Full Transcript for Natalie Bassingthwaighte Lifts the Curtain on Her Career & Personal Struggles

do stuff from the other side of the studio back to a ped camp. So the font on the teleprompter had to be quite big. 00:02:54 Speaker 2: I mean, we were in our twenties, so we don't have a very easily. 00:02:57 Speaker 1: We don't have the eyes I have now, but even there, Yeah, when you're twenty meters away from a prompter, you need the fight to be big. 00:03:04 Speaker 2: And I remember they had to hyphenate your surname because it wouldn't fit across. 00:03:08 Speaker 4: And then did you say Bassing for what? 00:03:11 Speaker 2: Yeah? I don't know. I don't think they either it was after the end or something, because I remember going, hang on, who is there any wait? What? 00:03:19 Speaker 1: All? 00:03:19 Speaker 2: Right? Yeah? 00:03:21 Speaker 1: Because back then, you know, I wasn't particularly familiar with actors on Neighbors. 00:03:25 Speaker 2: I just knew character names, right, who what? And then sure enough, Oh, there you are. Yeah, that's the first. 00:03:33 Speaker 4: That's very fascinating. 00:03:34 Speaker 3: That's the first time I recall in such a long time ago, we've done a lot of them. 00:03:38 Speaker 1: In the middle of that, well, I'm grateful, yeah, yeah, and that's nice. 00:03:43 Speaker 3: Like I was saying yesterday, it is a gift to do what you love. And like we again, being fifty and like going a couple of still worked, Like it's great. It's so exciting to know that I'm still doing things that I love. That's a blessing. 00:03:57 Speaker 1: At the time you first started this, though, then you probably imagine that this would feel be this way. 00:04:04 Speaker 2: But in your book, you right. You know, if I did think that you were sick, well, you wanted to do it. 00:04:09 Speaker 4: I wanted to do it. 00:04:10 Speaker 3: But I thought at thirty you'd be like done and done, you know, I thought, thirty, there you go, it's nearly over. 00:04:16 Speaker 2: You were, but you were. 00:04:17 Speaker 1: You were told at sixteen, And I guess this is a bit of the time because I was certainly told this when I was auditioning for drama scores and stuff like that. At sixteen, you're told you're never going to make it well. You know. 00:04:29 Speaker 4: Yeah, I was told I'm too old at sixteen. 00:04:33 Speaker 1: Yeah, I was bizarre, and that I'm not going to your own agent who is wrapping you, because I'm not going to put you forward for Chicago. 00:04:40 Speaker 2: You're not a great dancer like lots. 00:04:43 Speaker 1: I think it was about seven years I think that you got told. No, I just want to talk about that for a little bit, because that's really really hard. 00:04:51 Speaker 2: You're clearly dedicating yourself to this. 00:04:53 Speaker 1: You folks are behind you because dance listen down lessons aren't free and singing lessons aren't free. 00:04:56 Speaker 2: Like, so you folks are behind you. Like she loves this is all she wants to do. 00:05:00 Speaker 1: Parent Like, is my kid engaging with it? Yes, I go down the mall smoking a vape and talking with neck tattoos. 00:05:06 Speaker 2: No, great, I'm driving her. Let's go all right. You do whatever keeps your kid engaged and with friends. 00:05:10 Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, So what would you say to somebody, whether they be a teenager or whether they be you know, another stage of life, who is in that space of knowing this is it, this is a thing, but struggling to get traction and there is it doesn't seem to be a pathway away from the no zone, or you. 00:05:30 Speaker 3: Don't even get told anything. It's like no, or it's you just never hear back. It's really hard to get your mental health in a state of that. You still feel like you like yourself, you're okay. 00:05:41 Speaker 4: At what you do and stuff like that. 00:05:43 Speaker 3: I mean, what I would say is for me, you're going to get nos, you're going to get no response, and it's really maintaining well. 00:05:51 Speaker 4: Again, you don't know. 00:05:52 Speaker 3: This at that age and you don't have that insight, then it just hurts. You feel not talented, you feel not pretty, not like all the things. When I loved the role and it wasn't just about getting a job, that's when it changed for me, Like that's when oh and oh yeah, so normay I would rock up any audition. I stayed in the book don't rain on my parade. That was my LIKEE go to Barber Streis and didn't matter what show I was auditioning for, Like if I was on that panel, I would be laughing at me as well, like what was I thinking? 00:06:30 Speaker 4: It just like had. 00:06:31 Speaker 3: No context of what to do, but I hadn't had that experience, so I just kept showing up time and time again and either getting no or nothing. 00:06:39 Speaker 4: It wasn't until Rent. 00:06:40 Speaker 3: Came around when I was like, oh my god, I really love this, and then I did. I found myself immersing. I immersed myself in everything. 00:06:50 Speaker 2: To do with it. 00:06:51 Speaker 3: Who's the producer, who's the director, who's why did they get cast? I bought the book, I bought the album, and I just you know, and I loved it so much that there was a passion there I hadn't had before before. 00:07:01 Speaker 4: I just wanted a job. 00:07:02 Speaker 3: And that's what I would say, is was like, do you really want a job or do you love what you do? 00:07:08 Speaker 2: Like? 00:07:08 Speaker 4: What is it? 00:07:09 Speaker 3: Because I think it's much harder to get the role or the whatever if you just want a job. There's I think there's a vacancy. Well there certainly was for me. There was no connection, you know, So I think it is hard. 00:07:22 Speaker 2: When you. 00:07:24 Speaker 4: Just trying to get a job, and we all still do it now. 00:07:28 Speaker 2: Sometimes you just need the job. 00:07:29 Speaker 4: Sometimes you just need the job. 00:07:31 Speaker 1: Whenever people will reach out to me, yeah, the whole ever since I've had a public email address, whenever people reach out to me, what I ask, I say, great, this

this, this, tell me answer this, this this question and tell me your plan from here. All right, And if I've got one hundred of those emails, the two people, well, it's probably about six people. Sorry for two people for each hundred that wrote back. Those people are still working. 00:07:56 Speaker 4: Yeah, the ones that asked the questions. 00:07:58 Speaker 2: Yeah, because they wanted to do it. They didn't care where, I don't care what it looked like. They just wanted to do. 00:08:04 Speaker 3: You need it, You need the opportunities, even if you're just doing it for free, but you but you've got to have the real fire and the real passion. If you don't have that, I think the answer will always be no. 00:08:19 Speaker 1: We'd see that on Idol, right when the doors would open, that came out like, oh, I'm not going to Sydney, and I'd been by the monitor and I'd heard their audition, and you know, after this is like ancient reality. So before season one, we didn't have on set sits for the first part. We got them for the life part, which is another story. But so we were debrief with them, and the producers would debrief with them because you don't want to leave someone you going home, and you'll try to explain like there's a difference between hitting the notes perfectly. 00:08:53 Speaker 4: Yeah, that's not what it's about at. 00:08:54 Speaker 2: All, and really singing a song. 00:08:58 Speaker 4: All right, what are you saying? 00:08:59 Speaker 2: Yeah? 00:09:00 Speaker 3: What is this person doing? Like it's the whole character development and like all of that. It was so fascinating to see that on X Factory and go, oh, I can see who really wants it, who really wants it too much? Who is too cocky? Like it? It's so obvious where everyone's at. Some people were too cool, you know, some people yeah and yeah, but what again? 00:09:25 Speaker 4: You don't know that until later. 00:09:26 Speaker 3: It sticks out At the time, you just stand on the mark, like I think I probably even just stood like this and went, don't tell. 00:09:32 Speaker 4: Me that's it, and I like I had no like do I move? Do I say? Like I had no knowledge of what to do. 00:09:38 Speaker 1: Well, if you'd never we don't really have the musical theater culture. We don't that you can't really go and see three shows a weekend at the West End, or go to Broadway and watch all the hits that are still playing. 00:09:53 Speaker 3: And go all right, but you almost I almost separated, like auditioning, and they are different skills. 00:09:58 Speaker 4: Auditioning is a very different skill to actually the job. 00:10:01 Speaker 1: But it's the whether it sticks out in performance. It's very obvious to see if someone's dancing or singing or acting. But it's the same if you're interviewing for a job, it's the same thing. Like if you're here for the paycheck and the car park and the clout. No, if you're here because what we do is we help people get better home loans so they can have a great time with

