Ian Thorpe shares new secrets with Julia Zemiro for Home Delivery’s return to ABC-TV

IAN Thorpe, who told the world he was gay in a chat with Sir Michael Parkinson, is sitting down for another Q & A with Julia Zemiro tonight.

Ian Thorpe

THE pom poms, glitter bombs and Viennese souvenirs from this year’s Eurovision have been put away and Julia Zemiro is back in the driver’s seat of her eponymous series, Julia Zemiro’s Home Delivery.

A chat show with a difference, it has delivered some of the most unexpected insights into stars we thought we knew — a testament to the warmth and respect Zemiro shows her car companions.

A relaxed and comical Superfish ... Ian Thorpe has Julia Zemiro in fits of laughter.

Driving them back to their childhood homes, revisiting schoolyard memories or simply chatting about life while at the stop lights, Zemiro’s subjects drop the guard more easily in this relaxed and informal format — this season earning the confidence of guests including media personalities Ita Buttrose, ABC-TV presenter Leigh Sales and The Project’s Waleed Aly; comics Alan Davies, Matt Lucas and Jo Brand; as well as actor Mandy McElhinney and Paralympian Kurt Fearnley.

An inspiration to journalists and more ... Ita Buttrose is appearing in Julia Zemiro’s Home Delivery. Picture: Craig Wilson

First up is Ian Thorpe, whose last TV interview made worldwide headlines when he came out about his sexuality and admitted to a long battle with depression with perhaps the small screen’s premiere confessor, Michael Parkinson.

Having always endured a prickly relationship with the media during his champion swimming career, it is a noticeably more at ease Thorpey who goes down memory lane with Zemiro — visiting his old primary school, the first pool he learned to swim in and reconnecting with a salt-of-the-earth boxing coach from Cronulla who helped whip the “super fish” into shape.

School days ... Ian Thorpe and Julia Zemiro on their road trip. Picture: Supplied

As an interviewer, Zemiro is more a curious confidante than probing journalist, but it’s a familiarity that works with Thorpe, who chats about the potential for romance in his life; admits he grew up too soon in the public spotlight; and misses the meditative qualities of swimming, after a recent operation to replace his left shoulder has him sidelined.

As Zemiro says to Thorpe and repeats to News Corp Australia, she believes the prolonged questioning of the young swimmer about his private life was “rubbish, just rubbish” — a point expanded on by a “completely chilled” Thorpe, who says he remained uncomfortable with the press intrusion until his tell-all on Ten last year.

“I wanted to explain why I didn’t come out. Part of me felt that I should have to but it was just something I had never felt was appropriate,” Thorpe tells Zemiro. “Before then, it was something that I had never been comfortable with talking about to anyone, let alone the world. So I was really pleased when it happened, and since, life’s been good.” 

JULIA ZEMIRO’S HOME DELIVERY, WEDNESDAY, 9PM, ABC

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Originally published as Ian Thorpe shares new secrets with Julia Zemiro for Home Delivery’s return to ABC-TV