Kerri-Anne Kennerley and husband John have lived in Woollahra “forever” — in one house for 17 years, and their current Victorian home for the past 19 years.

Walking through the Kennerley home is like taking a stroll through their lives.

Photographs of the pair with celebrity friends — including Donald Trump, Princess Mary and Diana Ross — line the piano. Picture books of cherished Italian holidays sit on the coffee table, waiting to be admired.

A top shelf champagne-stocked bar is at the ready.

The furniture is soft and welcoming, with neutral mid-century tones and detail brought to life by pops of colour, sparkle and personality — just like Kerri-Anne.

The home, which now has a lift for John, who is wheelchair bound after a tragic accident left him a quadriplegic last year, is a buzz of activity — gardeners hedge the thriving plants, helpful assistants find safety pins to make an award lunch dress sit just right.

Her new book — A Bold Life — sits proudly in the living room, where it was written. Its pages are at home here. And so are we.

One scrapbook at a time

Kerri-Anne walks down Queen St for coffee, heads to The Lord Dudley for a late dinner, does her banking and shopping at Edgecliff and anything she can’t find there, she picks up at Bondi Junction.

Before John’s tragic accident last year which resulted in spinal injuries after a fall, he used to walk much-loved family golden retriever Digger through Centennial Park.

Now, Kerri-Anne does. Their lives have changed dramatically since that fateful day — but it’s a life that is far from over.

Yesterday Kerri-Anne released her first autobiography, and as she told the Wentworth Courier, it’s one she’s immensely proud of. And something she couldn’t have done without ‘her John’.

“It took just over 12 months and I wrote it at home with John,” she said.

“I was lucky because John had always kept scrapbooks of me and my work, and there were about 35 volumes of scrapbooks, so it was relatively easy to chronologically put together.

“We had about 40 albums of photos, and with every picture there is a story there — it was easy to trace back, I just had to dig deeper to remember what happened behind the scenes.

“Luckily John has a great memory — he is the one who remembers all the stories, all the work trips, because he always came with me.

“It was great looking at those personal shots and looking at the people you knew — you just realise that you get so far in life.”

In her 30 years of live television, the Mornings show veteran conducted more than 35,000 interviews — and that was all before 2011.

“Most of the people are really fabulous,” she said.

“Robin Williams was just magic — sitting talking to him was like in the presence of genius.

“Will Smith was just wonderful too, he was such a down to earth guy — one of the great genuine people and a great Hollywood star.

“On a completely different tangent, Benazir Bhutto who was the first female Pakistani Prime Minister, was amazing.

“She was eventually assassinated — she really elevated her cause and she paid the ultimate price for it.”

A Bold Life, broken

She’s Danced with the Stars, done the Macarena with Peter Costello and been inducted into the TV Week Logies Hall of Fame.

And, while her book talks about all the highlights of such a fabulous 50-year career, it also details the hard times — domestic violence at the hands of ex-husband Jimmy Miller and drug-fuelled star-studded parties in the ‘70s.

A miscarriage in 1991, breast cancer treatment in 2012, and the current ‘nightmare’ of John’s accident and learning to live with quadriplegia.

But KAK’s a survivor — and so is John.

“When he had the accident, if we hadn’t have been so close to Coffs Harbour Hospital where they saw he had broken his C2 and C3 … if they hadn’t have put him in an induced coma so quickly, he would have been dead,” she said.

“He couldn’t breathe — he was ventilated for two and a half months and being fed by a tube through his nose directly to his stomach and it was very, very painful.

“We didn’t know how far he would come — it was day by day.

“But he’s here — he is a very strong person.

“Luckily he can breathe independently, but he can’t use his hands.

“People around here are generally very kind and because John always walked our dogs in Centennial Park, there’s a whole bunch of doggie walkers who see each other a few times a week, and they all miss John.”

John was able to come home from hospital in December last year, and they installed a lift and ramps in the back of the house to make it accessible for his wheelchair.

“It’s been full-on but life doesn’t actually stop because you’ve had a few hurdles — it keeps relentlessly rolling on,” she said.

“I’ve always been very lucky working and writing the book has kept me busy and occupied.”

A handful of hope

Next year, UCLA scientist Reggie Edgerton, who has conducted revolutionary neurostimulation research, will be coming to Australia to continue his work, with John signed up to participate in the important trial.

“They have had good results at UCLA and are going to mirror that research and those trials in Australia next year, so that could hold some hope,” she said.

“I signed him up very early on and then you’re put on a list and you have to be approved.

“It will be fantastic if we can just get the use of one hand.

“That’s all I want — for him to be able to pick up a fork and feed himself.

“It would be nice to do some travel but we haven’t got to that point yet.

“We went to the Logies and it was great but it makes you realise that if you do anything more complicated it’s a big deal — but he is managing.

“My life hasn’t slowed down but that’s good, that’s who I am.”

Waking up wiser, Today — and tomorrow

Looking back, Kerri-Anne said she had her own “Lisa Wilkinson” moment when she tried to negotiate her worth — and, like Lisa, she knew she was worth it and stuck to her guns.

“With Lisa and Karl I don’t think it’s so much a gender pay gap issue,” she said.

“Yes, there is still a little chauvinism these days — but this wasn’t about the gender pay gap, this was timing.

“Karl got lucky when they tried to steal him a few years ago to go to Channel 7 and he negotiated a great deal.

“Then Lisa’s contract was up and she wanted more and anyone who can get it, good for them.

“There’s nothing wrong with that.

“I had a couple of issues and I quite vividly remember when I first started Mornings, it was successful right away.

“I knew exactly how much my opposition was on and, when I asked for more and told them what my opposition was on, they were mostly just surprised that I actually knew.

“He said, ‘Are you really willing to walk away right now?’ and I said ‘yes, because I know what I’m worth’.

“I said, ‘Promise me that you will be willing to look at a better pay deal if we achieve this, this and this’ — and I fulfilled the deal that we made them.

“It wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but I was happy with it.

“You’ve just got to take a deep breath and be right.

“The industry is what it is — I think that the bullies and chauvinist blokes are not unique to TV or media.

“I never thought television wasn’t for me — I just lived it. I just wake up every day and say, ‘What’s next?’

“I may one day look into this great thing they call sleep — and there won’t be any more books, I don’t have a volume two.

“I just want to be at home with John.”

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