their families. And you're connected to I just want families to have a great time together and they don't have the stress at the homeland. 00:10:30 Speaker 4: I'm here to help them. 00:10:32 Speaker 2: Who are you going to hire? 00:10:33 Speaker 3: Yeah, we had this amazing I've just been doing this film and this. The director said that she teaches directing and she had one hundred students or whatever, and she offered, you know, everyone, and if they wanted to come on set and like learn like what. I was like wow, And she said three people put their. 00:10:52 Speaker 2: Hand up, h I make that same racio. 00:10:54 Speaker 3: Fascinating and they just worked their butts off. But just I went wow, to have that at twenty or seventeen or whatever, to go, oh my god, that's a dop and that's a grit and that's it. 00:11:05 Speaker 4: Oh I get I will. 00:11:06 Speaker 2: Take three at two in the morning to get here. 00:11:09 Speaker 1: Who are you going to hire the person who's yeah, you're going to hire the person inward? But when you you said you weren't getting feedback, but you connected with your your agent, Mark Byrne, and you. 00:11:24 Speaker 2: Just I don't not going to say you were kind of relentless until he saw it. 00:11:29 Speaker 1: This is what I'm going to be and I need you to see that I'm going to get there. When you were in that phase working with Mark, were you able to start to tell a difference between like a no that means you need a bit more of this or a bit more of that, or a no that just means you're the right person, but this is the wrong role. 00:11:50 Speaker 2: I don't know if. 00:11:50 Speaker 3: I've started to get the grasp on that until much later. It was still debilitating is not the right way, but it was still fell hard. Like if it was a no or you didn't hear anything, I could spiral very easily of I'm really shit at this, like I shouldn't be doing this. Like the negative chatter was loud, you know, And there were times when I was with Mark that I was like, I can't do this anymore because I'm not especially actually funnily enough when I was doing X Factor as a judge, because Twitter was a huge thing at the time, and I'm always late to the party with anything like that, so I'm like. 00:12:34 Speaker 4: Oh, no, tweet yay. 00:12:35 Speaker 3: And so I started and I just had the most horrific things said to me. No, but I was, and I was, how old would I have been? Thirty something? You would think that, you know, I'm mature enough and old enough to kind of handle It got me so bad that I almost didn't do the next season because I couldn't. 00:12:56 Speaker 4: I was like, people don't like me, but I'm a nice perse. 00:13:00 Speaker 2: It was so. 00:13:01 Speaker 3: Strange, and Mark said, not everyone's going to like you, but the people that do, they're the people. 00:13:07 Speaker 4: And I'm like, oh yeah. 00:13:08 Speaker 3: And so now, as a you know, a full adult is I do know that it's not everyone. I won't be everyone's cup of

tea, and that has to be okay, even though it's still weird when you feel like you're a nice person. 00:13:21 Speaker 1: Charlie Clawson I made a parenting podcast with him for Ages. Charlie would say the real skill of an actor, and he was on Blue Heelers and having away and all kinds. 00:13:30 Speaker 4: Of uti was in one of my videos. 00:13:31 Speaker 2: Great Charlie is Wonderful. 00:13:35 Speaker 1: Charlie would say, the real skill of an actor isn't doing the thing on set. The thing you spend most of your time doing is getting told no and just protecting your sense of self and your ability. Yeah, that is what you spend most of your time doing. The actual time on set and action that's this big. 00:13:54 Speaker 3: So small, and then you somehow you have the courage or the whatever, the determination to do it again. 00:14:00 Speaker 1: So in those times when the phone's not ringing, because you need permission. Basically, you need permission to do your job. Yeah, when you're an actor or a performer or a singer, you kind of need permission to do your job. And that is the permission to either a record company or a television or a film producer or whatever until such time as you're wore a beaty and you can make it yourself. 00:14:18 Speaker 2: But when you're in. 00:14:19 Speaker 1: That time when the phone's not ringing, in that casting purgatory, you spoke about, how do you how do you keep the boat fly? What do you what things do you do to stay sharp and to stay ready for the next one? 00:14:34 Speaker 3: For me the thing that I've learned in the last ten years. Again later like I didn't know this at twenty, I didn't notice at thirty. Meditation is just and I never I was like, I don't know how to meditate. My brain is too busy, like I cannot quiteen it down. And my gorgeous friend and pocket angel in the book, Alisa Lisy, she's upstairs right right now. I haven't seen her for ages, so I try to hang out. She was like, I was going in the jungle. I'm a celebrity, get me out of here. And I didn't want to do the show. They offered me the show and I was like, oh my god, is that me? Am I a celebrity now? Like what do you mean? I'm not an artist? It just it hurt my brain. I was just like, this doesn't feel good. But you know, they doubled the money and I went, fuck, need the money, all right, let's go, you know, gotta pay the bills. 00:15:20 Speaker 2: It was good price exactly. 00:15:23 Speaker 4: And she was like, You're going to have to learn how to meditate. 00:15:26 Speaker 3: And I'm like, babe, yeah, it's not gonna happen, like you know, she goes, no, we're gonna have she just drilled in me. There was a I can't remember the app now, but there was an app and I would do it like daily, and like my brain was so busy every time I do it was it's not gonna wait. But like I stuck with it for it probably took like six months for it to really go, oh, I can do this anywhere anyhow. Honestly, it wasn't because a lot of people go, oh, it's so hard, I can't do

