Hey fam, Hello Sunshine.
Today on the bright Side, we're talking to the unstoppable Sophie Morgan. She's a best selling author, fierce disability rights advocate, and an NBC host for this year's Paralympics. Join us as Sophie shares how she's changing the narrative around disability in the media.
Honestly, I know this is a naughty thing to say. We're going to say it anyway. I think the Olympics is kinda boring compared to the Paralympics. I mean, watching somebody who is blind skiing behind a guide at seventy eighty miles an hour. You tell me that is not more interesting to watch than just somebody who's regular skiing.
Plus, we'll take you behind the scenes at this year's Paralympics. It's Thursday, September fifth. I'm Danielle Robe.
And I'm Simone Boyce.
And this is the Right Side from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together to share woman's stories, laugh, learn and brighten your day.
Simone, we get to talk with one of our Hello Sunshine girlies, one of our sisters today.
I'm so excited, you know, I love Sophie Morgan. She's a powerhouse, and we had the pleasure of hanging out with her this summer in Nashville. We all had brunch together and I happened to sit across from Sophie and my friend Danielle and we were just gabin having the best time it was. Sophie is a great brunch partner and so many other things too. She's so much fun.
But I want to give everybody a little bit of her backstory. So Sophie became disabled as a teenager and since then has been on a crusade to change the perception of disabled people in the workforce and in the media.
Yeah, this makes me think about this conversation that I had with Madeline Denono on our show about representation and media, and she pointed to a study that highlighted that of the moms in the title cast on television shows in twenty twenty two, zero of them were disabled.
There's just not a lot of representation, and not a lot of representation that's not pointed. So for instance, like you can just cast a show and the mom happens to be disabled, you don't have to make her a disabled character, if that makes sense. But Sophie is changing so much of this. She's the co founder of Making Space Media, which focuses on producing TV, film and promotional
content that centers the disabled voice. She also has a first look deal with Hello Sunshine and if you want to check her out right now, she's a host of this year's Paralympics on NBC.
Yes, the Paris Paralympic Games are officially underway and more than four thousand athletes around the world are there right now, competing in twenty two different sports. And what's interesting to acknowledge is that a lot of people tend to conflate the Olympics and the Paralympics, but the two organizations are actually completely separate, and the prefix para doesn't have anything to do with disability. It actually means alongside or parallel.
That's great to know. I didn't know that.
All right, we're going to talk to Sophie about all these Paralympians and the awesome work she's doing. Sophie, Welcome to the bright Side.
Thank you for having me. Oh, it's so us to be here.
You just posted this throwback photo on ig that gave me all the feels from twelve years ago when you were reading the weather in the Paralympics Breakfast show on Channel four. And now you are covering the Paralympics for NBC and making history as you host your own show right side Bessie. She literally just got off the air a few minutes ago. What does this moment mean to you personally?
I don't know how to put words to it. I tried and failed on that Instagram post because you know, sometimes when you recognize that you've achieved something in your career, there aren't I suppose social guidelines for how to celebrate these things. I think that we have them with other milestones that we have in our lives. But for me, it was this like, Wow, I've achieved this thing I set out to achieve all those years ago. It's such a privilege to be part of the Paralympic movement and
to be broadcast day it. And like you said, like at the beginning, I was just reading the weather. I set out twelve years ago with the intention of you know, becoming a host and having, yeah, my own show, and the dream to take that mission from the UK over to the US was always in the back of my mind. I had no idea how I was going to do that, So to be here now and to literally, as you say, just come off air. I'm still really high, you know,
with adrenaline. I'm just I'm so buzzed and I'm so excited. I think I just feel really proud.
I'm glad that.
You're actually vocalizing your pride. Because we're so socialized as women to not do that. It's socially unacceptable. We have to always be humble and never say that we're actually proud of ourselves for our accomplishments, and.
I think we should. I do it to my friends all the time, you know, and I'd make a point to say, like, you just killed it in that promotion, or well done, you know, standing up for yourself or saying something in your job, or advocating for yourself in your professional life or something right. But I think for me,
I am proud of where I've got to. It's not been easy, and I I think I, as a disabled woman as well, feel particularly like, yes, I'm representing, you know, to be sitting on a studio in my wheelchair and I'm one of the first women to ever do that for NBC, it just feels hell. Yeah, I'm proud.
I'm really proud. Yeah, you hold a lot of titles.
You're a founder, you are now a broadcaster for NBC, which is so major, and you're a disability advocate and Sophie, I actually didn't know the story of how you became disabled until I started researching for this interview.
