‘Hard to accept’: Amanda Keller’s emotional confession

“Gone through a phase of being angry”: The radio and TV host has opened up about her personal life in an emotional new interview.

Amanda Keller has admitted she found it “hard to accept” her husband’s devastating health diagnosis, and was “fighting” the truth of it for sometime after she found out.

In an emotional new interview with Stellar magazine, the radio host, 62, spoke candidly about how she and Harley Oliver, whom she married in 1989, were navigating life since he discovered he had Parkinson’s disease in 2017.

“Every time I talk about this, sometimes I’m fine and sometimes it gets a bit

overwhelming,” the Jonesy and Amanda presenter said, describing her husband as “quite remarkable.”

“He’s so pragmatic with this. He just gets on with it. And I’ve gone through a phase of being angry because I’d say things to him like, ‘Oh, come on, stand upright’, or ‘Your voice…’; I knew what it was, he’d been diagnosed.

“I knew what was going on but I found it hard to accept.”

Keller told Stellar how she had remained quite “Pollyanna-ish” about their heartbreaking situation, in that she hadn’t “deep dived” on the medical aspects of Oliver’s condition.

“I’m living it as it happens, and part of that is choosing to be naive,” she said.

“There’s no easy way out but I know what I’m like and I’d be prone to overthinking

and panic and trying to fix things that are so out of my control.”

Oliver and Keller have been married for 34 years.

Across her decades-long career, Keller has appeared on a number of TV shows as well as across the airwaves.

She hosted Ten’s The Living Room from 2012 until 2022, when she announced on her radio show that it was being “rested” for 12 months. However, after co-host Dr Chris Brown announced he was jumping ship to Seven midway through that break, Keller admitted it was likely a “death knell” for the program.

The Living Room was hosted by Dr Chris Brown, Amanda Keller, Barry DuBois and Miguel Maestre.

The Living Room did not appear in Ten’s 2024 Upfronts, and no information about its future has been shared since.

Despite this, Keller told Stellar she was keen to get back in front of a camera, but admitted that she is much more selective about opportunities now that she’s balancing it with caring for her husband.

“I hope to do more television. I love TV, and it’s a very different skill set to radio,” she said.

“I do get offered things all the time, but I’m just choosing what and where and how.

“And with Harley, too – he is always supportive, but I want to make sure it’s the right thing if I’m not going to be at home or I’m working longer hours.

“I’m starting to choose some things, and I’d really love to think that big things are around the corner television-wise. I’m certainly not finished with it yet.”

Read the full interview in this week’s Stellar, inside The Sunday Telegraph (NSW), Sunday Herald Sun (VIC), The Sunday Mail (QLD) and Sunday Mail (SA)

Originally published as ‘Hard to accept’: Amanda Keller’s emotional confession