Andrew O’Keefe takes time away from ‘The Chase’ to focus on mental health
Popular game show host Andrew O’Keefe is taking time away from television as he focuses on his mental health, with production halting on The Chase for the rest of the year.
Fiona Byrne
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Production of Channel 7’s top rating quiz show, The Chase, has been halted until the new year as host Andrew O’Keefe continues to focus on his mental health.
O’Keefe, who on Saturday was in Hobart performing his Andrew O’Keefe “Shouts” Johnny O’Keefe show, will return to the production in January.
It is understood Seven made the decision last week to reschedule the remaining three weeks of filming for 2019 and move them into early 2020 to give their valuable star a further break and some “clear air” to work on his health, and also to complete the remaining handful of dates of his well received “Shouts” tour.
The halting of filming will not affect the roll out of The Chase in 2020.
It is believed that Seven has a number of weeks of new episodes of the show in reserve meaning viewers will not be impacted by the rescheduling of production.
O’Keefe is under contract with Seven until the end of 2020 and is committed to The Chase, which is one of the shining lights in the network’s programming schedule.
“It is the best show on television. I will host it for as long as it is there to be hosted and as long as (Seven) wants me to,’’ O’Keefe said last month.
A Seven spokesperson confirmed the halting of production.
“The network has rescheduled the production of The Chase to start in early 2020,” the spokesperson said yesterday.
“The rescheduling will allow Andrew O’Keefe time to finish the run of his Johnny O’Keefe shows without the added pressure of records for The Chase.
“We look forward to having him back in the studio filming The Chase in January.”
Seven has treated O’Keefe, one of Australian TV’s best performers, with kid gloves this year as he took an eight week break in April to reset his life and seek mental health treatment after suffering an emotional collapse.
He described himself as “lost” and “exhausted” at that point in his life.
“I was surprised to discover perhaps I was not as resilient as I imagined I was and that …. I was exhausted, I was a bit lost,” O’Keefe told the Sunday Herald Sun in October.
“Some of us ride a Harley Davidson in ill-fitting jeans that we paid too much for, some of us overeat, some of us overwork — we all use different methods to escape from the most uncomfortable parts of our existence and I certainly was not using the most healthy ones.
“(It was) an accumulation of sorrows and stresses and poor choices about health, really, and I just could not see that I had the time or the strength to change that without removing myself entirely from the world for a bit.”
During that interview O’Keefe was clear that while his health and mental state were stronger he was a work in progress.
“I would hate to think I would wake up tomorrow being the same person I was today,” he said.
“I hope I wake up being a slightly better person, but that is not always guaranteed.
“I don’t envisage I will become the same person I was, I hope I don’t.”