Colour me happy: How Nat Bass found her joy again after ‘four years in haze of grief’

She’s been a rock chick, fashion designer and TV villain — now Natalie Bassingthwaighte is about to help you find your joy after overcoming her own struggle.

Colour me happy … Natalie Bassingingthwaighte will host Ten's Changing Rooms. Picture: Supplied.. Picture: Supplied.

With her dynamic personality and bold career choices — including fashion designer, rock chick and TV villain — it’s hard to hear Natalie Bassingthwaighte speak of feeling lost during her darkest of days.

On the other side of what she tells TV Guide/WATCH has been “four years in a haze of grief,” the 43-year-old has been on a deeply personal struggle to overcome the heart attack death of her best friend and long-time manager, Mark Byrne.

“He was my mentor, we were like two peas in a pod. So when he passed suddenly, it was almost like I lost my identity and didn’t really know where I’d fit in. I didn’t really know if I had confidence … I didn’t know who I am without him,’” she confides.

“It’s been four years now and I feel like it took all that time to come out of grief. It took me by surprise and it was heavy,” she says. “I think I hadn’t really dealt with it and so at the beginning of last year I had a really tough time and it was all because I hadn’t dealt with my grief. I was overworking myself and my fingers weren’t in the right pies. I wasn’t focusing on the things I really wanted to. But more importantly it was grief and I needed to work through that and I feel that I have now.”

MORE: ‘MAFS proves misogyny still a problem in Australia’

FIRST LOOK: GoT Season 8 photos

MORE: I’m A Celebrity’s ratings struggle

Sudden death … Celebrity agent Mark Byrne with friend and client Natalie Bassingthwaighte. Picture: Mark Byrne / Facebook

An adventure into the South African jungle two years ago, for Ten’s I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here was part of that process of self-discovery, most times without a safety net.

Her popularity among viewers took her to the final week of the competition, finishing third behind winner, singer Casey Donovan and former AFL star, Dane Swan.

Bubbling with enthusiasm about her transformation, she says she “feels like I have come into my own,” adding: “it’s amazing once you do that kind of self work what comes out of it.”

The same tenacity and application she has shown in building her music and TV career — with small screen credits which include Neighbours, Brock and The Wrong Girl — Bassingthwaighte put into herself.

“Anything and everything you can imagine, I tried,” she says. “Therapy, Kinesiology, energy clearing, meditation, yoga pilates … it was just grieving, all of the above.”

Add the demands of parenting two small children — daughter Harper, 8 and Hendrix, 5 — and it’s easy to see how Bassingthwaighte lost herself so easily.

Family love … Bassingthwaighte has found joy and peace with her husband Cameron McGlinchey, son Hendrix and daughter Harper. Picture: Supplied

“You don’t want them to see you crying. You don’t want them to see you like that and that’s when we as parents hold emotions in. But at the same time, I think it’s really important for them to see you being vulnerable so they know they can be vulnerable too.”
Taking the time “to figure all that out, I’m now in the best space ever.”

It was in this positive mindframe that Bassingthwaighte took a call from Ten, offering her the hosting role for its reboot of lifestyle series, Changing Rooms.

A self-confessed interiors junkie (“I have my own Panetone colour book, don’t you worry”), the house proud working mum could not have asked for a better job.

“Being around the designers, I’m in my element. Everyone today thinks they’re a designer, including myself,” she laughs, “but when you see what they can do, it’s a real art to it. They are exceptional.”

Colour burst … Bassingthwaighte is an interiors junkie and has added pops of colour to her Bayside home in Melbourne. Picture: Herald Sun.

The format has been updated from the series which first aired on Nine back in 1998 — with two teams given $20,000 to makeover three rooms in the other team’s home.

Reflecting the happier headspace she’s in, Bassingthwaighte has been inspired to make some bold choices to her home’s largely grey colour palette.

“I’m experimenting with colour — including a mustard yellow coloured lounge, these beautiful velvet dining chairs and there’s a hot pink pouf, all combined in one space. It sounds hideous, but it’s been great to add colour to my life.”

Joining the global craze to apply to organisational methods of Marie Kondo, she “bought the book and Saturday I literally emptied out everything in my kitchen cupboards. It’s keep, throw out or give away, that’s what we do in our house. I’m a good throwaway-erer. No hoarding necessary in this house,” she laughs.

While Kondo’s catchphrase is “spark joy,” Bassingthwaighte is taking her own mantra into 2019, with daily meditation and more work projects to be announced.

“My mantra is ‘surrender to the joy that’s all around me’ because it is.”

* Changing Rooms, 7.30pm, Wednesday and Thursday, on 10.

Originally published as Colour me happy: How Nat Bass found her joy again after ‘four years in haze of grief’