Are you willing to share? Of course?
Of course, thank you for asking.
Yeah.
So I had a car crash when I was eighteen years old. It was actually the day I left school, so it was a very significant time in my life. You know that time when you're just sort of stepping out of girlhood into adult life. And I was so excited. I was ready to go to become an adult and I left school, and unfortunately I had a car crash
and I was driving. When I lost control of the car I was driving, I wasn't very experienced, like I kind of learned to drive once I passed my test, really which was so dangerous, and I crashed the car, lost control of it, and in the crash, a lot of me was damaged. My face was almost completely destroyed. I won't list out the actual injuries because it's a
bit gruesome, but it was really bad. And then my spine was damaged at the point where the seat belt, so the seatbuck crosses over you from right to left. Obviously in the UK drive on the right, so that seatbuck comes across and where the seatbuck crosses my chest, it held me so tight that part of me twisted and part of my vertebrae twisted, so it damaged my
spinal cord and I was just paralyzed instantly. So I went to hospital and I nearly died, but I came through, and yeah, went into rehabilitation, and three months later rolled out of that hospital as a wheelchair user. And so now I'm a full time manual chair user and a paraplegic from the chest down. So it's been a journey.
Is there something that you are aware of every day now that you never thought of before?
I mean everything listeners to this who identify as disabled, perhaps if they've acquired that disability, if they weren't born with it. I think when you live in a new body, you genuinely see the world in a very different way all the time, every day. And I'm not just talking like the obvious things like, for example, the lack of access somewhere, lack of ramps, although that is something that
you do obviously see. I think it's more the subtle nuances around how other people treat you, how other people behave around you, the awkwardness that comes with being a wheelchair user, the fear that people have, or the pity, all these kind of emotions that I don't really want to be around. You know, I as certainly as a young woman, I was really confronted by and struggled. Now I'm better prepared and I know how to deal with it, but it's ongoing and obviously it changes everywhere you go.
So yeah, I think, to be honest, it's a hard question to answer because I think the list is so long. I see things so differently, But you know, it's not all negative. I would love to just say that that I do think I see the world from a different perspective now, which brings me a huge amount of gratitude and joy. I'm a very glass half full kind of person, and I think that's got exaggerated after my injury. You know,
I'm grateful to be alive. I'm always like, yes, I'm so happy to be here, and so like, I'm always kind of looking for the joy where I can because I'm alive, and yes, I might be disabled, but there's worse fates, Sophia.
I think we have so much to learn from people who have endured near death experiences like yourself. And I've heard you talk about this one voice that came to you. I don't want to tell the story for you because it's so powerful, but would you tell us what that conversation was and how it's you.
So just after my injury, I was probably three days post injury, and I was in intensive care and my body was failing, like I think my lungs were filling with fluid and everything was just packing in. And I think at that point they had told my parents to prepare for the worst. And from the way I piece this together is it's quite hard to explain it. But what happened for me internally was I may have been in a body that was close to death and really
outwardly struggling. So I was convulsing and there was a lot of trauma, and I think it must have looked really scary the state I was in, But inwardly I was in this beautiful space. I was so warm, I was so comfortable, and I went away to somewhere else and I honestly I think I write about it better than I can speak about it. And I wrote about it in my book and it took me a long time to draft that chapter because I was like, I need to put words to this correctly. So I did.
I went this space and I felt this warmth and I was gone. I was away, and I felt good with that. But then I heard this voice and the voice said, don't go. You have to come back. Don't go, please come back, And so I kind of listened to that voice and I did. I came back. I mean, I don't really know how to explain that, articulate that well, but I came back and I went into intensive care kind of recovery state. And now, anyway, a few months,
a few weeks, I don't know what. Sometime later, I had this conversation with my mum and I was like, do you remember that time when you told me? Because I knew it was her voice, I felt like it was her voice that was what made sense to me. I said, Mum, do you remember that time when you told me that I should come back, just around the time I think when you thought that I was going to go. And she was like, what are you talking about? I said, you know when you said, don't go come back.
She said, I was nowhere near you. I was gone, like they had moved me from the hospital room because you were about to die. So it was just this magical I know, right. I still just I get goosebumps thinking about it. Whether it was my mum, my higher self, whatever it was, something told me to come back, and I think that sense of purpose has never left me. I constantly strive to find why did I come back?
What was the reason? You know, and some people might call that a coping mechanism for ending up with a life changing injury. I don't care if there's a cynical of that. It's helped me. It served me to kind of find a sense of purpose and come back for a reason. What is that reason? So yeah, it was pretty amazing.
