‘I’ll be watching it through tears’: Comedian Mel Buttle’s heartbreaking tribute to her late friend, Cal Wilson

In an emotional interview, Mel Buttle has opened up about the sudden death of her close friend, Cal Wilson, calling it a ‘huge blow and a huge shock’.

Run ragged by her 17-month-old son Harry, Mel Buttle admits she’s in a constant whirlwind at home while, onstage, the comedian can radiate a calm that borders on nonchalance.

“It’s either being a parent or the tiredness, but it really takes the care factor right out,” she tells Stellar with a laugh.

“You know when you were little and you’d see older ladies getting changed at the gym? And they’re just standing there chatting and they’re completely nude. And you think, oh my God! Whereas when you’re 14, getting changed with eight different towels, you’ve got a whole system just to get your bra off. Like, I’m not quite [chatting naked yet], but I see how you get there.”

This confidence to (nearly) bare all is reflected in Buttle’s new stand-up show currently touring the country, Not Here To Put Socks On Centipedes, during which the former Great Australian Bake Off host discusses parental challenges and mental-health struggles with candour.

Mel Buttle has opened up about her late friend, Cal Wilson. Picture: Sam Bisso for Stellar

“For years and years onstage, I’ve sort of held back probably a bit too much and tried to only say things that were not too offensive or not too risky or edgy,” she confesses

“And when I say risky, I mean in a sense of revealing personal things and how I genuinely feel.”

Of course, the Queensland-based comic reserves the right to “chicken out” at the last minute. That’s because she’s developed an innate ability to read whether a room is a safe space before speaking too frankly – a product of her own experience as a gay woman.

“I didn’t realise I was gay until quite late,” says Buttle. “On that, though, even in 2024, I still choose in which gigs I admit that and in which gigs I don’t because I don’t feel safe saying it.”

Her caution is warranted, she explains, considering the abusive messages she’s received online about herself and her partner.

“People will say, ‘No-one cares that you’re gay!’ But the reality is lots of people do care very deeply,” she says, pointing to one post that referenced Harry’s conception following IVF treatments.

“I took a horrible screenshot [of a comment] from a woman the other day where she was saying, ‘I pity your kid, your baby that you bought. You have unwarranted success. How do you feel destroying real mums and dads? Real families?’”

The comedian says she chooses when to speak about her sexuality during comedy shows, and why she prefers to keep it private. Picture: Sam Bisso for Stellar

Even so, Buttle, 42, shrugs off the idea that her latest material may be fodder for more trolls or cancellation chatter, noting that people can find cause for offence anywhere.

Besides, her resume has been more mainstream than edgy, including regular appearances on The Project, and a stint as a contestant on I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! in 2020. Buttle has also joined the line-up of comedians in the upcoming second season of Taskmaster Australia.

In particular, her portrayal of Lyn, a straight-shooting “Aussie mum” on social media, has become a massive viral hit for the comedian, reaching 5.1 million likes on Buttle’s TikTok.

“I was genuinely blown away and I’m still blown away that people relate to it and enjoy it,” she says of the character.

“I think if Lyn is not your mum, then she’s your auntie, your next-door neighbour, the woman at the deli or the medical receptionist at your doctor. We all know a Lyn because she’s an Australian suburban woman of a certain age – who now comes to my shows.”

A decade ago, Buttle was still supplementing stand-up gigs with her day job as a high-school teacher. It wasn’t until she was cast – alongside Claire Hooper – as the host of The Great Australian Bake Off in 2015 that she realised comedy could be her career.

The late Cal Wilson, who passed away in October from a rare form of cancer. Picture: Foxtel

For five years, Buttle and Hooper cooked up plenty of wink-wink-nudge-nudge jokes about soggy bottoms and tarts before handing the reins over to Natalie Tran and Cal Wilson in 2023.

That made it all the more devastating for Buttle when – just 24 hours after hearing the news that Wilson was seriously sick with a rare form of cancer – the popular New Zealand-born comedian and TV presenter died on October 11.

“It was a huge, huge blow and a huge shock and I don’t think I have had anything like it before because I couldn’t stop crying,” she says, recalling the quality time she shared with Wilson last February in Tasmania’s Tamar Valley during a stop on the Grapes Of Mirth comedy tour that was organised by Merrick Watts.

Now Buttle is surrounded by little reminders of the late comedian – Harry still wears the bibs that the craft-loving Wilson gifted him, and a photo of her hangs on a wall adorned with Buttle’s family photos and special mementos.

Fellow comics came together to honour Wilson’s memory last November. And although initially reluctant to attend because it all felt too raw, Buttle says, “It was actually nice to sit with other people in the same grief and mourn. It was obviously horrendously sad; we were all crying, but there was a sense – because we’re all programmed in showbiz – that the event built up like it was a show. At the end we all sort of waited for Cal to come out. And it was really odd, because of course she couldn’t come out, even though she was the headliner.”

Buttle’s former co-host Hooper, a close friend of Wilson’s, spoke at the memorial.

“I can’t remember exactly what she said, but it was something like, ‘I hosted the first five warm-up seasons of Bake Off before Cal Wilson took over and did it properly,’” Buttle recalls.

And as she looks forward to watching her friend on the upcoming new season of the show, which Wilson filmed before her death, Buttle says quietly, “I’ll be watching it through tears.”

Mel Buttle’s Not Here To Put Socks On Centipedes is touring nationally.