Aussie TV stars go public with ‘terrifying’ secret problem

Hours after Carrie Bickmore went public with a 20-year mental health struggle, ABC star Nate Byrne was hit with the same issue, live on TV.

It was Monday afternoon when much-loved TV and radio presenter Carrie Bickmore made a public confession that came as a shock to many who’ve followed her career since the early noughties.

An emotional Bickmore revealed that she’d secretly battled sometimes debilitating anxiety for the past 20 years, suffering panic attacks throughout her career while co-hosting Rove Live, The Project, and in her current radio gig on the Hit Network’s Carrie & Tommy show.

The next morning, as Bickmore’s on-air revelation made headlines, another popular Australian TV personality was experiencing the very same problem in real time.

ABC Breakfast’s longtime weather presenter Nate Byrne was running through Tuesday’s forecast when he appeared to falter.

“I’m actually going to need to stop for a second,” he told viewers midway through the weather segment.

“Some of you may know that I occasionally get affected by some panic attacks, and actually that’s happening right now.

“Lisa, maybe I could hand back to you,” he said, and Breakfast host Lisa Millar took the reins, allowing her colleague time to recover off-air.

Nate’s struggle: ‘Thought he was having a stroke’

It was February 2022 when Byrne first publicly opened up about a private battle with anxiety, revealing that he has in the past suffered panic attacks while live on-air.

And in a candid article penned for the ABC website, Byrne also shared footage from those moments so viewers could understand the experiences that nearly “broke” him as he wondered whether he’d be able to continue in the job he loves.

Byrne was hit with a panic attack during yesterday's broadcast.

Byrne also experienced a panic attack during this 2020 weather segment.

Byrne revealed his first on-air panic attack occurred while reporting the weather live on-air during a 2018 episode of News Breakfast. Watching it back, the issue would have been near-imperceptible to viewers – but Byrne said the experience left him feeling “light headed and confused” and he was taken off-air for the rest of the day.

ABC News Breakfast host Michael Rowland then filled in on weather duties in his colleague’s absence:

After Byrne’s 2018 attack, Michael Rowland stepped in to read the weather.

Byrne was placed on beta blockers to control his anxiety, before slowly weaning himself off them, thinking he had the issue under control.

But then another on-air panic attack hit in 2020 – and this time Byrne’s difficulties were much more noticeable. Repeatedly pausing to catch his breath, he stumbled his words as he struggled to make it to the end of the weather report.

Watching on, his on-air News Breakfast colleague Lisa Millar later said she worried he might be having a stroke.

“Sitting a few metres from you I was struck that it now felt you were wading through mud, each word seeming to need so much effort,” she later told him.

Byrne said he still dealt with anxiety, but that talking about the issue and seeking treatment had made the problem more manageable – and also meant he was still able to do the job he loves each morning.

Byrne was back later in yesterday’s show to assure viewers he was OK.

After yesterday’s incident, Byrne joined his colleagues back in the studio, his anxiety having passed.

“Sorry if I gave anybody a bit of a scare,” he said.

“You’ve been very honest before about getting panic attacks on air and it’s great for people to know that it can happen to anyone,” Millar replied, before Rowland jumped in with a joke.

“Gave me a scare because I thought I’d have to finish doing the weather report,” he said.

Carrie goes public: ‘Worried I’d be humiliated forever’

“I’ve suffered from anxiety and panic attacks since I was about 20,” Bickmore, 43, told listeners yesterday on the Hit Network’s Carrie & Tommy show.

“It’s hard, actually, to describe what I felt. It was like shame, I think, [also] embarrassment. I don’t think I really fully understood what was going on in my own head. I think talking about it almost made me feel more anxious, so I just kept it in my own head.”

It wasn’t until recently, when she saw old footage of herself on Rove Live that she remembered feeling anxious for most of her time on the show, from 2006 to 2009.

“All I could see was anxiety and I was just permanently in a state of panic on that show,” she said.

“I just wanted to reach through the phone and hug her because I was like, oh my God, that was terrifying.”

Bickmore said every time she did her regular ‘Carrie at the News Desk’ segment on the show, she was on “the verge of a panic attack”. She said this was pretty much the case “every single time I went on air in any capacity on TV and radio for a good decade”.

“Sometimes, I’d have the panic attacks while I was on air reading the news and I would disguise it as shortness of breath or my quavering voice with coughs or laughs or technical difficulties,” she admitted.

Carrie on Rove Live circa 2007.

Bickmore said she almost turned down The Project because she was worried about how to manage her anxiety. Picture: Channel 10

Her private battle also got in the way of her career choices, with Bickmore initially wanting to turn down the hosting gig on The Project because she was “so scared of doing something new”.

“There were so many jobs over the time that I’ve said no to and I look back and I think, ‘Oh my God, where could that have taken me?’ Incredible opportunities because I was worried that something would set me off and that I’d be humiliated forever,” she confessed.

“But then I also look back and I think for some reason, sometimes I’d want to like lean into the challenge and, and my brain would say, ‘No, don’t let the anxiety win, like you can do this.’ And that’s why I said yes to The Project and ended up doing it for 14 years.”

Others speak out: ‘Worst public embarrassment’

Byrne and Bickmore are far from the only people to grapple with on-air anxiety when performing live on television. In fact, a past guest on the very same show as Byrne wrote an equally candid piece after suffering what he called “the worst public embarrassment of his career” in 2016.

Dr Benjamin Habib was booked to appear live on ABC News Breakfast as an expert guest on North Korea. Despite having extensive knowledge on the topic, he was wracked with anxiety and “did not sleep a single minute” the night before his appearance, which had to be abandoned quickly by the hosts as he blanked on the first question they asked him.

“The interview was a disaster from the get-go as I melted down under the weight of anxiety. The experience was mortifying, the feeling afterwards devastating and the humiliation very public,” Dr Habib wrote in a reflection of the events published by news.com.au at the time. But he was also touched by the very real messages of support he received from viewers who were concerned for his wellbeing.

Accomplished TV anchor Dan Harris froze on US television in 2004.

The issue can affect even the most experienced TV personalities: US news anchor Dan Harris famously “freaked out in front of five million people” while reading the news on a 2004 episode of Good Morning America.

“I was overtaken by a massive, irresistible blast of fear. It felt like the world was ending. My heart was thumping. I was gasping for air. I had pretty much lost the ability to speak,” he later wrote of the experience.

“And all of it was compounded by the knowledge that my freak-out was being broadcast live on national television.

“Halfway through the six stories I was supposed to read, I simply bailed, squeaking out a ‘Back to you.’”

Originally published as Aussie TV stars go public with ‘terrifying’ secret problem