it. 00:15:49 Speaker 4: Like I couldn't do it. 00:15:51 Speaker 3: And sometimes now my brain's still busy and I float off. But it's about taking that ten minutes, that twenty minutes, that half an hour whatever. So that has been a game changer for me every way, just to ground myself to be ready for the next thing. 00:16:06 Speaker 4: I'm not one to. 00:16:09 Speaker 3: I mean I probably should because I think as I do, like acting and seeing I do all different things. I'm not like, Okay, I'm going to sing every day or I'm gonna work on scripts every day. I'm just I was about to say what was about to come out was I'm just surviving, because at times I feel like I'm just surviving. You're just thinking about how to pay the bills. For the next thing, and then the next thing comes up, and then it's the next thing, you know. So I don't know if I really have moments of like, let's prep. 00:16:37 Speaker 4: In this downtime. I try and be in the moment. 00:16:40 Speaker 3: Meditation has been a game changer, and being physical like exercising, for me has been a game changer as well. Just to feel mentally ready for the nose. Like you said, it's just the all the we're sorry but not now or silence. 00:16:56 Speaker 1: The I think the thing that I got wrong about meditating was that I believed wrongly that oh, it's meditating is no thoughts running. 00:17:06 Speaker 2: Through my mind? 00:17:07 Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, I thought that's. 00:17:08 Speaker 2: It, and that stilence, that's not it. 00:17:11 Speaker 1: It's like, oh, lifting weights is the final moment or at the end of range, and. 00:17:16 Speaker 2: I've got the notes. 00:17:17 Speaker 1: I'm doing bicycle girls because girls get the girls, like you know, when I'm lifting the weight's like no, no, no. Lifting weights is moving against the resistance and then bringing it back, and meditation is the rep is bringing it back. 00:17:31 Speaker 3: It's just allowing yourself to have those moments and whether and a lot of people think to oh, I have to sit like this and do this and I'm like, no, no, no, you could go for a walk and just be present and be in that moment and get out of your own way. Get out of negative thoughts is what meditation is for me. 00:17:47 Speaker 1: And training your brain to notice noticing the thoughts, that is really what you're training your brains to do. 00:17:53 Speaker 2: So when it comes time, the phone hasn't wrung. I'm a terrible TV presenter. No one's going to hire me. I'm too odd for this. I should get a real estate license, well maybe as element license. 00:18:03 Speaker 4: We know this story is that interesting. 00:18:06 Speaker 1: My brain going off on that little adventure by itself. Yeah, I'm going to keep prepping for this. 00:18:10 Speaker 2: Natalie. 00:18:11 Speaker 3: And you think, you know, both you and myself have been pretty lucky in this industry, Like oh yeah, and it's still hard being pretty lucky. You're having some great gears. 00:18:22 Speaker 2: Know how you stay lucky. 00:18:26 Speaker 3: It's not like it's not like us you get thrown everything. It's like, babe, I still audition for everything. 00:18:31 Speaker 4: Like I'm like, can you just give me the job? 00:18:33 Speaker 3: This would be really nice, Like clearly I've got I've done this theater show, I've done this TV like come on already, But no, I still do and in a way, so a part of me is like really like, I get really frustrated. But then I'm like, well, at least if you get the job, you've got it because you're the right person. 00:18:50 Speaker 2: She's recently passed away. 00:18:51 Speaker 1: Unfortunately, Caster and O'Hara, No, I'm what's known as offer only. 00:18:57 Speaker 3: I want to be cathering Ahura and I want to be offer only. 00:19:03 Speaker 1: If you haven't seen Shit's Creek, it's just an exemple. And again, they didn't wait for them to knock on the door. David thing I wrote the show because he wanted to work with his dad, and he wrote the show these two characters, and he based the show on the two of them, and the two of them worked together, and they made how many seasons and it was a. 00:19:22 Speaker 2: Giant but they hid it on back. He didn't wait for the bell to ring. 00:19:26 Speaker 4: You can't. 00:19:27 Speaker 1: He walked in the door and said, I'm solving a problem for you with this thing that I've made his full season arc and here's two episodes were written. 00:19:34 Speaker 2: Let's go. 00:19:34 Speaker 1: Another example would be Scott Ryan mister in between can't get hired. 00:19:37 Speaker 2: Let me look at him. 00:19:38 Speaker 1: He's not a leading man, so what am I going to do I know, and he wrote a short film about a hitman co parents. 00:19:46 Speaker 4: It's a really good show. 00:19:47 Speaker 2: Amazing, it's incredible. 00:19:49 Speaker 1: I recently rewatched it again and it is so good. It's such an in know what love is. It's a purely and sensationally Australian and Sydney show. You never see the water. You see the water in one scene when he's talking with his mate at Marubra. 00:20:07 Speaker 2: You see the water in the background of that shot. 00:20:09 Speaker 4: That's a good the sign of a great piece, you know. 00:20:12 Speaker 2: But that's the only time you see the water. 00:20:14 Speaker 1: You never see the harbor Bridge, you never see nothing like when he's doing all the dog park stuff at Ruba. You don't even see the ocean. You don't even know he's near the ocean. And it's just this love letter to the red brick Blue Mountains. He kind of slightly. 00:20:26 Speaker 2: Scummy parts of Sydney, Australia. It's great. Yeah, if you haven't watched. 00:20:31 Speaker 4: It, yeah, it's very clever. 00:20:32 Speaker 2: It's so good. 00:20:40 Speaker 1: A big part of you mentioned almost walking away from X Factor, A big part of this job. And people may you know, they may understand in their own jobs as well, but just because you're in the job doesn't mean you should stay in the job.

And look from the outside, what are you leaving? You don't quit a hit? What are you walking away for? Like, I don't have time to explain it, but you know what, I left breakfast Radio the second time. I'm like, I've got twice the time but half the money. But I couldn't. 00:21:09 Speaker 2: Yeah, my heart wasn't in it. 00:21:11 Speaker 1: And if your heart's not in it, it starts to get bad for everyone. 00:21:15 Speaker 2: So I knew, I knew to go. You walked away. 00:21:17 Speaker 1: You built a clothing was jugging into clothingel you built it to like the most You've got faces people's kids in the world wearing this stuff. Yeah, and you walked away from it. What would you say to people about walking away from something which on the outside looks like what are you doing? 00:21:35 Speaker 4: It was terrible. 00:21:36 Speaker 3: It was scary, honestly because it was sucking every bit of my soul. That business because I think as a creative person, I loved being the creator of it. But the business stuff, and like, I've got a good business brain too, but I mean like logistics, warehousing, like stock and invant. 00:21:56 Speaker 4: I don't want it. I don't want my life, and I don't want my life to be that. 00:22:00 Speaker 3: And it became that we had boxes of you know, clothes in the hallway, and then we were packing ourselves and shipping ourselves. And then you get screwed over by someone, and I'm like, this is a lot, you know. And and it came about at the right time, after my manager had passed, and so I kind of well, I avoided grief and went, oh, well, I've got this, so I'm just gonna. 00:22:23 Speaker 2: Everything will be just fine, great, keep working. Thoughts can't get in. 00:22:30 Speaker 3: I know, And and and being I was so scared to admit that I couldn't do it anymore. One because of ego, for sure, like, oh my god, that I'll be a failure. 00:22:42 Speaker 4: Shit, what's everyone I'm going to say? 00:22:47 Speaker 3: But two, I look, I I think for people who jump in and do something big, but no, deep down enoughs enough, trust that gut, because when enough's enough, that's that's the right time. I kind of held onto it a bit too long, I won't lie. But at the same time, when it was eventually enough's enough, I had processed. 00:23:11 Speaker 4: A lot more of you know what. 00:23:13 Speaker 3: I was trying desperately to hold on to it because when my manager passed, I thought, who am I without this man? He was there from the beginning sixteen years. Like I didn't think I could sing, I didn't think I could act, I didn't think I was a good Everything was like my whole self esteem was gone and that the business gave me a sense of self that oh, look what I did, and you know, getting all those huge celebrities in the you know, it felt big. 00:23:43 Speaker 4: But it just took so much. 00:23:45 Speaker 3: It was soul destroying, and we tried to sell it and people trying to rip us off and lots of things went wrong in the end to go, you know what. 00:23:53 Speaker 4: What did I get out of this? I got out of it that I know. I know by. 00:24:04 Speaker 3: I could have kept going, and it probably would have destroyed my family in a way that even though my family's very different now, it would have looked even harder. I think, or I think I ended up being proud of myself to be able to get to the point of like, yeah, I think this is it. You go, we've lost the money, take a big breath and go it's just money. 00:24:28 Speaker 4: And almost instantly. 00:24:29 Speaker 3: When it was done and dusted and we had to leave, fifty thousand dollars of fabriac overseas and we're just like, I can't worry about it anymore having to come up with two or three hundred grand every quarter. I'm like, I don't have that money anymore, Like you know, you don't have the big TV show at this point now, so then shit scrambling to find that again. 00:24:49 Speaker 4: It felt like a relief. 00:24:52 Speaker 3: And my life came back like almost instantly. It was the first bit was completely covered up, like no grief, don't want to think about grief. And then during it, another friend of mine passed away, and life was that almost having her and him within a year passing away. You kind of question, like, what am I doing all this? What is all this about? We've got apparently we've got one life. Don't know if I believe that, but you know, we're here right now, and this is stripping us. 00:25:27 Speaker 2: Of ourselves to get really conclusive proof. 00:25:30 Speaker 1: I mean, as much as the Betan kids can identify it, we've got yet to get really conclusive proof that I think we come back. Well let me know, okay, let me know, but right now, but right now we're here, four thousand weeks on beyond the halftime, all right, I've already had the halftime show, and you know we're on the we're in the last three quarter, last two quarters. 00:25:52 Speaker 2: Of the game. 00:25:53 Speaker 3: It's important to when when enough's enough to really honor it and know it. 00:25:57 Speaker 1: And we talked about you talk about celab like everyone's got a price that also works, that also works in reverse. 00:26:05 Speaker 2: And sometimes when I. 00:26:06 Speaker 1: Do know corporate stuff, and I talk about mental health in the workplace, especially like people who are like, you can't get a big enough capital C in front of their title, right, and the corner office can't get any more corner. There's no salary package that is big enough that will replace you being there for your kid to help them through when they're dealing with the bully. AT's gool when they're seven, all right, it's not worth it and their faces go oh like yeah, man, like you couldn't pay anybody. 00:26:32 Speaker 2: Else to be there. Yeah, what price is that? What is that worth to you? 00:26:37 Speaker 4: I was finding that. 00:26:38 Speaker 3: I was like, in a minute, in a minute, I just I can't like, oh, you know, because it's twenty four hours a day because you're dealing

