Rebecca Morse opens up on her SAFM breakfast radio axing on new podcast, In The Genes, with daughter Gracie Wakelin

The popular media identity has revealed she felt ‘like a failure’ following her axing from SAFM’s breakfast radio show late last year.

Rebecca Morse said she was “devastated” and “felt like a failure” in the aftermath of her axing from breakfast radio.

Speaking in detail for the first time about her departure from SAFM, the popular media personality said it “still hurts”, over three months after she was told her contract would not be renewed at the station.

“I’m really conscious of not being self-indulgent and wallowing because it was a few months ago but it still hurts a bit and I haven’t really talked about it,” Morse said on her new podcast, In The Genes, with daughter Gracie Wakelin.

Former SAFM breakfast hosts Mark Soderstrom and Rebecca Morse. Picture: Supplied

Rebecca Morse with daughter Gracie Wakelin posing for their new podcast, In The Genes. Pictures: Ekaterina Shipova Raw.

Rebecca Morse and husband James Wakelin. Picture: Facebook

“I was pretty devastated. I was humiliated I guess. I was sad, I was pretty angry. I felt like a failure. I think most women in the media have experienced impostor syndrome and feeling like you’re not good enough.

“I was like, ‘Well, this is just proof, this is another media job I’ve lost. I’m not good enough’.

I felt pretty low.”

Morse was dumped from her SAFM breakfast show, Bec and Soda, in late October – just hours after co-host Mark Soderstrom announced on-air that he had decided to quit the role to face the “biggest challenge of his life”.

Morse was given the chance to finish the week at SAFM but said she couldn’t bring herself to get back into the studio.

“The next morning I said, ‘I just can’t come in, sorry’. I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye but I didn’t want to be blubbering and pathetic and tragic on air,” she said.

“I was actually foetal for a few days … it was not a fun time. I had a weird physical response to it. My hands went completely numb for a week.”

Morse, who was previously a newsreader at Channel 10 before spending the last six years on breakfast radio, said she also saw a psychologist to deal with the situation.

“I know that I’m no orphan, I know a lot of people in their careers will lose jobs that they love. I hope that maybe people might take something from my experience,” she said.

“I just want to say thank you to the SAFM listeners who were so loyal over the years.”

Morse and her eldest daughter Gracie, 21, launched their new podcast on Spotify this week.

“I’m strangely nervous. I’m used to talking on radio but this feels very personal … and also a little lame,” Morse said.

Bec Morse said she “felt like a failure” in the aftermath of her axing from breakfast radio. Picture: Matt Loxton

“But I did want to find a forum where I could continue to connect with the people that I met through radio and who were kind enough to say that they would listen.”

Morse revealed the idea for the podcast – about modern mother/daughter relationships, parenting and the generation gap – was all Gracie’s, and came soon after her departure from SAFM.

“I think before she even got the words out … I thought to myself, the death of your career can be the start of my career – and that’s how the In The Genes podcast idea was first launched,” said Gracie, 21, with tongue-in-cheek.

Check out the first episode of In The Genes, on Spotify now.