We're taking a quick break, but we'll be right back with more from Sophie Morgan. Stay with us, and we're back with Sophie Morgan.
Sophie, I know that you've said that when you came out of the hospital as a paraplegic at eighteen, doctors told you there were things you want to be able to do or places you couldn't go. But the thing is, before your accident, you were always an adventurer, you were a traveler, you were skydiving, and so this is always in your DNA.
How does it feel to prove them wrong now?
I You know, I think life is one big game of proving people wrong. You know, whether you're a disabled person, whether you're a woman, I don't know. You know, there's just so many limits that we have on each other. And I did come face to face with those very early on after my injury, and they really affected me.
I think because I was such a kind of rebellious little kid, and I mean I was a baby, so I hadn't done a lot of traveling, but in my heart, I'd always wanted to adventure and I've been some places, and yes, I'd been skydiving, I'd done some adventurous and exciting things. So I felt like I was only getting started. And then the fact that my legs didn't work anymore, I was like, oh, well, why can't I travel? Why
can't I go places like I wanted to before? And the answer to those questions really became a guiding force for me. Somebody's going to say you can't do something now, you need to go and check it out and see if that's actually true. Not to be fair. As a paraplegic, there are some places I can't go, but there are so many places I can still go. And I think that's where I do get that motivation to kind of be a little bit like one finger up. Don't tell me what I can't do. I can, you know, let's see.
And I think that again has been a motivator for me for twenty years now. I've been paralyzed yet twenty one years this summer, and I have been testing the limits. I think since the moment someone said you can't do that, I still do.
Yeah.
It's funny that you say that, because when I think of you, that is the phrase I think of when someone tells Sophie Morgan not you tell yourself yes. And I think that you've done that again, most recently leading the Rights on Flights campaign in the UK, which is in support of a new law that could be passed to protect the dignity of disabled travelers on planes.
I'm wondering if it.
Was a specific experience that set this passion and movement off for you.
Yeah, you're nodding, Yeah, it was. It was so I had my wheelchair broken by an airline last year. And for anyone again who might be listening to this who uses a wheelchair or has a mobility device, you'll know what I mean when I say it's like having your legs broken. It is so hardcore because you can't move. I mean, my life just stops when my wheelchairs broken.
And so that was the sort of the catalyst for me going out and using my platform that I don't have a huge platform, but I have a platform enough that when I spoke about it on social media and actually subsequently on television in the UK. Worked on a show that was a little bit like The View in the US, a kind of chat show of women. And I was on that show.
Is this Loose Women? Yes, I don't ever the moon. I love this show? Are you jokers?
Lose Women? Okay, yeah, I know right, so lose Women. So I was on these women in the next day and I was, you know, bless them. They gave me the mic to have a good old rant and I did about this situation i'd found myself in just the day before with my chair breaking. And again it was
like the catalysts. People were listening to what had happened to me and were like asking questions themselves, and a number of people reached out to me saying how can we help, and one of them was an MP and Member of Parliament in the UK, and that was the beginning of this campaign what we're now calling Rights on Flights, which is just a mission to make air travel more
equitable for disabled people. It's complicated the challenges that we face, and every person with the disability will have a different challenge when they fly, but for wheelchair users in particular, the problem is you have your wheelchair taken away from
you when you get on the airplane. That's the process because you're you know, an aeroplane's not designed to have a wheelchair on board, so that means you face a lot of problems such as your wheelchair can get lost, it can get broken, it can get damaged, and you as an individual on an aeroplane without your equipment, you can all get hurt and things like you can't get around the aircraft itself. So for me, I can't mobilize a tool without my chair, I can't go to the toilet.
It's really really dangerous and it's hard, and I think that's where people kind of go Oh my gosh, I had no idea. So one of the reasons why the campaign is important is to raise awareness, but the other is yet to really hold the airlines to account. And also that governments. I just can't get over how they know that this problem is happening to thousands of disabled people on a daily basis, like we're getting discriminated against
and they're not doing enough. So the campaign has been really effective at speaking truth to that power, and we've had some traction. We've had the government in the UK's listening and now we're going to be working with them, which is so exciting, and the US government also amazing. So it's been really good.
I do want to talk about your documentary, Sophie Morgan's Fight to Fly.
Sophy.
You told me about your film when we were in Nashville together, and I came home and watched it, and it is so profoundly compelling. It was so substantial and meaty. It made me so emotional. And there's a particular scene that really stood out to me. It's when you go zero gravity and there's this image of you floating, truly just floating, and then floating next to you is your wheelchair and it's this just this surreal It's almost like a painting, Sophie, It's so surreal to see. But I
want to hear it from your perspective. What did it feel like to go zero gravity in the making of your film?
