Erin Molan: ‘Things that used to hurt me don’t anymore’
TELEVISION presenter Erin Molan knows being in the public eye can often lead to criticism of her looks and work ethic. But she’s done with being offended by things people say or think.
Stellar
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THERE isn’t much that can stop Erin Molan in her tracks. Not even a turbulent pregnancy, or a recent collapse at the Nine Network studios, was enough to make the popular sports presenter wave the white flag and take maternity leave early.
“I’m all good,” Molan now tells Stellar of her mid-February scare, which saw the TV presenter rushed to hospital, her worried fiancé Sean Ogilvy close behind. “It was just low blood pressure and a bit of low sugar.”
Molan was already suffering from pregnancy-related nausea when she ended up on a flight that made her hideously unwell, and by the time she arrived at the studios, she was feeling frail and light-headed. “I managed to make it to the tiled bathroom before I decided to faint — which is never ideal,” the 34-year-old jokes. “And when I came to, the ambulance was there — they were fantastic. They took me into hospital for a full check-up, just to make sure that the bub was OK. And the baby is all good, which is the biggest relief ever.”
Molan admits the scare was a “wake-up call to take it easy”. But if she is supposed to be slowing down, her schedule is working against her. Aside from hosting the NRL Footy Show live on Thursday and Sunday nights, Moan also spends her Friday and Saturday evenings in the studio to read the sports bulletin. That’s in addition to presenting countdown show 20 to One alongside comedian Dave Thornton, and her gig on a Saturday talk radio show that airs in Sydney and Brisbane. “Even if we wanted to keep Erin away, we couldn’t,” a Nine insider jests. “I think we’d have to build a giant wall around the studio to stop her turning up.”
But by the time June rolls around, she will be faced with her biggest and likely most challenging role yet when she welcomes her first child. “It will be the most important job for me yet,” Molan says, “which is bizarre to say given how I see work.”
Since she landed her first journalism job in community television in her hometown of Canberra, Molan has been undeterredly committed. In fact, in the 14 years before she became pregnant, she tells Stellar, she has only ever taken one sick day. It’s a work ethic likely instilled and inherited from her father, Senator Jim Molan. The esteemed former major general, who was at the coal face of conflicts in East Timor in 1999 and Iraq in 2004, and this year took his seat as a Liberal Party senator, has already made headlines in his first few weeks in Federal Parliament. He came under fire from Labor over his comments to reduce immigration, while the Greens incorrectly suggested he was possibly a war criminal for his involvement in planning the second battle of Fallujah during the Iraq War.
Despite the controversies, Molan tells Stellar she stands behind her father and describes him as “an incredibly impressive human being”. But she chooses to refrain from commenting on any of the specific issues that have landed him in the crosshairs.
“I’ll definitely leave all the politics to him — 100 per cent,” she says diplomatically. “I’m not short of an opinion and I certainly have them. But when it comes to politics and policies and Dad’s thoughts on different things, I’ll always support him — but I would prefer not to comment on how I feel.”
What she will reveal is that, true to form, she does not plan to take much time off even after she finds herself trying to juggle a demanding newborn and that overloaded diary. Asked how long she expects to be on maternity leave, Molan responds, “I think I will be able to go back very quickly because I’ll be able to be a full-time mum at home; I can do my prep from there, and then be able to go into work for a few hours at night.”
She says she intends to take a nanny along with her for the evening news shift — before pre-emptively acknowledging, “I’m well aware that other mothers reading this will probably say, ‘OK, you have absolutely no idea.’”
Molan and her partner, detective Sean Ogilvy, 42, were not necessarily planning to start a family this year. The pair met by chance at Sydney’s beachside entertainment venue Coogee Pavilion two years ago, and have been inseparable since. Last year, they were in the throes of busily planning a wedding when Molan listened to instinct and decided to take a pregnancy test. “I showed [Sean] the test and it was like, ‘Holy sh*t,’” she says with a laugh. The couple soon adjusted to the news — a welcome surprise after living through a year she now describes as her “toughest yet”.
Last May, Molan was sensationally dragged into an ugly court case between celebrity accountant Anthony Bell and his wife Kelly Landry when Landry told the court she believed something had been “going on” between Molan and Bell, who crewed 2016’s winning Sydney to Hobart yacht Perpetual Loyal together. Molan was forced to publicly deny the allegations and took legal action to clear her name. She admits now she could have done without the drama but acknowledges the experience taught her one thing: “I am stronger than I ever thought.”
It has also reinforced her decision to remain resolute in her personal choices — even when they end up being made public. “Things that used to hurt me and offend and upset me don’t anymore,” she says. “You can say that I’m ugly, you can say I’m a sh*t TV presenter, you can say anything you like about me. But there’s certain things you can’t say when they’re not true.”
So, yes, she does expectto cop some flak for going back to work so quickly — but to that end, she insists, “This child will be loved and nourished and nurtured and looked after better than anything else in the world — regardless of when I decide to go back and sit at a desk for an hour at night to do my job.”
She will also have fellow Nine star and friend Rebecca Maddern to turn to for support. In an unlikely turn of events, both of the network’s star female sports reporters will be delivering their first babies within weeks of one another. “She’s been fantastic,” Molan says. “It’s been really nice having someone who can relate.”
Aside from the debilitating nausea that Molan has addressed with candour on her Instagram feed — “I am sick every single day… I often have to run out of the hair and make-up room multiple times unwell. Twice, once at radio and once at TV, I have been likened to a ‘walking corpse’” – Molan has also been trying her hardest to adjust to hormones that have been thrown out of sync.
Not long ago, she reveals, she burst into tears simply because she saw a branch break off of a tree. All this, she says, is compounded by the fact that she occupies a profession in which her appearance is constantly under scrutiny. Her growing baby bump will soon mean she can’t wear her usual wardrobe looks, but she is not interested in whingeing about that. “As long as I’m healthy and the baby is healthy, I’ll handle anything else,” Molan says. “We’ve got amazing hair and make-up girls. And I can always wear muumuus!”
Erin Molan hosts the NRL Footy Show on Thursday nights and The Sunday Footy Show.