with people in overseas and it did take its toll and you have to go. 00:26:48 Speaker 4: It's just money. At the end of the day. 00:26:50 Speaker 3: You win some, you lose some, you know, and it can be scary. But it felt like I knew. I knew when the right time. 00:27:01 Speaker 4: Probably should have been a year before, but or two years. 00:27:04 Speaker 1: People so often we so often we take we take credit, like you mentioned luck before, we take credit for successes that luck played a huge factor in, but we take the blame for things that don't work out that luck played a. 00:27:19 Speaker 2: Huge factor in. 00:27:20 Speaker 1: Like did we do everything we could? Did I operate with integrity at the best I could with everybody? 00:27:24 Speaker 2: Yes? 00:27:25 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean we paid everyone back. No one was out of you know, it was just like here it is, this is the end. 00:27:30 Speaker 2: You don't have to move to Darwin and call yourself Jenny and time to do that. 00:27:35 Speaker 5: I have been. 00:27:36 Speaker 1: We've been on the road in both Darwin and Hobart Lonnie, particularly in long Sistant actually because it's the second city there. 00:27:43 Speaker 2: Yeah, we asked me, hey, what's your name? And they paused for a second. 00:27:46 Speaker 1: Well they go Matthew, Okay, shit went down on the mainland, Like Darwin particularly, everyone's called John. And I'm pretty sure there's one way Jet started ticket that Gottom there. 00:28:00 Speaker 2: Everyone else, everyone else, a downstairs everyone you talked about just Daniel. 00:28:06 Speaker 1: You mentioned the working relationship you had with your manager Mark. 00:28:10 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:28:11 Speaker 1: For people who have never been in that kind of working relationship, can you kind of describe a bit what that relationship does for performer and why that role is so important in your life? 00:28:23 Speaker 3: It's that well, Mark to me was you know, he was my mentor, he was my father figure. 00:28:30 Speaker 4: He was like a brother. 00:28:31 Speaker 3: He was that constant for me, probably the one that kept telling me I was great, you know when I didn't feel like I was great, or we just had we dreamt together, you know, we would dream up, oh let's do this, or let's do that. We we had each other's back no matter what. And then when that goes, it's it's so empty because you yeah, I just I didn't know who I was without him. Had been unhealthily codependent, is what I've later learned to realize, But at the time I didn't know that. 00:29:07 Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, at the time. 00:29:09 Speaker 2: That can happen in work relationship. 00:29:10 Speaker 4: It was just us. 00:29:11 Speaker 3: And even when I had relationship outside of the relationship with Mark as my manager, he was still the person that I went to. So even when I got married, it was still Mark. 00:29:23 Speaker 1: You know. 00:29:23 Speaker 3: Cam would have great suggestions and I'd be like, but Mark knows best almost, you know, without saying it, it was still him. 00:29:28 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, really unhealthy. 00:29:31 Speaker 2: And you talked about how did you refer to it? 00:29:34 Speaker 1: Like it was like a the way that you lost him was like a true crime level of like this how sudden it was. 00:29:44 Speaker 3: It was really sudden, but it was also bizarre, like he was not himself for a while, and Cam kept saying, you need to leave, and I was like, I never will. It was almost like it was so till death do his part. It almost felt like I had that with him, and like, unless you know, the worst thing happened, I'm going to stick by him. Like at one point in our work relationship, he had like an explosive night where he just yelled at me and told me to get out of his life and don't talk to him, and like I'm a horrible person. 00:30:14 Speaker 4: And it was so out of character. 00:30:17 Speaker 3: And I'd seen him have little outbursts with other people but never me, like I was his like golden child, you know, like he probably his other clients were like, oh my god, it's always about Natalie. You know, it was so weird, and I remembered like I was in tears, and I did a few months without him and felt completely at sea. 00:30:38 Speaker 2: Did you ask if he was okay? 00:30:40 Speaker 3: Yeah, I kept trying to, but he would just yell at me and tell me to go away. And so he was obviously having stuff. But it was really scary as well, like. 00:30:49 Speaker 4: That angle was very scary, and I love this man. 00:30:52 Speaker 3: I still love this man, but it was strange and I kept saying, I don't understand, you know, this doesn't make any sense, and he just would keep shutting me down. So I didn't really speak to him for a few months, and then I would just text and say I don't believe this is you know, what's what's going on? And eventually we you know, got back together. And he said to me before he died many times, actually no one's ever done that for me, that they stayed around even after I gave them that, Like I was the one that went, no, I don't I don't buy this. I don't know what this is, but I don't buy it. And then from that moment on, we were you know, Vickers thieves again. But I stopped using my voice because I didn't want to be yelled at like that. 00:31:39 Speaker 2: It's a lot when. 00:31:42 Speaker 1: So firstly to be able to see that anger as a defense mechanism and not directed at you, because she knew. 00:31:52 Speaker 2: Him enough to see that's not you. There's something else happening. 00:31:56 Speaker 4: Here, yep. 00:31:58 Speaker 1: And to have the empathy and love and compassion to see it as a symptom that's happening to a person you care about. 00:32:06 Speaker 2: It's not because that person's a ship person like, no. 00:32:10 Speaker 4: Are there any like, yeah, they probably are shit people. I just you know, we are. 00:32:13 Speaker 3: We're here because of lots of things in our lives upbringing now, but people we

associate with, it's not one thing. 00:32:20 Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. 00:32:20 Speaker 4: So I do have empathy for everyone, to be honest. 00:32:24 Speaker 1: But the distance is important. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do for someone is to create a distance, and still, particularly when it comes to addiction and stuff like that loving disconnection they talk about in the twelve step. For people that I may or may not know, like to be lovingly disconnected. Is I love this kid so much, but I'm just not going to lead them a hundred bucks. 00:32:47 Speaker 4: It was really hard to be distant. 00:32:50 Speaker 1: It's so difficult because but that's how the cycle repeats. That's right, you know, because you're enabling that and I'm here for you when you're ready, Yeah, here for you, and that I don't know. You just have to have that little window when they are open enough to go. 00:33:05 Speaker 4: I never really spoke about it, It's the truth. 00:33:07 Speaker 3: We never like did a deep dive because after that, after the yelling thing, which was a few years before he passed away. 00:33:17 Speaker 4: I didn't question anything. 00:33:18 Speaker 3: I didn't speak up, and that was detriment to me as a human, not just in the workplace. 00:33:24 Speaker 1: But if you're not if you're not aware of the cycle, you don't know that that's a part of it. 00:33:28 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:33:29 Speaker 3: No, Well I didn't even know exactly the details of like the last few years for him, and I thought we were so close. I know that he was struggling with certain things and he wasn't well, and you know there were stories going around here, there and everywhere, and I just wanted to be there for him, holy and solely. 00:33:47 Speaker 4: But it was very challenging. 00:33:49 Speaker 1: And as someone who sought help early in your life, well, you're right in the vent it's like nine. 00:33:56 Speaker 2: You sought help. 00:33:57 Speaker 1: You're like, what was going on for you then sorry, let me just ye say as someone who sought help and goes, oh shit, it's a simple conversation, and you know, sometimes there's meds involved, but things can be way better. 00:34:09 Speaker 2: I just here it is, man, here's the room. It's I've pierced a lot of people off, but by simply just do that thing. Yeah, it worked for me. 00:34:18 Speaker 1: Just goehause nobody likes to be taught. I've since changed my approach. What was going on for you? You know ninety eight ninety nine, I can't do my sons real well. 00:34:28 Speaker 4: Early twenties, early twenties. 00:34:30 Speaker 3: When I went to see therapist the first time, I was struggling, like I was at breaking point. I didn't know what was going on with me. I was like, really, I lost a lot of weight. I didn't really feel like I had any friends in the workplace. I didn't think I was talented because in the workplace it was like there was a rumor that I only got the job because I was sleeping with the director. And that hurt because it wasn't true. 00:34:58 Speaker 2: Well, let me just I'll look. 00:35:00 Speaker 3: I'm sure we've all had those. Everyone always thinks that when they don't get the job. 00:35:03 Speaker 1: I wrote. I once wrote this scene called one hundred and one Rules of Show Business. I got the first thirty out the door as a podcast. I went, hang on, this is a book, and so I stopped. But one of them was never forget. You can only have a sleepy way in the middle. 00:35:19 Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, because I. 00:35:20 Speaker 1: Can guarantee there is too much money writing on your lead being a bankable. 00:35:30 Speaker 3: Repair how you're doing it, of course you have to be like not, I know, and time and time again it feels like you have to prove your I mean even just without that story. 00:35:39 Speaker 4: But I how. 00:35:40 Speaker 2: It's really unfair that people would say that. 00:35:42 Speaker 3: How that role came about, though, is they did auditions in Australia like normal, like the agent sends the people and whatever, and no one got the job, no one got to play Sandy, you know. 00:35:51 Speaker 2: And we're talking about Greece, the Arena. 00:35:53 Speaker 3: Greece the Arena Spectacular, and then Mark's like, you know, they're going to do an open search, like do you want to go? And I'm like, okay, I you know, basically I was born and singing Greece, as most people of my ilk were, and so I went along and I got it from that and I think that's what pissed a lot of not everyone. I had some beautiful cast members, but there were a few girls that were really angry that I got that role. 00:36:17 Speaker 2: So they went through that process, but they. 00:36:18 Speaker 4: Didn't get it. I ran a chorus, they were in the chorus. 00:36:22 Speaker 2: Or understudy or something like that. It was classic, but. 00:36:25 Speaker 3: I really really affected me. It was such a big way that I didn't feel talented. I didn't feel good enough daily and. 00:36:34 Speaker 2: Life. 00:36:35 Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. 00:36:37 Speaker 3: I would sit in the park and just color in with my friend Eden and just like I was so out of my body at that time in my life that I had to leave the show. 00:36:45 Speaker 4: For a bit to understand what was going on. And I was at my mum's and. 00:36:49 Speaker 3: Like, I've hardly spoke and I'm chatterbox. So I was just like very quiet. I didn't really eat much. I was having like six hours a day just kind of rocking back and forth. 00:37:00 Speaker 4: I tried crystals, and I tried it. I'm like, what is wrong with me? Like, I don't know. 00:37:05 Speaker 2: It ended up in crystals. 00:37:07 Speaker 4: Come on, they helped me a bit, and they still do. I'm a believer in them. Okay, sure, come on, it's the Earth's crust. 00:37:15 Speaker 1: Yeah, if it's a thing, that's if it's a mindfulness thing that gets you out of your head for a second. 00:37:20 Speaker 2: After that, I can do it, right, I can meet you there. I couldn't meet you

