Amanda Keller on ageing, IVF and the secrets of multi-tasking

Photography Hugh Stewart

Genuinely funny. Endearing. Self-deprecating. There’s plenty to like about Amanda Keller.

A media veteran of 30 years, host of Channel 10’s The Living Room and co-host with best mate Brendan ‘Jonesy’ Jones of top-rating WSFM radio show Jonesy and Amanda In The Morning, she is colourful, quirky, has true generosity of spirit and a warmth that makes you feel instantly relaxed. But, as discovered when we recently sat down with her on a sunny Sydney day, there’s much more that makes her tick. Think the work-life juggle, learning to say ‘no’, and why we’re lucky to be getting older.

You host a weekly television show and a top-rating breakfast radio program. Do you have to pinch yourself sometimes?

I never look at it in that context; but when you put it like that, I think, gee—isn’t that good! I’ve got a diary from when I was a teenager and I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life.

I think how pleased my 15-year-old self would be to have the interesting career I’ve had. The young Amanda would have been happy with the way things have gone. She wouldn’t believe I’d still be working at 52 and wasn’t in a dressing gown in a wheelchair somewhere—because [young Amanda would think] 52 is geriatric. So, to still be working now— I’m really pleased with the longevity of my career. I probably have more opportunities now than I’ve ever had and I’m really pleased about that.

Hosting The Living Room, you’re a woman at the helm of a panel of men. Why do you think the formula works so well?

I think we’ve been very lucky with the chemistry. I knew Chris Brown, I’d met Barry [Du Bois] once before and I didn’t know Miguel, but it’s absolute luck of chemistry that the four of us have gelled as we have. They’re all wonderful in their field of expertise, but they’re prepared to take the piss out of themselves and each other. I think there’s a lightness to it. We have our professionalism, but really, anything goes in slagging each other off. I don’t think you often see that dynamic in television. It feels a bit more free than TV often is.

Talk us through a typical day for you.

It looks busier than it is. I’m sensitive about being told I’m too busy. It’s funny, isn’t it—people don’t ever tell men they’re too busy. Most days I do the WSFM breakfast show with Brendan then I get home at about midday and that’s it. I have an afternoon snooze, then the boys get home from school and we have dinner together.

Once a fortnight I film The Living Room. The hard thing for me is saying no. It’s never easy, especially when I get offered charity things. I’ve had to try and be more restrictive, which I hate doing, but I was at the stage where almost every Friday or Saturday night, my kids, Liam and Jack, were having pizza at home and I was heading out, thinking, “I’d give anything to stay home tonight.” And then I think, how dare I—when I’m trying to help raise money for people who’d love to be home with their kids having pizza. So that’s the bit I struggle to balance. But the work stuff, I’m getting better at saying no to. There’s nothing to boast about being busy.

Photography Hugh Stewart

What’s your secret to successful multi-tasking? So many people struggle with it.

I outsource a lot. I know I’m the same as a lot of women—you’re almost embarrassed to say that you get help. I have someone who comes and does the washing, so there are always ironed school uniforms for the kids. She’s a godsend. She does the washing, the ironing, she’ll make sure the dining room table is clear—the one thing that does my head in. My husband Harley is freelance and works from home so I didn’t want to have to be cranky all the time about the state of the house and whether the washing was done. I’ve outsourced the argument—and it’s a much happier way to be.

How do you recharge after a frantic day?

It can be hard at times but I generally recharge by having an afternoon snooze whenever I can. On the weekend I’ll walk the dog, have a coffee with a girlfriend and watch the kids play their school sports. It’s really a very normal kind of existence outside these pockets of work.

One thing a lot of people don’t know is the fact you do a lot of work for charity. Which ones are you passionate about?

There’s a few. I’m the patron of the Sydney Kids Committee, which is a not-for-profit fundraising organisation for the Sydney Children's Hospital —I’ve been their patron for eight or nine years.

When Jack was a newborn, Liam had some kind of seizure while visiting my parents in Brisbane. We went to the local hospital thinking it might be meningococcal and they gave him a lumbar puncture. In the end it was just a fever but we were so pathetically grateful, and as we left the hospital, I thought, there are a lot of other families in here today who aren’t getting this easy news we’ve had.

