Yahoo Lifestyle The Governess: 'Asperger's helps me win'
Anne Hegerty, aka The Governess. Photo: James Pipino.
As one of the Chasers on Channel Seven’s hit game show The Chase Australia, she cuts a formidable figure, reducing contestants to quivering wrecks with her unflappable demeanour and infamous ‘death glare’. But in real life, Anne Hegerty, aka The Governess, is different. ‘I’m a lot nicer, for a start!’ she laughs.
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Putting her quizzing brilliance down to a ‘curious and sticky sort of mind’ and a love of memorising facts, Anne reveals a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome 10 years ago has a lot to do with her ability to retain facts.
‘I started getting suspicious about 10 years ago,’ she says. ‘I discovered there’s a whole world of symptoms that have nothing in common except they’re all part of Asperger’s – and they’re all things I do or did as a child. I looked at the list and thought: “This can’t be a coincidence.”’
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Anne admits her high profile has meant people can sometimes overstep the mark.
'[Some] people don’t understand the boundaries,’ she says.
‘You might be being friendly to a fan, and they get the wrong message. That can get really awkward.'
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