Kerri-Anne Kennerley: ‘I’ve lied so much I can’t remember how old I am’
LIFE has changed dramatically for Kerri-Anne Kennerley in the past couple of years, but the Australian TV icon refuses to be weighed down by the “mental obesity” of personal tragedy.
Stellar
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ANYONE watching Kerri-Anne Kennerley being inducted into the Hall of Fame at last year’s Logie Awards would have thought the grande dame of Australian daytime television was in her element.
Dressed in designer sparkles and fortified by a swig of champagne, Kerri-Anne gave a 12-minute speech that was funny, feisty and deeply moving, as she told the audience she would give away every moment of her 50-year career to have her husband John out of his wheelchair and standing by her side.
But the woman who has interviewed everyone from Robin Williams to John Howard was, in fact, uncharacteristically nervous. “I was packing it backstage,” she tells Stellar. “It was really scary, and I was completely out of my comfort zone. I know my studio, my Midday, my Mornings, and I know how to cover anything if I screw up. But this was different.”
Not only was the showbiz icon overwhelmed but, as the cameras cut from her on the stage to John in the audience, only she knew what it had taken to get them there. A particular flight — it had to be a twin-aisle Boeing 767; a special taxi for John’s power chair; a nurse; a hired hospital mattress; a suitcase of equipment and medication; and a last-minute customising of her husband’s tuxedo.
A year on, as she stands in John’s walk-in wardrobe, she explains: “Since John’s accident, it’s been difficult to get him dressed. So I came up with the idea of cutting a big slit up the back of his shirts and jackets.”
She pulls a pink gingham shirt off the rail to showcase her handiwork. “He was horrified, of course,” she says with a laugh. “But it’s so much easier to get one arm in, pull the shirt across his front and insert his other arm.” She shrugs. “No-one can see the split because his back is pressed against his wheelchair.” As she guides Stellar through their bedroom, where John’s hospital bed and hoist are positioned by the king-size bed they once shared, Kerri-Anne’s delight at her own inventiveness (she now pays a tailor for alterations) is emblematic of her can-do attitude.
When John fell off a balcony in March 2016, fracturing his C3 and C4 vertebrae and leaving him an “incomplete quadriplegic”, Kerri-Anne had only recently left the grind of daily television. For the first time, the pair were free to travel, play golf and enjoy a stream of red-carpet invitations unhindered by an early morning wake-up call. In an instant, the prize for all those years of hard work evaporated.
Every day before she went to the hospital, Kerri-Anne drew on a brave face. The lipstick, the blush and dazzling smile that had seen her through decades of live television were now an armour against fear. Occasionally, the mask dropped — back at home, obviously, but also while telling her Sunday Night colleague Mike Willesee how bad it really was. “A whole chunk of me just doesn’t exist anymore,” she sobbed, revealing that John had dreamt she might leave him.
Two years later, Kerri-Anne is in a more robust state as she spends a morning with Stellar inside her Sydney home. She’s dressed in a brightly patterned Camilla jacket, linen pants and wedges. The day before, she’d worked 10 hours — along with the photos for this feature, she also shot a campaign for Razzamatazz hosiery, for which she’s an ambassador for its new Luxe collection. Playful and unpretentious, Kerri-Anne is an obvious choice — who better to embody the notion that the “show must go on”? Or, for that matter, an entire brand?
As she says: “I’m a brand. I always was a brand and I’m still a brand. And I always wore stocking on my shows — so it’s a good fit. I know from all my years in television that wearing stockings gives your legs a better sheen. I still wear them when I’m hosting an event or at a show.” And she is hardly shy about showing a little leg, even now. “They’re not bad,” Kerri-Anne says. “I still do a lot of walking and I play golf, which is good for your calf muscles... especially now I’m not wearing high heels so often.”
Kerri-Anne still combines her work for the Seven Network with advertising, brand ambassadorships and corporate hosting — along with Razzamatazz, she works with the cancer charity Look Good Feel Better. “I’ve got to earn a living, apart from anything else,” she says matter-of-factly. And she still enjoys throwing on some, yes, high heels and showing her face at premieres. “People call it ‘networking’, but that’s a bit of a dirty word. I call it making friends. Lots of people whinge and carry on like pork chops about having to go to these events. For god’s sake, get a grip! How hard is it to go out to a nice function with relatively nice people and have a glass of something?”
