Carrie Bickmore: Inside her extraordinary success, unimaginable pain
She’s been on an incredible journey from Adelaide to Australia’s media A-List, with more than her share of extraordinary success and unimaginable pain along the way.
Entertainment
Don't miss out on the headlines from Entertainment. Followed categories will be added to My News.
She built a stellar career in media, has been showered with the highest accolades in the industry and won millions of fans and admirers for her heart-on-her-sleeve approach to her life and work.
But away from the microphone and the TV cameras, Adelaide-born Carrie Bickmore has also had her share of personal tragedy and heartbreak, losing her first husband to cancer and, most recently, announcing her separation from her partner of 11 years.
Bickmore’s next steps in life and work remain to be seen.
We take a look back at her incredible journey so far.
EARLY YEARS
Bickmore, 42, was born in Adelaide in 1980.
Her parents divorced when she was three and Bickmore moved to Perth to live with her mother, stepfather and two step-sisters. All three girls attended WA private girls’ school Perth College.
In a column in Stellar in 2018, Bickmore says that, because her parents separated when she was so young, she can only recall growing up in an “unconventional set up”.
Bickmore says she traveled between Perth and Adelaide to visit her dad “who was also a huge part of my life”.
“My childhood wasn’t perfect but I’ve realized the older I get, and now with a family of my own, that no childhood is perfect. A nuclear family doesn’t guarantee happiness,” she said.
“Despite the complicated set-up of my family, and all the challenges that presented, I grew up with a stack of love around me, more than some “traditional” families have.”
In a 2021 interview with her alma mater, Bickmore revealed that, before she found her passion for media, her first love was dance.
“I think it was the first year they ever had a Vice Dance Captain,” she joked “because I was never ever going to be good enough to be a Dance Captain”.
And ironically it was her interest in dance that helped steer her towards a career in journalism after a frank conversation with the school’s careers advisor.
“I remember her saying ‘what do you like doing’ and I said ‘I like talking and dancing’ and she said ‘well you’re never going to make a career out of dancing’ which I was slightly offended by at the time,” Bickmore said in the Perth College interview.
It was at that point the careers advisor suggested she try for a career in the media. So she did.
Bickmore enrolled to study Journalism and Public Relations at Curtin University.
FIRST JOB IN THE MEDIA
After graduating from Curtin University, Bickmore landed a work placement as a fill-in newsreader on Perth’s 92.9FM.
It’s not where her good fortune ended. While working at the station, Bickmore met and fell in love with Greg Lange, who was also in the media.
In 2001, the pair moved to Melbourne where Bickmore landed a job as a newsreader on NOVA FM, at the tender age of 21.
WEDDING BELLS
In 2001, shortly after the pair moved to Melbourne, Lange was diagnosed with a brain tumour.
“We’d come to live in Melbourne and I was bright-eyed and ready to take everything in, then suddenly . . .’’ she said on The Project in 2011.
“It forced me to grow up very, very, very quickly. It was a really scary, hard time and that was for me, let alone what it was like for Greg,” Bickmore told Perth College.
Despite their unimaginable struggles with Greg’s health, the pair married in 2005 and in 2007, they welcomed their first child together - son Oliver.
As Stellar’s Siobhan Duck revealed in 2018, Bickmore suffered a life-threatening hemorrhage after giving birth to Oliver, bleeding profusely and losing consciousness.
Despite his illness, Greg stepped in to help care for baby Oliver, with support from friends and family.
“I believe that Ollie has probably grown up to be such a chilled-out kid because of what happened when he was born,” Bickmore told Stellar.
“Because I was in hospital having blood transfusions, he had to be looked after by friends and family. He just had to roll with it.”
WELCOME TO TELEVISION
In 2006, Bickmore made her first foray into TV on Channel 10, joining the cast of Rove, hosted by fellow West Australian Rove McManus.
Bickmore presented the regular segment “Carrie at the News Desk”, a jokey take on the news similar to SNL’s Weekend Update.
Rove ended in 2009, and Bickmore left the show the same year to join The Project alongside comedian Charlie Pickering, former Australian Idol co-host James Mathieson and model, actor and TV presenter Ruby Rose.
In 2010, she was named Best New Female Talent at the Logie Awards for her work on both shows, announcing the 30-year-old as a talent to watch.
DEVASTATING LOSS
Just after Christmas in 2010, Bickmore’s husband, Greg, tragically lost his decade-long battle with brain cancer, aged just 35.
In comments reported in the media at the time, Bickmore said: “I’m doing my best to draw comfort knowing that Greg is now resting peacefully.”
“He fought so courageously for so long.”
Speaking to the Australian Women’s Weekly about Lange’s death in 2016, Bickmore explained how her husband’s long illness made them both feel like they were left to fight a losing battle.
“It goes on for so long,” Bickmore said.
“There are periods of inactivity where you go for the MRI and there’s no change and you go, ‘Hey, we can breathe for another six months’, but then, in the months leading up to the next MRI, you’re already fearing what that result is going to be. It’s just a cycle and it goes round and round.”
“It changes your ability to dream, to look forward... I spent so many years feeling no hope — like,no hope,” she said.
CARRIE FINDS NEW LOVE
Following Lange’s death, Bickmore took an extended hiatus from TV returning to The Project in 2011. The following year she met new partner, TV producer Chris Walker, on the set of the show. The pair eventually became an item in 2015 the couple welcomed their first baby together, a girl they named Evie.
“Welcome to this crazy world little Evie…so happy u arrived safely. Xx” Bickmore tweeted at the time.
