SBS star Anjali Rao to spice up Real Housewives of Melbourne cast
Anjali Rao made her name anchoring the world’s most prominent news networks, but now she’s returning to the small screen in a very different fashion — as one of three new faces set to join the Real Housewives of Melbourne.
Entertainment
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Former SBS television presenter Anjali Rao is one of three new additions to the cast of the new look Real Housewives of Melbourne.
Rao, who last year claimed Australian commercial TV’s lack of cultural diversity killed her career, moved to Melbourne in 2012 after working at Sky News and Channel 5 in the UK and five years as a news anchor with CNN International.
She said she had been unable to land a full-time role because of her accent and skin colour.
Rao was raised in Hong Kong, educated in England, and spent many years working in Asia and the UK. She is currently a single divorced mother of a ten-year-old son, from her marriage to Brett Gullan.
Back in 2014 she also dated TV renovating guru Jamie Durie.
Now, ahead of her debut Rao has opened up to Confidential about how — and why — she made the leap to reality TV.
“I’ve got the triple threat here … I’m a woman, Pommy accent and brown skin,” she said.
“It was completely out of the blue, they came to me and I initially went, ‘I don’t think so’, but they’re very persuasive.
“I’m presenting other people’s news and this is all about my news. It’s going to be different.”
The veteran presenter also said it had been a struggle to find consistent work since arriving Down Under eight years ago.
“It’s been really difficult, having qualifications and overseas experience and that’s seen as a disadvantage rather than advantage,” she said.
“I was told that before, but didn’t believe it.
“It’s been rough saying goodbye to my news career. It’s been like mourning a death. But it’s a transformative phase of my career.”
The other two new Housewives are yoga instructor Cherry Dipietrantonio and Kyla Kirkpatrick, a self-made business woman known as champagne dame.
With Sally Bloomfield, Venus Behbahani and Jackie Gillies departing the show, the door opened for the three new glamorous and successful women.
Returning cast members for season five of the Foxtel reality hit are Gamble Breaux, Gina Liano, Janet Roach and Lydia Schiavello.
After more than a year hiatus the popular program will start filming next month.
Cherry, originally from Southampton in the UK, met husband Andre in Bali at the age of 18 when travelling the world during a gap year with girlfriends. They married in Melbourne three years after they met and have three children.
Kyla and her partner Kyri have a six-year-old daughter Arlinghton-Rose, named after the area of Scotland from which her family originate. During the Australian winter each year, they
venture to Paris as a family, dividing their time between the City of Lights and Champagne
where they host luxury tours.
Rao spent six years hosting CNN’s weekday breakfast news and weekly celebrity chat show, Talk Asia, interviewing the world’s biggest names to 220 million homes across the world. Since moving to Australia seven years ago, she has been a regular guest presenter on a number of prime time television and radio shows.
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The 10-part one-hour series will air on Foxtel’s Arena at a date to be announced.
“The Real Housewives of Melbourne is our most loved reality program and our audience has been literally begging for us to bring it back,” Foxtel group general manager lifestyle Wendy Moore said.
“We couldn’t do that without shaking things up and adding a bit of spice to the fun. These are strong, successful women, and we love having a window into their lives. This is going to be viewing you can really sink your heels into.”