there. 00:37:23 Speaker 4: There's not some. 00:37:25 Speaker 2: Sort of magical energy wave that radiates out of it. 00:37:28 Speaker 1: So you're at your mom's and yeah, which is wonderful you could be there, It's true. Yeah, at what point did the idea of getting help show up? 00:37:37 Speaker 3: I don't really remember, is the truth. But it was just I didn't have a choice, Like I couldn't get out of the house, slash out of the shower, slash out of the bed. It was that or nothing. Like my dad would come and be like, what's wrong with you? 00:37:51 Speaker 4: And I'm like, I don't know. 00:37:52 Speaker 3: And I had no idea why it was like that. Clearly I was a bit unhappy at work, like I did feel bullied, but. 00:38:00 Speaker 4: None of it. 00:38:00 Speaker 3: It wasn't like it's this reason. It's just I wasn't good anymore. And obviously it's past stuff and I talk about that in the book too. That led to that as well of just not liking myself as a person. 00:38:10 Speaker 1: And yeah, so when you sit in front of a therapist. 00:38:14 Speaker 2: And I don't know if. 00:38:16 Speaker 1: It was in the first session or the third, but when they start to explain to you or people who are in your situation, they have six showers that they rock back and forth. 00:38:23 Speaker 2: I can't get out of bed. They don't talk much. What does it feel like to have your experience validated and given a name. 00:38:32 Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know how I felt at the time, because I think I was still just so out of my body. But I still do therapy now. I think it's just one of the best things that I do for myself. 00:38:43 Speaker 1: I go to the gym to stay fit. Yes, should you go to therapy? Yes, Yes, it's the same thing. 00:38:48 Speaker 4: It is the same thing. Yeah, and it's been beneficial. 00:38:51 Speaker 3: Like I've got a therapist that's just for me, and then I've got a therapist that deals with like the family unit of like my you know, the OG family, my kids, Like I've got like you know, they're all on speed dial, like are you available? 00:39:03 Speaker 1: You've got to collect the whole set different ones and you move between them when you've got to set the tools. 00:39:09 Speaker 2: It'll get you through this little bit. You're like, you know what I think we're good here, I had a. 00:39:12 Speaker 1: Couple of years ago, borrow whatever. Another kid shows up. Oh, hang on, I'm out of a DiPT here. 00:39:17 Speaker 2: This is showing up. Who's good at that? This person? Let's get chat there. 00:39:20 Speaker 3: So it did feel good to have a name, although it was embarrassing because at the time, depression or anxiety was like, you're crazy if you have that, and let's be honest, I'm a tiny bit crazy, like there is definitely some of that in me, but it felt like I was a monster by having so you got the title and you felt kind of good and justified that you weren't the only human on the planet feeling these things or going through these things. But at the

same time, you're like, but anyone who talks about mental health is a freak that it wasn't spoken about then, you know, medication was like you only have that if you're like in a psych ward. 00:39:57 Speaker 4: You know, like, it's just it didn't feel good. I remember that. 00:40:01 Speaker 1: And on you for saying yes, because I was first off for any depressants in ninety nine. 00:40:06 Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll be in singilar timing or later on twenty five. 00:40:12 Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I'm god. 00:40:12 Speaker 1: I didn't want to take them because I didn't want to be the kind of person that needed to take them. 00:40:16 Speaker 2: Of course, I was self stigma. 00:40:18 Speaker 1: People ask me sometimes about stigma, so I coudn't give a shit or on anyone else there. I was the one that didn't want to be the kind of person that needed to have this stuff. Seven terrible years followed before I'm eventually gloring down the. 00:40:29 Speaker 3: Door give me something, because yeah, and it definitely well it was. I mean, people don't know this either. A relative of mine had to go on antidepressants in the last probably ten years, and I was helping them through that, because what people don't know if they need to go on something for their mental health. And I don't know about you, but I was. I didn't like it for the first month. It takes a while to anybody, but I fell off my head and it was scary. I'm like, is this going to be my new normal? Am I going to be like that? Like it felt worse than what the depressed and anxiety felt. But then once it plattered, oh my god, I felt I didn't feel high, I didn't feel I felt normal whatever that's supposed to I just felt like myself again. 00:41:11 Speaker 4: And that was just the biggest blessing. 00:41:13 Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, but they don't do the job by themselves. It's the work you need, of. 00:41:16 Speaker 3: Course, And I hate that as well, people like I'm just going to take the tablet. You still have to do your other staff, Like that's that's the reality. 00:41:24 Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not one and done. 00:41:26 Speaker 2: No, no, no, no. The meds, I don't know. 00:41:30 Speaker 1: It's like if you're playing Mario kat right, the meds. They give you that little extra power up right, You still have to steer, you still have to drive grade, you still have to time when you're going to throw the shells at things. Yeah, you don't just suddenly win the race. 00:41:45 Speaker 3: Well, I think I did make a bit of a mistake there is that I I took the tablets. This is early on when I was twenty or whatever how old. I was twenty one too, and it did start working, and so then I didn't keep the therapy up, and then I didn't do all the other work. Yeah, so I did. I had that world. I don't do that now now I do all the things. 00:42:03 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:42:03 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:42:04 Speaker 1: But unfortunately, though in my experience, you kind of have to have that moment. You have to have that moment of because I

