How TV host Andrew O’Keefe beat the dark days
TV star Andrew O’Keefe has talked for the first time about the demons he faced after the end of his marriage and the death of a close friend this year. He reveals he sought professional help and made time for “a whole lot of quiet.”
Fiona Byrne
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Speaking for the first time since checking out of a mental health clinic, TV star Andrew O’Keefe has described himself as a “work in progress”.
O’Keefe, 48, took an eight-week break from his production schedule with hit Channel 7 quiz show The Chase in April to reset his life after suffering an emotional collapse.
“I have had a few things going on in my life in recent times — there have been a few things going on in my life as a constant for a little too long,’’ he told the Sunday Herald Sun.
“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.
“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.
“I mean sleep would have been handy, I think maybe spending some time doing things that I enjoyed rather than spending all of my time dealing with the micro details of the more painful parts of my life would have been wise.
“The diet could have been better, fluids that had no decimal points in them would have been good.
“(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.”
O’Keefe, whose marriage ended last year and who was rocked by the death of a close friend early this year, has had his share of unflattering headlines over the years. He sought professional help including “time out in a clinic” after realising he needed “a whole lot of quiet.”
“I needed to be in a place that was not part of my normal environment because I needed to break what had become my normal modes of thinking and reacting to certain situations and feelings,” he said.
“So I sought help around dealing with a lot of the painful emotions that I have been experiencing and of course painful emotions generally breed unhelpful behaviours because no one likes to live with the pain, they want to get rid of it as soon as possible. The sense of loss of meaning in your life, which is what I felt, generates behaviours that you yourself don’t even recognise.”
A rejuvenated O’Keefe returned to The Chase in early June and is now embarking on a national tour with this stage show Andrew O’Keefe ‘Shouts’ Johnny O’Keefe, a tribute to his uncle, Australia’s original wild rocker.
He said the show and his passion for the music helped him find better balance and connection in his life.
As he prepares to kick off his JOK tour at Crown in Melbourne on October 18, O’Keefe is clear that while his health and mental state is better and he is more focused he is not fixed.
“Am I a work in progress? God I hope everyone is a work in progress,” he said.
“I would hate to think I would wake up tomorrow being the same person I was today. I hope I wake up being a slightly better person, but that is not always guaranteed.
“I see the year behind and the year ahead as being like a bushfire.
“Everything I thought I knew about my life changed and it all feels scarred and tender, but I know I have to wait just a little bit for those last embers to die down ‘til the next rain comes for me to see some green.
“I don’t envisage I will become the same person I was, I hope I don’t.”