Chrissie Swan reveals why you don’t see her much on TV anymore
In her first in-depth interview in five years, Chrissie Swan reveals why she’s no longer the Aussie TV fixture she once was.
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Chrissie Swan kickstarted her media career with a near season-winning appearance on Big Brother in 2003.
From there, she became a fixture of Australian television, winning fans across morning television (The Circle), family-friendly quiz shows (The Great Australian Spelling Bee) and even a return to the genre that birthed her, reality (I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here).
Nowadays, while Swan is a familiar voice to radio listeners from her breakfast show on Melbourne’s Nova 100, she pops up much more rarely on the small screen.
Speaking to Stellar Magazine for her first in-depth interview in five years, Melbourne-based mum-of-three Swan explains the simple reason why.
“Most of the shows are filmed in Sydney and I just don’t do well away from my family on any level, even for a night,” she explains.
“I don’t know if I’m a sook, but I just don’t do well out of my role as a mother. I wish I did. I’ve tested it enough times to know, and the result has been the same. I get in a funk in hotel rooms. I just get so sad away from the kids. I’d rather be here at home. I’ve turned it into a compound – I’ve got everything I need here.”
Elsewhere in the wide-ranging interview, which takes place in Swan’s family “compound” in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, the 46-year-old reveals why she hasn’t given an interview for so many years and reflects on her controversial 2011 Gold Logie nomination.
Swan’s inclusion in the category alongside the likes of Rebecca Gibney and Asher Keddie prompted a shady response from Eddie McGuire, who called a vote for Swan a vote for “the dumb kid in class to gee up the teachers”.
“There’s a dark horse for the Gold Logie every year now,” says Swan, who scored the Gold nomination for her work on The Circle – and won Most Popular New Female Talent the same year.
“I must have been the first. I agree it was odd; I had no control over it. But also, so what? Maybe I broke the Logies? Maybe that was the start of it. What’s the big deal? People vote for somebody and they get nominated. Eddie couldn’t understand it, but The Circle was really important to a lot of people. It was like a lifeline for them.”
Read the full interview with Chrissie in the current issue of Stellar, available in The Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Herald Sun.
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Originally published as Chrissie Swan reveals why you don’t see her much on TV anymore