did the classic is like, oh, my doctor told me to take these only ones I needed them. 00:42:15 Speaker 2: If I don't take them, I don't need them. 00:42:17 Speaker 4: I did that. I'm so good now, how good is my health? I'm so happy? 00:42:23 Speaker 3: And terrible idea. Never stop taking your meds without guidance. 00:42:27 Speaker 2: It's not a good idea. 00:42:31 Speaker 1: Taking a quick break from Natalie back with more in a moment from her, including the kind of mask that she had to put on to navigate the loss of her longtime manager and the incredibly delicate way that she handled a conversation with her kids about the breakdown of her marriage and the beginning of a new relationship. Before we hit the ads, though, I do want to let you know that Story Club, the live storytelling comedy show that I do every couple weeks in Sydney. The next one is on the fourteenth of June. The last one sold out like it sold out with three weeks ago for the show, and I don't want you to miss out. It's going to be a cracker June fourteenth. All the links in the show notes, but Mark Fannell, who found out. 00:43:08 Speaker 2: Stuff that British style. 00:43:10 Speaker 1: Cassie Workman, an amazing standup comic Madeline Stewart, brilliant comedian. 00:43:14 Speaker 2: She's fantastic. 00:43:15 Speaker 1: Chris Dollery was his actors storyteller who was once a flying doctor at some point. And Benjamin Law, the creator of Family Law. You know you've seen him on I'm a Celebrity now who's on Survivor? That's righth My god, he was a survivor and he's written a bunch of books. It's amazing ben Law, great storyteller. It's going to be a cracking night. The link is in the show notes. There's this all where you can find. 00:43:36 Speaker 2: The YouTube page to know what it's all about. 00:43:37 Speaker 1: And while you're there, get on the mailing list and to say thank you for yngen on the mailing list, I will send you a free audiobook and it is all yours. Just for showing me your email. As in new show of Yours, I'll show you might that. 00:43:52 Speaker 2: Sounded way creepier than backward Natalie at a moment. 00:43:57 Speaker 1: So what would you say to people about being on meds for a period of time and about the stigma of if they have any stigma about needing medication or. 00:44:09 Speaker 2: Something like that. 00:44:10 Speaker 3: I think you know what they said to me at the time, is if you have a heart problem, you take heart medication. 00:44:15 Speaker 4: If you have a broken arm, you put a thing on it. You know. 00:44:17 Speaker 3: Like, if your brain is not functioning at the right speed space time, like, you do something about it. Why would you not do something about it. The hardest thing is is like you know, finding the right amount, the right one. 00:44:32 Speaker 4: The right whatever. 00:44:33 Speaker 3: But if it helps you function, take it would be my like I always go try the alternate route first, but if it's not working, don't be ashamed to take it and then do the other stuff with it, you know, And then I think that's when you get the best out of all of it and yourself. 00:44:49 Speaker 1: If you're exercising as well, you can double you can double or triple effective these things. Yeah, if you're doing some sort of community, if you're doing community gas with all kinds of things, if you're doing writing, if you do just it multiplies all the effect of all of that stuff. And it's important to remember that it's this isn't permanent, all right, because that's the trick. That's again back to the meditation. That's what the meditation can help you with because our brains when a particular height of arousal shows up we can trick ourselves to believing this is how it's going to be forever. So therefore I have to make a decision about this feeling because I don't want the rest of my life to be like this. Well it won't be, but you can't see that timescale in that moment. So just being around that going Okay, I'm going to check five minutes from now and see if it feels like. 00:45:39 Speaker 2: It is. 00:45:39 Speaker 1: The permanence is a really important thing to remember that entropy comes for everything. 00:45:46 Speaker 2: Yeah, you know we were we were young people. What do you mean we're very blond? Afford to be blonde? 00:45:58 Speaker 1: I can't afford to be blonde anymore, you know, young people and everything. 00:46:01 Speaker 2: You know, my skin was you could bounce a quarter off my butt like it was twenty cent piece. 00:46:07 Speaker 4: Don't you wish though, that we appreciated it. I didn't appreciate it then absolutely. 00:46:12 Speaker 3: Oh that's good, And why do I love myself so much more? 00:46:18 Speaker 1: I'm quite grateful that there's cameras on phones now because g I mean, she's twenty two now, but she was sixteen. She'd be like, oh, can you keep an eye on, I've got an outfit coming. It's got a sign for it today. Yeah, sure, nowhere is on home. 00:46:33 Speaker 2: She's a be at school, all right, ding noong as a guy that went the envelope afterwards. Here, Georgia, you said that an outfit came. Yeah, that's it. It's a bathing suit. Yeah, yeah, all right. 00:46:47 Speaker 3: It's the fine line, right, like, because my daughter is like gorgeous. She's like Nelli sixteen taller than me, which you know is not that hard but beautiful, like beautiful looking, very charismatic and gets the little things with the beginnings in them. I'm like, oh, but then I'm like, you know what, she has body confidence, let her milk it. 00:47:07 Speaker 4: Like, but then I was over the parently, but put some clothes on. 00:47:11 Speaker 3: It's just keeping up communication as well, Like I'm loving the ages of my kids right now, just being able to talk to them about anything and you can be a bit cheekier with you know what you say and vice versa, and it's just it's like parenting, but with like this added warmth friendship that is building and growing into some new space. 00:47:32 Speaker 4:

I love it. 00:47:33 Speaker 1: And the relationship you have with your kids is I mean, that's really understood when you describe in the book the conversation you had about yeah, you know, this is what's happening with mom and dad. It wouldn't have gone down that way had you not you know, had all those years yeah beforehand. Yeah, you know, what would you say to people about having a conversation with you a difficult conversation with your kids? 00:47:56 Speaker 2: That's I mean, I'm sure there was a party that was like I don't want to tell them anything. 00:48:00 Speaker 3: Of course, definitely, like you want to protect your children at all costs, right, So there's that, But then there's like, if you lie to your children, that's forever. 00:48:11 Speaker 4: Don't lie to your children. They're too smart for that shit. You know. 00:48:14 Speaker 3: I'm a big believer in speaking the truth to them, but also being cautious because they're different ages, and a lot of the time when I have spoken to them, I get advice from my therapist, like how do I approach this topic with them? Like when Cam and I was separating, it was like what do we tell the kids? Like how do we what do we and don't we say? You know, Harpa was older, so she was a lot more aware of. 00:48:40 Speaker 4: What was going on. 00:48:41 Speaker 3: Hendrix, no clue, just you know, young and life's great sort of thing, and the thing with him was just to be more cautious because he is younger and he won't really understand the complexities of it. So it's not lying, it's not hiding. If ever he asks any questions, I tell him one the truth. But it's also in an age appropriate way, definitely. But I think it's important just to keep saying the truth and listening to them and what they want to ask questions and answer, yeah, in the in the age appropriate way. Yeah. 00:49:20 Speaker 2: I mean it's very different circumstances. 00:49:23 Speaker 5: But I remember I can remember word for word when my parents told us how we're breaking up to eleven, you know, and I was I just I just burst into tears. 00:49:34 Speaker 1: It was a song playing on the radio. Later on, when I worked in radio, I had to play. 00:49:37 Speaker 2: The Oh gosh, it was the worst, but you know, they hit me with it. 00:49:44 Speaker 1: They hit us with the classics, like we both love you very much and. 00:49:49 Speaker 4: We're still a family. 00:49:50 Speaker 3: You've got the tag lines, which I it wasn't just even though they aren't light lines, you say, we would determine that this is like this is the truth. We got each other's back. CAM and I were never going to speak ill of each other. We promised that to each other, and the kids are the priority. None of those are lies. 00:50:09 Speaker 4: They're all the truth. 00:50:11 Speaker 3: And they need at that age they need to feel safe. At this age, they need to feel safe, but in particular when they're younger, they just need to know, Oh. 00:50:18 Speaker 4: You're okay, You're okay, We're okay, Oh okay. You know, it's just it's kind of that simple as well. 00:50:31 Speaker 1: I was trying to figure out how you said it, because in the book you write it a few times. Oh, oh okay. 00:50:40 Speaker 2: That's kind of how it was. 00:50:41 Speaker 3: Because he got in the car and I said to him, so the therapist said about my new relationship, was like, you don't say you're in a new relationship for a bit. You say a friend and you say their name so that they start getting familiar with a name. And so that was happening. And then yeah, we were in the car and I just told my son, oh, yeah, you know, I went to the cabin with Pitt. We had a great time, and he is, why can't I go? You know, like that I want to go, And I said, oh, would you like to go? And at this stage they hadn't met Pip yet, they'd heard of and I go, oh, okay, and he goes, yeah, can I bring a friend? 00:51:14 Speaker 4: Can I bring my mate? And I go Louis and I go yeah, of course. I said, actually there's bunks and there's a double bed. 00:51:19 Speaker 3: And he goes, oh, all right, well you and me will sleep in the double bed and Pip and Louie can sleep in the bunks. 00:51:25 Speaker 4: And I'm like, hmm okay. And then I said do you know who Pip is to me? And he goes, what do you mean. 00:51:31 Speaker 3: I said, Pip's my girlfriend and he said, oh, a friend who's a girl. 00:51:34 Speaker 4: And I was like fuck. 00:51:35 Speaker 3: He goes, Natalie, here it is, and I went no, and he goes, you're dating and I went yes, and he went ah. 00:51:47 Speaker 4: Does Pip know? 00:51:48 Speaker 3: I went yes because and then he goes, does dad no? And I go yes and he goes, mm hmmm, do I call him a step mum? 00:52:02 Speaker 4: And that was the first. 00:52:05 Speaker 1: Thing my uncle he's passed away now, but he always used to tell us you only have to. 00:52:11 Speaker 2: Be brave for one breath. Hmhmm. 00:52:14 Speaker 4: Wow. 00:52:14 Speaker 2: It's like that's it. 00:52:16 Speaker 1: It's one sentence that will get to the kernel of what it is you need to tell someone. 00:52:22 Speaker 4: Everything else you can deal with, yeah, and then it's done. 00:52:25 Speaker 1: Yeah, but I'm sure that some of those breaths would have been you talking to yourself, you know, in the weeks months before that. Yeah, for people who never you know, people looking from the at so I can't figure it out. I understand they're going to get that sexuality is not a you know, black or white thing. 00:52:48 Speaker 2: I've spoken about it before. 00:52:50 Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, you know, I've done some field research all right in the end that once I've got the results back, like, actually, no, that's not for me, but I've got the proof here. 00:52:59 Speaker 3: A lot of kids these days or young adults, that is how they role these days, because when we grew up, it was you are you get married and you're with a man, and you have children, and you have a house and you have a business.

