Liz Hayes on THAT viral Russell Brand interview

Exclusive: Veteran journalist Liz Hayes finally addresses her infamous 60 Minutes interview with British comedian and actor Russell Brand, during which he kissed her and attempted to unhook her bra, revealing “I was 57 and I thought I was OK”.

“When I realised, oh, I’m now Liz Hayes… that’s a very odd moment. It’s peculiar,” Hayes says of her double identity. Picture: Daniel Nadel for Stellar

For decades, Liz Hayes has delivered powerful stories to Australian television viewers, but the veteran journalist has been sitting on plenty of compelling tales of her own. In a frank interview with Stellar’s podcast Something To Talk About, Hayes opens up about her upcoming memoir, which surveys a life and career that have been anything but dull, peppered as they’ve been with unusual encounters, “rude awakenings” – and one gobsmacking phone call from a former prime minister

On reconciling with the shift in her identity from growing up as Beth Ryan, the daughter of a dairy farmer in regional New South Wales, to becoming Liz Hayes, the esteemed journalist with a national profile. (She writes about grappling with that dual identity in her upcoming book I’m Liz Hayes: A Memoir): “I grieve Beth Ryan, because I quite like Beth Ryan. Liz Hayes is who I’ve become. I was born Elizabeth Ryan. [Hayes took and kept the surname of her first husband, Bryan Hayes.] When I hear someone say, ‘Hi, Beth’ I know they’re in my soul. When I realised, oh, I’m now Liz Hayes… that’s a very odd moment. It’s peculiar. Writing this book and writing ‘Beth Ryan’, I hear my dad, my brothers. I’m not Liz Hayes. To this day, I’m Beth. It was only when reading the book that I went back and realised how big a deal it was to let go of that.”

Listen to the full interview with Liz Hayes on Something To Talk About in the player below or wherever you get your podcasts.

On joining the Today show on the Nine Network as Steve Liebmann’s co-host in 1986, at a time when the notion of watching breakfast television was a rarity: “It was crazy. Why would you turn on the television in the morning? Television is for night. It was like having dessert before you’ve had your main course. It was just wrong. It was brand new and breaking a few barriers. It was a rude awakening. It should be a rooster waking you, it shouldn’t be Steve Liebmann. I remember thinking, oh, this is actually a bit of fun. I didn’t appreciate where it was going, I don’t think. I was over the moon to be given that opportunity. That really did allow me to showcase a bit more of ‘me’. I almost can’t believe how breakfast television has evolved to what it is today. It’s unbelievable.”

“I almost can’t believe how breakfast television has evolved to what it is today. It’s unbelievable,” says Hayes. Picture: Daniel Nadel for Stellar

On the difficulty of enduring judgemental headlines and unsolicited feedback over the fact that she was divorced three times over the course of a decade, from the mid-’80s to the mid-’90s (Hayes was married to builder Bryan Hayes, advertising and media veteran John Singleton, and doctor Stephen Coogan): “It was a crap time. Let’s face it, these things are not great. And it’s magnified. It becomes bigger than Ben Hur. You’re looking at yourself. You’re reading about yourself. You’re noting that the view of you is pretty grim, so you come away thinking, I am pretty grim, I’m a bit of a failure on that front – and people are writing that. You could go knock on everybody’s door and say, ‘Well, can I give you a bit of backstory?’ You can’t do that, so you just have to accept that that’s the deal. But frankly, it’s a bit soul destroying to have seemingly the world telling you, ‘Yep, you’re a dud.’ It’s hard. I defy anybody, and those people who write those stories, to sit there and hear and see that written about them.”

Read the full interview with Liz Hayes in this weekend’s edition of Stellar, with Matt Preston on the cover.

On the surprising phone call she received from Bob Hawke – a friend of Singleton’s – not long after Hawke’s prime ministership (and her marriage to Singleton) came to an end in December 1991, inviting her to join him on a trip to the Gold Coast: “I just found it extraordinary that somebody I had come to know via my then-husband was ringing me up and asking me out. Really? And not once, but twice. I thought, well, what is it about me that makes him think that’s OK? That worried me. Why do I look like somebody you could just ring up and say, ‘Hey, how about we get on the jet and go to the Gold Coast with my mates?’ The one thing I expected from a mate of Singleton – who, by the way, I’m still very good friends with – was that he wouldn’t do that. And it’s not something I told [Singleton] about, actually, because I didn’t think that would help him. Then I looked at myself, which is probably a bit of Catholic something in me, and go, oh my God, what pheromones am I putting out that [Hawke] would think that would be an OK thing to do? I had a sense of that man. When I say ‘that man’, I don’t mean to be rude, but Bob Hawke gave off something when I first saw him [when Hayes was working] as a cadet journalist in Taree, and then he came back into my life because of John. But he was a sober man, and he was absolutely brilliant, and he was with [his wife] Hazel, and I never saw any bad behaviour towards me at all. So then to have this was like, oh my God, what’s that about? Anyway, I didn’t go.”