With that, John comes whirring into the room in his power chair. He’s off to a medical appointment, and Kerri-Anne is slightly miffed he’s wearing tracksuit pants. She’d have laid out smarter clothes. “Where did you get those?” she says with faux exasperation. “You got them,” he quips. “Off the back of a truck. But you took all the good stuff for yourself.”
Watching them banter, it becomes evident that while much of their life has changed, love and commitment prevail. When they met in New York in 1979, he was the mature, kind Englishman and she the glamorous ingénue who he rescued from her violent first marriage. Now, after 34 years of marriage, she is the one caring for him. “She’s been brilliant,” John says. “If I’m down, she’ll lift me up. She’s got enormous stamina. I never imagined she’d still be working, but it makes her happy.” He grins, adding, “If she stopped doing that there’d be no need to buy new dresses and shoes — so half her life would go.”
Still, behind these wisecracks a tremendous sadness exists. A lift has been installed in the house in the exact spot where John used to tinker with his beloved model trains. The track, which once ran from the house and around the garden, has been severed, a brutal reminder of what he’s lost. While John now has limited use of his hands, both he and Kerri-Anne are hoping a groundbreaking neurostimulation program being brought to Australia by US company Project Edge may improve his movement. His goal is to scratch his nose.
The Kennerleys never had children, although Kerri-Anne tragically suffered a miscarriage in 1988. In her 2017 autobiography A Bold Life, she tells how she believed she was having a boy and sometimes still thinks about how old he might be now. “What John and I went through is deeply personal,” she writes. “It’s a terrible experience to have your baby die inside of you. I will never have anyone love me like I love my mother and have loved my father, who we have lost.”
Simon, John’s son from his first marriage, has moved from the UK to be his carer.
As for the baby the Kennerleys never had, the child would have been 30 this year. Asked if she wishes, particularly since John’s accident, that they had managed to have children, she replies: “It’s not the sort of thing that crosses my mind. [The miscarriage] was deeply painful at the time, but I only delve into and consider things that are possible. It’s ridiculous to consider what-ifs. I’d be a basket case if I did that.”
This ability to reject excessive self-analysis armed her for her current predicament. She just does what’s necessary, whether taking the Tamoxifen that offers another layer of protection against the breast cancer she fought six years ago, or climbing into John’s single hospital bed simply so they can enjoy a cuddle. She has no truck with wallowers. “Who wants to weigh themselves down? It’s mental obesity, and it’s exhausting. You’ve got to work your way out, through and up. I’m not saying it’s easy but you get better at it the more you try.”
After years of obfuscating on her age, Kerri-Anne tells Stellar that she looks forward to turning 65 in September. “I lied about my age for so long, even I couldn’t remember how old I was,” she says, recalling how on one occasion John had to remind her of the maths. “When you’ve had breast cancer, it’s good to be celebrating a birthday. There’s not a woman alive who doesn’t want to go back to being 35 or 40 but, again, it’s one of those ‘waste of time’ subjects.”
Having spoken out about sexual harassment in the wake of the allegations against Don Burke late last year, Kerri-Anne points out that there are now laws to protect women. But, she also believes that women have to stand up for themselves. “You have to say: ‘You’re an idiot. Go away, you fool. Do it again and you’re not going to love what is going to happen.’”
While workplace culture is changing, some men and women will continue to be arrogant, she argues. Her advice: be ballsy. “I hope we’re not raising a generation of young women without the strength and wherewithal to deal with problems themselves.”
For decades, her motto — in work and life — has been wrapped up in one simple word: survival. Now, however, it is not just about her own. Every time she and John go away — in recent weeks they’ve been to the Grand Prix in Melbourne, and the war memorial and Jamala Wildlife Lodge in Canberra — she returns home exhausted and vows not to do it again.
And then she does. Because her wedding dance all those years ago was to Anne Murray’s ‘You Needed Me’. Back then, it was she who needed him. Now it’s John who needs his wife to provide hope and strength. Watching Kerri-Anne as she rubs his cold hands and calls him “darling”, there is little doubt that she will continue to do just that.