00:53:12 Speaker 4: And I wasn't. It wasn't my my parents were like that to me, but the world was like. 00:53:15 Speaker 2: That always, those values from the culture we're in. 00:53:18 Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm like, I have this feeling, whether it's true or not, I'll never know, is that if I was with a woman in my twenties, I probably wouldn't have been with a man, right, is what I feel like? 00:53:32 Speaker 2: Wow, well, sometimes people respond to all kinds of of course have it all, you know, and that can shift over time. 00:53:44 Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's okay. You know, like it's not okay to hurt people. And sometimes people get hurt when you're you know, trying to be the best version or the truest or the realist vote that's that happens. And that's I think it's about intention, isn't it intend to someone that's not okay? 00:54:01 Speaker 4: But also it's like we evolve and change. 00:54:04 Speaker 3: See it's like, guys, come on, Like I was listening to this thing of Louis throw this morning and he was like, you know, back in whatever, you know, the day we died at forty and fifty, So marriage was like to twenty years now it's like seventy or eighty. 00:54:19 Speaker 4: That's a long time to be with one person, you know what I mean? 00:54:22 Speaker 3: Like you unless you when you change you, if you don't grow together, you don't grow together. 00:54:30 Speaker 4: But you can do it with like the aftermath of a break up, for. 00:54:34 Speaker 3: Example, you can be angry and bitter and hate each other, or you can go, how great. 00:54:42 Speaker 4: Is what we had? 00:54:44 Speaker 3: That's how I choose to do it, is go we was amazing, and people go, oh, if you divorce, it's you know, you're a failure. 00:54:51 Speaker 4: I don't subscribe to that. I'm like, actually, I thought we were. 00:54:53 Speaker 3: Winners because we coparent really well at the time, like with you know, great marriage, great life, all of that. But things were shifting and changing and now we're great cor parents and you know, we have our problems and stuff like any any any relationship, let alone separated relationship, but we're pretty down great and we work at it. We have to for the kids, and we want you for each other, like I want to be there for him, and I know that he's there for me. And you know, it doesn't mean we don't annoy each other sometimes. 00:55:27 Speaker 1: No. And I see this as well with Audrey and Jay's dad, Right, they broke up when she was very little, and they made a conscious decision to be like, Okay, no matter what happened between us, okay doesn't come into the picture. 00:55:42 Speaker 2: She deserves to have a dad in her life. 00:55:44 Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, and that's what they takes a lot for you, there was like for everyone. It's not just one person. It's not just are you good on you? Or it's not just g or it's not just audio or the day. It's like everyone has to come together. 00:55:57 Speaker 1: And because it's not about the grown ups, about the person's got no choice in the matter. And we've all seen the research is conclusive. It will see what happens to a kid where that is not the priority, and nobody wants that to be. 00:56:11 Speaker 3: That's when their worlds will be so vulnerable, shafted vulnerable. 00:56:15 Speaker 1: And we had you know, George's twenty second back here the other day and I'm there with her dad and his partner you know, and Wolf and it was fucking ratod. 00:56:25 Speaker 2: He's a great bloke. 00:56:26 Speaker 3: We did the same thing Pepe and I had two years ago. We had Christmas at our place, my place at the time, and we invited camp to come along. What wasn't Christmas Day, it was a couple of days before, and we had friends come on, but they're all our mutual friends and we were like, you know, Henny came and the kids saw us all together, and we try and do things like that. That's important to them and to us. Though to say that just because you break up with someone and it doesn't mean you have to hate them or you have to like you can still admire them. You can still love them and support them and nurture them through life situations, but you also still have to have little little boundaries. 00:57:03 Speaker 1: But also celebrate what it is that you create, what you made exactly, what is there and what will always be there. 00:57:11 Speaker 4: And I know, like everyone will say this, but I am so obsessed with my kids. I love them. 00:57:19 Speaker 3: Like everyone loves their kids. Like it's just so much that I know that this was part of my life's trajectory. Like I was supposed to meet cam, we were supposed to have these kids. So just because I say, oh, if I was with a woman in twenty, like, I know that this is how it was supposed to in a. 00:57:35 Speaker 1: Way could for people who might be listening and either they're in their twenties or one of their kids is there. 00:57:42 Speaker 2: You know, what would you say to them about being aware of what's going on? You know, what do I actually really want versus what I think I should be doing? 00:57:54 Speaker 4: You know, you know, tough one? How to navigate it? 00:57:58 Speaker 2: Yeah, who knows? 00:58:04 Speaker 4: I don't know the answer to that. 00:58:05 Speaker 2: It's just. 00:58:08 Speaker 4: I think what I realized is when. 00:58:12 Speaker 3: When it's the wrong thing, my body tells me my throat closes over my chest gets tight, And I didn't know signs like that, you know, existed in emotion. 00:58:23 Speaker 4: I didn't know that. 00:58:26 Speaker 3: And when it felt right, I could speak loudly if I wanted to. I wasn't shut down. I wasn't lesser than I wasn't smaller than I didn't make myself smaller. This is openness. So I think it's listening to your body. If I have any advice, it's just like what is your body telling you? And not just in a moment, not just like you know, but like in a time, what is everything shouting at you? 00:58:55 Speaker 1: You'll know? Yeah, a body