“If I was a doctor or nurse, I’d probably still have a job no matter what era I was in. But media was different – television, particularly,” she says. Picture: Daniel Nadel for Stellar

On what Hawke, Singleton and media magnate Kerry Packer – all iconic Australian blokes of a certain era – represented to her, and the ways in which we expect different things from men today: “They were very potent men, alpha males – really strong, ego-driven and highly successful men. Very bright and quite self-assured. They were at their prime at a time when men ruled. It was as simple as that. I saw that in how they dealt with the women in their lives. What’s changed is that women have decided that doesn’t have to be the case. [The men] could behave the way they did because it didn’t matter what women thought at that point; women weren’t able to stop them. We’ve come a long way. I don’t think that they were so blind to not realising that they were, at times, behaving inappropriately. I think they knew, and I think sometimes they would check themselves, but mostly they didn’t have to. So it would be only when somebody would say, ‘I’m out of here’ that there might be

a why. ‘Well, because you’re a rude bastard, that’s why!’ I feel a bit bad, but I don’t, because I know that all of these people have families and people who love them and will always and should. But that’s just the truth. They did rule. They were in charge of so much.”

On her 60 Minutes interview with British comedian and actor Russell Brand in 2012, during which he kissed her and attempted to unhook her bra, and how she feels about it now in light of recent accusations of alleged rape, sexual assaults and emotional abuse (which he has denied): “Look, I can say to you now that at the time it was his schtick. When I was with him he was a complete gentleman, but when the cameras came on, he went into performance mode. It was over the top and outrageous. That’s how I viewed it. I didn’t feel in danger. I felt one moment of embarrassment and that’s probably what I still feel when I see that. Now, that’s like the most ridiculous, inappropriate thing to do, no argument from me. But, you know, I was 57 and I thought I was OK. I recognise that it’s behaviour that’s now viewed differently because of the allegations and I’ve chosen not to pile on to that, because I think they’re allegations we should hear. But the difference then to the difference now is enormous. I’ve had so many calls and requests to talk about that and I chose not to, probably because it changes nothing. There’s nothing I can say that can really add to this, except to say I didn’t see a predator. I didn’t see a rapist. I didn’t have that experience. I had an experience of being embarrassed for a minute but I thought it was his schtick and, frankly, everyone did. I don’t think for a minute anybody thought he was a criminal. If any of us had thought he was, we wouldn’t have done that interview. That’s purely and utterly how it was.”

I’m Liz Hayes: A Memoir will be released later this month. Daniel Nadel for Stellar

On how she and Ben Crane, the former 60 Minutes sound recordist who has been her partner for more than two decades, dealt with the headlines when they got together: “We had to look at the big picture and [say], ‘Well, this is a moment in time we’re going through.’ He felt very injured – way more than me. I’d been through it before, and it doesn’t

feel any better having been through the headlines, but I was perhaps better prepared. He was mortified, and couldn’t quite understand why it was such a big deal. If I had been Beth, right, it wouldn’t have mattered an iota. He had to come to terms with that, which he clearly did. But it was ugly. It was unpleasant.”

On her view of ageing and the visibility of women in their 60s, particularly given she writes in her memoir that she once believed she would be out of work by the time she turned 40: “If I was a doctor or nurse, I’d probably still have a job no matter what era I was in. But media was different – television, particularly. I didn’t expect that a 40-year-old woman would still have a job in television. I just kept waiting for the tap on the shoulder and I thought, oh, until somebody tells me that the car park is full, I’ll keep turning up. But with

each step, I became a little more sturdy and resilient. That came with time. But it’s a bit bizarre. I’m 67 and I understand that my new challenge is to be an older woman on television. Not just a woman, but an ‘older woman’. I’d like to be able to stay. And, to be fair, I’m encouraged to stay. One day it will end, of course. But I’m pleased and a little surprised that I’m still here.”

I’m Liz Hayes: A Memoir by Liz Hayes (HarperCollins, $49.99) is out on November 15.

Originally published as Liz Hayes on THAT viral Russell Brand interview