special is the media in a lot of ways, and people external who perceive that and want to put that on me. That can be also used to benefit me and to benefit
those around me as well. So I'm not saying that that's a negative thing, but at the end of the day, yeah, in some ways, how I've managed, you know, my public persona has definitely had some outcomes that you have not been as positive as you would like. Maybe I should have cried a bit more on those TV shows, and maybe I should have outwardly shown a little bit more
emotion to show that I'm human. But I thought to myself, if I'm going to have fifteen minutes on a major television network, then I should be making that worthwhile and I should be getting a message across it. You can get this is in very very close proximity to the end of the landslide, you know, But I'd already made that conscious decision to do that. Was it detrimental or whatever? I think this positive message still got out there, you know, And I would do the same again. It's just my
makeup and what I do. I'll feel sorry for myself, and I do enough of that. I don't need other people to do it for me.
Do you sometimes feel sorry for yourself?
Yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah.
Well, was it like being a single dad or are you not a single dad?
I have a partner, you have a partner because I have a lot of love to give.
I'm so glad.
Yeah, we live seent me separate lives because we live in slightly different parts of the country.
Well that's easy during lockdown.
Yeah, Oh, this is going beautiful for us at the moment.
Seriously, can I catch your brakes?
Do you?
Honestly?
I know really what's going on here. I am the most fortunate guy in the world in that I've met another just unbelievably amazing woman. You would think, how much more can someone teach me about my life? She's teaching me so much that I had no idea about myself in relation to a lessier, in relation to who I am as an individual. You know, I thought I knew at all when I was going out with Rosanna, and from what I've been through, I've got so much more to learn and she is a huge part of that.
And he's contributing an amazing amount to my life. Do you have that love to give us? Speaking about it before? You know? So much more to give and so positive to be in that relationship and the same thing. Lots of loads, lots of highs, lots of in between time, but to still be able to share that positivity you know, with someone else is such an amazing thing, you know, And the same things happening is what happened with Rosanna. In the questions about what would Rosannah have done in
this situation? Oh no, no, she would have done nothing. It's all. But it's the same stuff going around, and it's like, you know, the comparisons and the same things happening with friends, and I'm going happened this all? But it's like a deja vu, going back to some people being nice, some people are being critical, some people you've moved on too quickly. What are you doing moving on
with someone who's got that many kids? Just leave us alone, like we're happy, we're happy in doing what we're doing, and we just want to move on and live our lives post lockdown in some sort of normal way.
There are a lot of lucky women around you, Stuart Diver, Alessia, this new partner of yours, Sally and Rosanna for having you in their lives when they did and for as long as they did. It's just been a delight to talk to you.
Just awesome. I mean I thought you would be, but you just don't ask.
Thank you so much. So are you. It's been great chatting today.
You're not a bad podcaster either. I have to say I am watching that back. Thank you for listening to this No Filter. I walked out of the studio after this interview with just the biggest grin on my face and the biggest spring in my step. It was such a great day at work. I just loved talking to him. He's just such a special, amazing person. You can hear Stuart's new podcast The Elements, all about surviving a natural disaster.
Wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're in the mood for another show, why not check out our daily news show, The Quickie, hosted by Claire Murphy. The assistant producer of No Filter is Lucy Neville. The executive producer is Eliza Ratliffe. I'm Meya Friedman and I'll see you
Mom and Maya. If you're looking for something else to listen to, like and follow all of our Mom and Mea podcasts, which are currently bringing you Hot pod Summer one hundred hours of summer listens, from spicy conversations to incredible stories, fashion, beauty, where the friends in your ears Over Summer