tends to though well, certainly with me because of all sorts of various things going up into my ears. I often don't realize the situations turn pair shaped until way too late. 00:59:08 Speaker 2: Right, But there's a thing that I feel just about here pretty early on. 00:59:12 Speaker 1: That's what I'm like to be, like, Oh, if this thing shows up, that's my sign that how great is that in two minutes from now things. 00:59:18 Speaker 2: Are going to be bad? 00:59:19 Speaker 3: But how like I wish I knew that when I was twenty, you know, like I, but I didn't. And the good thing about knowing all these things now is we can talk to our children about it and they can be aware of You know, my son's already he had quite a few anxieties a couple of years ago, and you know, we took him to see someone and she's teaching him breath work and tapping, and I'm like, God, imagine knowing all of that when we're twenty or younger, you know, and he's now thirteen, nearly thirteen, so it was like two years ago. 00:59:48 Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, he's got all the loose little tool kit. 00:59:51 Speaker 2: What do I need? 00:59:51 Speaker 3: Little some affirmations, little meditation at night, Like he's got all going on. 00:59:56 Speaker 1: When people would ask me, what would you tell your youngest what would you want for your youngest life? I just say, just down regulation, Just can you calm yourself down? Yeah, yourself down? That is, If you can do that, that's what he's lying to need. That that's really half the battle. I agree, I understand that. 01:00:12 Speaker 3: Hang on, I still you know, I still have it sometimes now, like the still spiral and like do you know what to do? I do know what to do, but you know, when you're in the spiral, cite my partners that baby, baby, baby baby, You're you're spiraling and I'm like no, and I pile and I'm like this is wrong, and then this is wrong, and there's like ten things. They're like no, no, no, it's just we're just right here, and it is. It's that brain just having a little moment of explosion. But it's a gift having a child who has similar feelings, which he doesn't feel like that, thanks Mom, But I can see it. I can see in him, me and me and like it's just so there now and the fact that I've been through it, I can look at him and go, I know you're going to be okay, but you're going to have to do these things for me right now. 01:01:02 Speaker 2: You know that's just here. 01:01:04 Speaker 1: It is big words to hear from mom when things about So I've written two books, running another one. It's hard, it's hard work. Who and a lot of this stuff like, yeah, it's not a deposition, but some of it's it's a lot to put it out there. 01:01:20 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's scary for the first time. Yeah, who are you writing the book for? 01:01:31 Speaker 4: Definitely me? 01:01:33 Speaker 3: But a lot of it felt like women, to be honest, like just and it's not excluding men. But I have three sisters and it's like that sister you know, sisterhood. 01:01:47 Speaker 4: Kind of thing. 01:01:50 Speaker 3: But I think like I was asked to write it a few years before, and I was like, God, no, I don't want anyone knowing my deepest and darkest secrets. And I'm not one to kind of just sugarcoat or half I'm like, what's the point. But I think there were things that I was grappling with that I felt shame and blame and guilt, and I was like, I don't think I'm brave enough to say those things, Like I wasn't sure I was ready for what people would say about me, knowing how my mental health is when someone says something just minor not nice about me. But what I started to realize, especially with social media, and I'm you know, I do this as well, or have done this, says we all put up stuff that's amazing and we're so beautiful and glamorous and how rich are we all? 01:02:32 Speaker 4: And how amazing is my life? And I'm like, what a load of shit? Like it's just a load of shit. 01:02:38 Speaker 3: Like, yes, it's nice to post some beautiful things sometimes, but I think people are getting this wrong conclusion about how they need to be in their lives and that was pissing me off, made me angry, you know, like, oh they're so perfect, They're so this. 01:02:53 Speaker 4: I'm like, actually they're not. Oh you're so natural. I'm like, babe, I've had so much shit done. 01:02:57 Speaker 2: To my face. 01:02:58 Speaker 4: Like I'll do whatever is available, Like have you got what other layers of treatment do you have? You know, It's like it's like you're through natural. I'm like, yeah, sure, great, love that for me, but we all do stuff, you know, And I think I was over it. 01:03:12 Speaker 3: And I also felt comfortable in my own skin for the first time I think in my life is the truth? 01:03:21 Speaker 4: If not, yeah, I think ever is that. 01:03:24 Speaker 3: I just felt like, it's okay to fuck up, It's okay to have regrets, it's okay for all of those things. What isn't okay is if you stay there. It's I wanted to forgive myself and forgive others and and just just you know, by writing it down, yeah you know this. I mean there were tears. There was lots of tears. There was lots of I can't do this, there was lots of you know, I'd written thirty thousand words and I'm like, oh, I'm stark. I got to some heavy stuff, and I was like, I can't write it with that openness that I was. 01:04:03 Speaker 4: Writing everything else. 01:04:04 Speaker 3: It was just kind of factual, factual, factual, factual. And I was like, oh, this doesn't feel good, you know, But then when you do it and it's done, that relief and that release, I mean, it's not this is the thing. I've just started to like promote it. So I'm like, God, I've been sitting with it for a while, but now people are going to know, well. 01:04:20 Speaker 1: Yeah, the thing is, you're why does anybody boy a book like this? Well, they're familiar with you, but they kind of also want to know that someone else has gone through something. 01:04:31

Speaker 3: I hope so because we all have Like I used to hate when people go, oh my god, they're just getting this person on next fact because they've got a story. 01:04:37 Speaker 4: I'm like, everyone has a story. 01:04:39 Speaker 3: Everyone has ten stories that they could, you know, lay on the table right here and right now. That's the truth of people's lives. People's lives aren't that perfect bubble. Everyone's got something, and. 01:04:51 Speaker 2: Nonscripted television relies on a backstory. Otherwise we all need you're not enrolled. 01:04:56 Speaker 4: If you're too perfect, then sorry. If you cannot apply. 01:05:00 Speaker 1: To the break and you're just stepping out on stage. We've just seen three and a half minutes of you singing on a tractor. Pretty pretty sure they're about to learn that someone in your life has got leukemias. The story, it's always because you've got eight episodes to get you really given a shit about callum want to. 01:05:22 Speaker 3: Care about the person, And that's why. But you could say that to anybody on the street. 01:05:27 Speaker 2: Everybody has that. 01:05:28 Speaker 3: Pick up ten people and go tell me that the hardest thing that's ever happened to you, And I bet you you could write a show just with those ten random people. 01:05:35 Speaker 2: Everyone's got a story. 01:05:36 Speaker 1: Everyone has had that moment, everyone has had that hero journey, but they I don't know, for whatever reason, people don't believe that there's this. 01:05:42 Speaker 2: I know it's there and everything's relative. So yeah, we've all got a story. 01:05:46 Speaker 3: And I'm feel like sharing was a big part of it, of like being okay to say I'm not perfect. 01:05:51 Speaker 2: Guys. 01:05:51 Speaker 3: You might think that my life and my story and my everything is perfect. It's far from the truth, you know, And I think that was a big part of it too, But also just to get it out and be I'm okay being mean. 01:06:04 Speaker 1: They're just the stuff in the book about it just stands on its own, the stuff about the way that you can handle the transition from being married to what you are now, Like that is just such a great example for because people may not realize it happen. I know, they might not realize that I'm to stay here because I'm too afraid of what might happen. 01:06:24 Speaker 3: And a lot of it is logistics and like stuff. It has nothing to do with heart and soul, and like a lot of people don't want to leave a relationship because of stuff. 01:06:35 Speaker 4: And I don't think that's good enough. 01:06:37 Speaker 2: You're going to need to read the book to find out more about what's good enough exactly. It's been delightful having in my life. 01:06:43 Speaker 4: It's been so nice. 01:06:47 Speaker 2: And that was Natalie Bassing's way. The book is great. The book is called Love Like This. It's out right now. She narrated the audio book as well, So if you want her to tell you the story, it's there for you. You put her in your ears and do what you're going to do, like you're doing right now now. 01:07:00 Speaker 1: All the details for that are in the show notes. If you want to hear those big synth hooks again. You want to put your hands in the air and reach for the lasers. Rogue Traders are back. They have new music and their anthem's tour is happening. It's on the road right now. 01:07:14 Speaker 2: The info for that and all the dates and everything you find that in the show notes as well. Thanks so much for being a part of it. 01:07:19 Speaker 1: Make sure you get on the Story Club tickets before they sell out again. 01:07:22 Speaker 2: It's going great, great show. Jump on the YouTube. 01:07:25 Speaker 1: That's where you can watch this episode if you want, and every other episode we've filmed. 01:07:29 Speaker 2: Thanks for being a part of it. See you back here on Monday.