The couple had a second girl, Adelaide, in 2018 and in a photo she posted to Instagram, Bickmore said she and Walker were “absolutely besotted” with their latest arrival.
GOLD LOGIE MOMENT
2015 was a big year for Bickmore, in front of, and behind, the camera.
Just months after giving birth to her second child, the 34-year-old took out the highest accolade in Australian television, the Gold Logie, using her acceptance speech to call for a greater awareness of brain cancer and dedicating her award to her late husband, Greg.
“He was an incredibly brave man, he was a great dad,” Bickmore said, choking back tears.
“He was a great husband and a great brother. And he was a great friend. But he shouldn’t have had to go through that. No one should have to go through that. And that’s why I want to talk about it tonight.”
In a moving address, Bickmore donned a beanie explaining that, throughout his long, painful battle with cancer, Lange often wore hats because he was embarrassed by the scars on his head.
“And I used to say to him: ‘Don’t be embarrassed, scars are really, really cool’. And beanies are also really cool”.
Bickmore then invited all those working in the TV industry to wear a beanie the next day and post a photo to social media with the hashtag #beaniesforbraincancer.
BEANIES 4 BRAIN CANCER
The same year, Bickmore launched a new foundation, Beanies 4 Brain Cancer, setting the charity a goal of raising over $1m in a year for brain cancer research - a goal the charity easily achieved.
“I presumed it would be something that would take a few years to do. So it wasn’t really something I thought would happen so soon, it’s all a bit of a whirlwind,” she told The Herald Sun in 2016.
MOVE TO THE UK
In early 2022, in a move that shocked some viewers, Bickmore announced she and her family would be relocating to the UK for several months.
Speaking about her decision on The Project, Bickmore explained the family wanted to seize the opportunity to experience life abroad before eldest son, Ollie, began his senior school years.
“We figure it’s never going to be the perfect time to go and it’s something we really want to do before my son starts his final years at school, so we’re doing term two in the UK,” she said.
“So I will be off for a couple of months.”
Bickmore announced she would continue to host her afternoon radio show alongside Project colleague Tommy Little.
As news.com.au reported, the news came as a surprise to some fans after Bickmore, just weeks earlier, said she was “ready for another big year of work’.
WALKER NUDE ON SKYPE CALL
In May, 2022, in the middle of their UK sabbatical, Bickmore’s partner, a producer on ABC TV’s The Weekly, stripped naked in front of colleagues after wrongly believing he had logged off a Skype call. Walker denied colleagues’ claims he was masturbating.
The Herald Sun was told the incident was witnessed by up to nine people and lasted between 40 seconds and two minutes.
Walker had been logging into meetings remotely to carry out his producer commitments for the show.
The Herald Sun reported that it understood it was during one of those calls - between the end of rehearsals and the taping of the show - that the incident happened.
The ABC and Walker’s TV production company, Thinkative Television, issued statements to The Herald Sun saying the incident was unintentional and he had been undressing to get into the shower and wasn’t performing a lewd act.
The ABC offered counselling to staff in the wake of the incident.
RETURN TO THE PROJECT
Bickmore returned to The Project in July, 2022 and in a post on Instagram, said the family’s time in the UK had been “incredible”.
But in conversation with fill-in host Peter Helliar on the Carrie and Tommy show she admitted the three month sojourn “didn’t all go to plan”.
“And there were lots of times when it was really, really hard,” she said.
“Living away with three kids – kids are hard enough at the best of times, and living in a new place without your support network around … Addy (daughter Adelaide) found it really hard for a long time”
“She was a baby born around COVID times, and just likes being at home. All of a sudden we were dragging her on planes all over the world.”
LEAVING THE PROJECT
Bickmore’s return to The Project was short-lived.
In a tearful announcement on the show, in October 2022, Bickmore revealed her decision to leave the show after 13 years.
The decision, she said, was the “hardest of my professional life”.
“But it’s time for a new challenge and my next chapter,” she said.
“There’s so much I’m gonna miss, I’m gonna miss my best mates on the desk, the job itself, which is so incredibly fulfilling. The wonderful viewers over the last 13 years.
“It’s no secret that this show has become a second home to me, and I couldn’t be more thankful to everyone that has been involved on and off screen.”
“It has been a long journey. I started the show when Ollie, my son, was one, and he’s now 15, which is crazy. And I want to spend more time at home. I want to have more family dinners”.
Bickmore said she was not sure what her next professional move would be.
SHOCK SPLIT
In early 2023, Bickmore and Walker announced their decision to separate after 11 years and two children together.
In an Instagram post, Bickmore said the announcement came with “immense sadness”.
“While this is a tough time, our focus is to concentrate on parenting, loving and supporting our three amazing children, Ollie, Evie and Addie with everything we’ve got,” Bickmore said.
“They are doing great.
“We won’t be making any further comment at this stage.”
Walker posted a separate statement thanking friends, family and colleages “on an otherwise rubbish day,” he wrote.
“Your words and kindness (and food) have been cherished.
“I haven’t got back to you all but I will and I love you heaps”.
Just a few days before the pair announced their separation, Bickmore was back in her hometown and partied with SA celebrities at an exclusive Sam Smith concer at the d’Arenberg Cube in the McLaren Vale wine region.
Penbo: Hot N Cold reality of Party Pete’s Katy coup
It feels like you could launch a TV show called Everybody Loves Mali at the moment, writes David Penberthy. Well, not quite everybody.
Aussie Handmaid’s Tale star’s surprise move
After the dark dystopia of Handmaid’s and the terror of horror series Teacup, Aussie actor Yvonne Strahovski has revealed what her next big move will be, and why.