The next day, a guy I went to school with who’s a doctor at the Children’s Hospital phoned, looking for a patron. It was like a sign. I’m also an ambassador for DonateLife. My nephew had a liver transplant when he was two—he’s now 24. There’s one more charity I support: Save Our Sons, which raises funds and awareness to help find a cure for duchenne muscular dystrophy, a particular form of muscular dystrophy that affects boys and has a 100% fatality rate by the time they’re 20.

Have you faced any challenges that have taught you the true meaning of resilience?

I was looking down the barrel of not having children. Harley had a vasectomy before we were married so he had to have a reversal and there were complications with it. I used to say to Harley, “Look, if we don’t have a child, I think my brain can deal with that, but I can’t predict how I would grieve that on a cellular level.”

My brain says that’s fine, we’ll reinvent ourselves as a couple; we’ll live overseas, we’ll travel. Maybe that could have been the case, but after a whole lot of IVF attempts, there was one particular dream I had where I was holding a newborn. That dream was so real, I think that’s the only time I cried, because the rest of the time I was head down, bum up, dealing with it and getting through life. If someone’s childless, I would never ask why after having been through all that.

I didn’t want to be defined by the lack [of children], which is why I didn’t talk about it. And I haven’t spoken about it because I didn’t want the kids to be known as ‘IVF kids’. Both our children are IVF, and it took a number of years for my eldest, Liam, to come along. I was working at Triple M at the time and when I finally announced I was having a baby, I got emails from people saying, “I wondered why you were too scared to have a child.” I thought, oh God, you’ve got no idea what I’ve been through.

These days, [IVF] is statistically better but when I went through it, the majority of people didn’t get babies. You think if things are bad in your life you fix them, so to be powerless was very hard. I still get emotional thinking about it. I only recently mentioned to Liam and Jack about IVF and explained what it meant and they went, “Whatever!”

You recently turned 52. Happy birthday by the way. How do you feel about that?

I had a baby just before I turned 40 and so I didn’t notice turning 40. Fifty was the same, because I had a hip replacement then, which is often the operation of an old person. In the past, doctors would string you along because they didn’t want you to have more than one or two operations so you’d be in pain for years until they felt you were old enough to have it done.

My surgeon said, you’re too young to be in pain, let’s deal with it. So the fact I had that, just before I turned 50—I felt like I had a new lease of life. Turning 50 was great because I felt like I had a clear head—I wasn’t on painkillers, I’d reclaimed my mobility and was living pain-free.

Do you think mid-life is seen in a different light now compared to a generation ago?

We make jokes about 50 being the new 30, but it absolutely is. Each generation is different. In the diary [I kept as a teenager], I wrote about turning 40: doing the ironing in my dressing gown, watching television. When I turned 40, that wasn’t my life—and at 50 that isn’t my life, though I’m not judging people who are that way.

In my mum’s generation, when she got married, she had to leave her job. You got to a certain age, you cut your hair short and then put a perm in it. Our concept of what it is to age has completely changed. Looking at those women now, their self-confidence is what’s so attractive. We’d all love to be able to attain that.

Over those decades, what have you learnt about the things that make you tick?

I wish I’d been easier on myself when I was younger: the anxiety of body image in your 20s and 30s… and 40s. Who gives a rats whether you’re holding your stomach in? Each New Year’s resolution I say I’m going to let go of that this year—and we’re still so hard on ourselves. I think I have more of a sense of ‘me’ than I used to. I have an image of myself and my place in the world now. The other thing I’ve learnt is that as we age, we stay the same —inherently, we don’t actually change at all.

Lastly, what do you think is the key to feeling happier, every single day?

Part of it is not taking yourself too seriously. I look at Barry Du Bois: he and his wife have both had experiences with cancer. They’ve got two beautiful kids and there’s not a moment’s hesitation—he thinks he’s the luckiest guy in the world. He’s a classic example of living in the positive and is quite an inspiration to me. Also, working with Jonesy on the radio show, he makes me laugh every day. Having a job where you’re hanging out with your best friend, well, what’s not to like and to celebrate?

One of my favourite sayings is, “Aren’t we lucky to be getting older?” I was with a group of friends and we were all lamenting looking like middle-aged molls when we’d walk past the window. One of the girls there had lost her sister to cancer and she was the one who first said, “Aren’t we lucky to be getting older?” It brought us all up short. I think, yes, aren’t we? It’s a privilege to get older, to not shy from your age, but to own it.