Honestly, I cannot tell you how extraordinary that experience was for a number of reasons. So firstly, the actual act of going into zero gravity in itself felt just I mean, I think I'm the first British paraplegic woman to do that, which felt you've already like, you know, great in a way. I think the other part of it was this sense of like, how am I here? This is the future?
This is what The reason I do it as part of the documentary is just set up this story around the fact that travel should be for everybody and the future of travel is space travel, and how are we
going to make that accessible? We need to, you know, start working with the space industry to make sure that they set the standards for accessibility from the outset as opposed to retrofitting access like which one to do with the airline industry, right, So there's that element to it, But there's also this sort of like for me as a paraplegic getting into zero gravity and not needing my wheelchair and just being able to mobilize like a little
bit like I'm in water. But it's profoundly different, and it's trippy. It's trippy.
My head, my little head was like, oh my gosh.
What is going on?
It's really exurreal and amazing. And you know what, there's also this wonderful thing for me again the privilege of being able to experience it, which was one thing and understand that the impact it could have both on the space industry and seeing people with disabilities in those spaces and seeing how important it is to include us.
But then there's the joy of.
Watching it on television and seeing how it was put together. And I think the thing for me which brought me to tears when I watched it was the song that we edited together to put over the song, which is the song from the Barbie soundtrack, which is what was
I made for? And the music comes in and that is thanks to a woman named Sarah Laismbee who is a Hello Sunshine, and she is just genius at what she does, and she positioned the song just so perfectly that it really packs us punch to a viewer sort of question what are we made for? What are we here for? What is their purpose? And I think it leaves a viewer with this sense of like questioning your own ideas of what you can and can't achieve as
a human being. And we really wanted to put that out there in the dock, that we all as human beings have this potential to be so much more than people think that we can be, perhaps more than we think that we can be.
It's really significant that the work that you're doing, the roots work that you're doing, has led to significant change in the past.
What makes you hopeful in this fight?
I think it's important to remain hopeful but also remain realistic. And I think I feel hopeful in the sense that I trust in the perseverance and the resilience and the tenacity of my community. I know we will not stop. It's almost like that adage, you know, if you don't quit, you won't fail. It's like we will get the work done. It's just a matter of time. So I feel hopeful because I trust in us as a group to keep
pushing and keep fighting for change. I also feel hopeful because I think that leaders recognize that now they're like, oh gosh, they're not going anywhere. Oh these disabled people, they won't quit and we won't quit. So yeah, I do feel hopeful, but caasri on another day when I'm struggling to get my emails responded to and the fight is hard, and sometimes I do get the advocacy burnout and it's but today it feels good.
We need to take another short break. We'll be right back with Sophie Morgan. We're back with Sophie Morgan, disability rights activist and host of this year's Paralympics on NBC.
Everybody is going to be watching you cover the Paralympics, which is so exciting and it's really happening because of making space that there will be an unprecedented amount of disabled people covering all of the competitions, Like you fought really hard to make this happen.
Yeah, they had never had a disabled person host the Paralympics, and now there are several of us hosting, so that that's crazy. So what they have had is they've had experts. So former paralympians who have retired or who haven't retired but aren't competing, come into the studio and do like punditry right, talk about what you're going to see in the sport. They've had that, but they've never had a host with a disability on the games, which is why I feel so incredibly lucky to be where I am.
I'm so proud. So Making Space partnered with NBC about a year ago with the intention of finding and upskilling new and existing disabled talent to see if they could fit into that host role because NBC are really passionate about getting representation right and they know that people with disabilities will bring another lens to the broadcasting. I mean, that's why our company is called Making Space. We made space for disabled talent so to be able to see
her shine and thrive. It's brilliant, feels great.
One of the best marketing campaigns that I've seen in the last five years came out of the Paralympics. They went viral on Instagram. A ton of Paralympians posted a photo of them in motion of whatever sport that they were in, and they wrote, I am competing, and the idea of it it is that I am competing versus I am participating. Because when people speak about the Paralympics, they often speak about it as participation and they're like, no, I am a competitor, what did you think about this?
