TV Week Logies: Andrew Winter’s health crisis as awards night looms

IT’S his first Gold Logie nomination — yet many are asking who he is. Foxtel favourite Andrew Winter from Selling Houses Australia hasn’t had a smooth ride to the awards night.

WHEN this year’s TV Week Logie nominations were revealed, just around the corner from Andrew Winter’s house on Queensland’s Gold Coast, he was tucked up in bed.

Filming for eleven months of each year would give him reason to put his feet up, but that’s only part of the story behind the Foxtel presenter’s unusual journey to this year’s awards.

It was a Friday and the Selling Houses Australia and Love It Or List It host was taking time out, two weeks before his Gold and Silver Logie nominations would be announced.

“I was with a friend at lunch and thought I’d bit my lip, because it felt a bit funny,” Winter tells News Corp Australia.

“It felt like there was a bit of a lump there. After lunch, I went home and thought, ‘oh that’s a bit strange,” and like many men when it comes to health matters, he admits, with a laugh, “I took no notice of it, of course.”

Winter is recovering from a bout of Bell’s Palsy. Picture: Rohan Kelly

Nearing the end of an extensive renovation to his Hope Island luxury home, the 52-year-old former real estate agent, turned TV star went about “finishing off with some renovation issues around the house.”

“That’s when I realised that one of my eyes was constantly running, all down my cheek. So I looked in the mirror again and my eyes were wide open,” he says.

“I was basically winking at myself. My left eye would blink and the other was open in a very strange way. I figured out later it looked wide open because the lid had started to droop.”

With his wife Caroline and two youngest daughters, Daisy, 16 and Mia, 13 away, and his eldest, Olivia having moved to Dubai to work for Emirates airline, the home alone Winter tried not to panic, but feared he was suffering a stroke.

“I thought, ‘this isn’t right’ and my mouth was getting worse. I had no pain, but I thought, ‘I’m having a stroke, so my legs and arms are going to go next.’

After calling his wife, she advised him to ring an ambulance and then warn landscapers, working in the family’s garden, not to turn it away.

“And from there,” he says, “Australia’s healthcare system took care of me ... it was flipping amazing.”

Rushed to Gold Coast’s University hospital, within 20 minutes of presenting to emergency, he’d undergone a CAT scan, with doctors diagnosing him Bell’s Palsy — a condition which affects facial nerves and muscle control.

He would spend 24 hours in their care, as a matter of course, ruling out a more serious stroke or brain conditions.

What triggers Bell’s Palsy isn’t clear, but it is thought to be affected by stress or a viral infection.

The paralysis can disappear as quickly as it came, or not at all — which was clearly cause for concern to Winter, as the face of two top-rating Lifestyle channel programs.

“The implications for me that weekend were 12 people’s flights to Adelaide got cancelled because we were all doing a shoot in South Australia. I remember being there in the hospital on the Friday saying, ‘will I be right to go to work on Monday?’ and they said, ‘why are you even asking that? You might not be going for months.’”

His recovery, while daunting, was a best-case scenario, with Winter seeing improvements within a few weeks.

Bell’s Palsy affects facial nerves and muscle control. Picture: Rohan Kelly

In the meantime, he kept his condition secret, covering up his symptoms in public by wearing sunglasses and telling people his mouth paralysis was because he’d “just been to the dentist.”

So when the Logies nominations were confirmed and his name was among the Gold contenders for Australia’s most popular personality, he admits he went into shock.

A multiple recipient of gongs at the ASTRAs (the former Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association awards), he jokes they were only cancelled two years ago because he kept winning.

The first Foxtel personality to be nominated in the Gold category is humbling he says, and an acknowledgment of the changing nature of TV viewing.

“I must admit that worried me,” he admits. “I know what my kids are doing and they’re not sitting in front of the television watching the classic programs. They’re just not doing it.’ But after talking to people in the industry and looking at it from different angles, I see there’s a desire for content more than ever.”

He says: “I’ve gone from doom and gloom, to quite excited really.”

With growing ratings for both Selling Houses (now in its eleventh season) and a launch record for Love It Or List It, he’s hoping those loyal fans will get behind his bid for Gold — even if he thinks he’s got no chance of winning.

“It would be amazing, but I’ve got some pretty tough competition. I don’t [think I’ll win], just because I don’t want to do a thank you speech afterwards,” he laughs.

* TV Week Logie awards airs 7pm, Sunday July 1 on Nine

WITH thanks to QT Hotel, Sydney. www.qthotelsandresorts.com/sydney-cbd/