I love it. I love it when Paralympians get feisty and just say stop underestimating us. There's a perception that Paralympians don't bring the same level of athleticism or you know, elite talent and skill and sportsmanship to what they're doing, and they do. Trust me, like, I've been following these this movement now since I started in twenty twelve, and I have been in so many different games, whether the summer or winter. I honestly, I know this is a
naughty thing to say. We're going to say it anyway. I think the Olympics is kind of boring compared to the Paralympics. I'm just going to say it because I swear. I mean, watching somebody who is blind skiing behind a guide at I mean, how many miles an hour? Like seventy eighty miles an hour? You tell me that is not more interesting to watch than just somebody who's regular skiing. I know I'm biased because I'm disabled, but I just think it just adds a whole nother layer of like
badass to the sport. And I also know how hard it is to be a disabled person in this world and to actually be able to just do the basics. I mean even just getting to a gym, even getting to equipment, even getting access to fitness and training and all of those things. It's really challenging. So those layers and layers that they have to break through the barriers, they come through and then they go and do their sport. And so I think the Paralympics just blows the Olympics
in a sense out of the water for me. And I just want more audiences to come to the games because I think they'll love it, if not as much, maybe more. That's all I'm saying.
So the twenty twenty four Paralympic Games wrap up this weekend. Who has been some of the outstanding competitors this year?
So Alie Truett has an amazing story. She was a swimmer in college. She went on holiday with her girlfriends and when she was out swimming in Tucks and Caicos, she got attacked by a shark. The shark bit off her foot and she basically swum through the boat to this boat. She had her foot tourniquade by a friend of hers who was swimming with her. They saved her life and less than a year later she's competing at the Paralympics and she is incredible, Like I mean, talk
about a story of overcoming adversity. She's an extraordinary young woman. There's also another woman called Sarah Adam who is the first woman to ever compete in wheelchair rugby. And again for people who aren't familiar with wheelchair rubby, it's got a nickname murdible because it's really hardcore. So it's great to see a woman in that space. Like she's in
a really inspiring athlete too. She's just had a diagnosis of MS and she's found the sport as this like release for her, and it's just again another really incredible story. And then there's the greats, the kind of the perhaps more well known athlete. It's you know, Tatiana McFadden, Jessica Long. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. There's loads to watch.
Amazing.
Yeah, Sophie, you're leading a campaign, you released a documentary, and you're hosting the Paralympics this year. Like I said before, you have many titles, So before you go, can you tell us where that fire, that you have to figure something out or push against something when people tell you no.
Where does that come from?
I don't know. My mum gets asked this all the time. Was she always like that? People always ask her Anna? I I sometimes ask her too, I'm like, Mom, Was I always like this? I think I was to an extent as a young girl, I was always a little bit like pushy and difficult. I was a difficult girl. You know those girls that we get that word difficult, like I was that word. That was my label. And
I've always said difficult girls make for great women. I just think I believe that because there's something in us that kind of just goes, well, we're going to think outside the box, we're gonna do things our way now. That can be a destructive force. And of course I have, you know, hurt myself with my actions. My injury was caused by myself, and I hold myself responsible. So I suppose there is an element to being difficult that is problematic, but there's also an element to it that's just It's
something I celebrate in myself and I fire. I don't know, I just I get off on that, like, don't limit us. I do think it is heightened by being very visibly disabled, and a wheelchair comes with a huge amount of stigma, and you know that kind of that gets put on me everywhere I go, whether I like it or not.
It feels good to just prove yourself and prove others wrong and at the same time encourage and inspire and motivate other people who also live within those confines of those imitations to kind of go, oh, I don't know if you could do that, Maybe I could do that. That feels so good too. It's like a recharger, you know. It's like when your battery gets depleted, what fills it back up? And those things fill my battery back up. They kind of make me go, right, let's go again.
You're going to tell me no, okay, Well, I'm going to find a way to say yes. Like just being on TV today, ye maybe somebody watched that and when oh h, the stories that I shared of the paralympians like Ali Truett, who I'd just talked about. I know that the impact is profound on others when they see other people doing things that they didn't think that they could do. And I want to be an example, I think, But yeah, I don't know. I've just got a lot of energy.
Well, Sophie, we love you. Thank you so much for bringing your life to the bright side.
MATHA, thanks babes, thanks for yeah, thank you for having me.
Sophie Morgan is a BAFTA nominated TV broadcaster, disability rights advocate, and author of the memoir Driving Forwards. You can catch Sophie hosting this year's Paralympics at Nbcolympics dot com.
That's it for today's show.
Tomorrow, we're popping off with Emmy nominated TV host and fashion designer Nina Parker.
Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Simone Boye.
You can find me at Simone Voice on Instagram and TikTok.
I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok.
That's r O b A. Y. See you tomorrow, folks.
Keep looking on the bright side.