The Bachelor host Osher Gunsberg finds peace, love with new role
THE Bachelor host Osher Gunsberg finally has the trifecta of home, love and work but it’s been a hard-fought battle to become a better man, writes Megan Miller.
Melbourne
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FOR Osher Gunsberg, the Andrew G of Australian Idol and Channel V fame feels like a different person from a lifetime ago.
It’s been an eye-opening, arduous and sometimes scary road that’s led the TV and radio host away from his hard-living showbiz start to the settled and sober man of today.
This Gunsberg is a 42-year-old, smoothie-scarfing vegan who cycles up to 300km a week before tucking himself into bed nice and early — all part of a mental health plan that’s also managed with the right balance of medication.
Following his 2012 divorce, the Sydneysider has also found the love of a good woman in fiancee Audrey Griffen, which has helped him through the tough times, and he’s relished the role of being stepdad to her daughter Gigi, 12.
He’s candid about his long battle with mental illness — anxiety, depression and alcoholism — in the hope of making others more aware and accepting of the issue.
“When people think of mental illness or someone who’s had a brush with psychosis, they think of a frightening, unshaven, scary man sitting on a park bench smelling like pee shouting at things you or I can’t see,” Gunsberg says.
“But when you look on the telly on The Bachelor and you see me in the suit with the hair holding the roses, you’re looking at a man who’s had those things. One in four people who are reading this right now will experience mental health issues in their lifetime.”
As his fourth season fronting the TV dating show starts next week, Gunsberg admits that much of the time he spent on his breakthrough show of the noughties, Australian Idol, is a blur due to drinking.
“It was a tornado and it was only once it stopped I stuck my head up and went, ‘Did that just happen?’,” he says.
“Bear in mind, it was before I got diagnosed, before I was on meds and I was using Australia’s favourite and most easily available over-the-counter medicine — alcohol — to take care of what was going on with me.”
Gunsberg hit rock bottom several years back.
He wrote on his blog of the time: “I’m down in the darkness. Idol is over, my marriage is over, I have my divorce beard happening, I’m hiding in my divorce cave — anyone who’s been through this will know what I’m talking about. I was in need of a serious reboot and restart.”
The darkness peaked in a “frightening few days” he thankfully knew would eventually pass.
“I was able to meditate and I could see that every piece of input that was coming into my brain — visual, auditory, any sensory input — was coming through this filter of doom, armageddon.
“I thought, ‘No one else is panicky, why is my brain telling me that the sky is falling? Something’s very wrong’ … I felt almost obligated to tell people that this might happen to them and that it’s only their brain malfunctioning a little.
“I felt it was important to speak up and say, ‘Hey, this can happen. You can get a real short circuit in what you see, hear, smell, read, taste, believe is true and what is actually happening.’ If you get a disconnect with reality, that can really f--- you right up.”
It was around this time in 2009 that Gunsberg was advised by a shaman in Israel that if he were to “change the energy around your name, you will change your life and change your path”.
So, Andrew Gunsberg, who’d had the stage name Andrew G since starting out in radio in his early 20s, changed his name to Osher, which means happiness in Hebrew. Things started to look up and Gunsberg had his last drink in March 2010.
“I stopped because I couldn’t stop,” he says.
“There was no longer a choice. It was no longer ‘I want to have a drink’, it was ‘I have to have a drink.’ Every day was ending up the same. There was nothing new in my life.
“It made me have a long look at myself and just about every problem, argument, stupid financial decision, upset or fear in my life came from drinking.
“Life’s so much better without it. It took a bit to figure out how to live in a society centred around socialising around alcohol but I didn’t do it alone and there’s plenty of help. I tried to stop myself and couldn’t, so eventually had to put my hand up and say, ‘I need help.’ ”
Gunsberg’s only vice these days is coffee, “which you can take from my cold, dead hand”.
He describes his psychiatrist as the mechanic and his psychologist as the navigator, with a mentor, diet and exercise supporting it all.
“If you live with mental illness, it’s your responsibility to take control,” he says.
“It’s like being a diabetic and saying, ‘F--- insulin, I don’t care, give me the three-litre Coke.’ ”
Mind you, Gunsberg has been a vegetarian since he was 25 for moral and environmental reasons and was overweight as a teenager, tipping the scales at 17 at 112kg, so he’s long known the benefits of exercise.
Most days, he spends an hour cycling on Zwift, an indoor trainer that allows him to ride his bike at home on a drive train and ride with hundreds of cyclists around the world on the screen.
“I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I go to bed early, I have a very clear purpose that I get up every day and try to achieve. I have beautiful family I love very much and I’m here to serve Audrey and Gigi. And I’m a better human being to be around when I exercise and it’s easier to be in my own head.”
Until this fourth season of The Bachelor, Gunsberg had a perfect day-one record of correctly guessing which lady the bachelor would ultimately choose. But 2016’s bachelor, Perth industrial rope technician Richie Strahan, has ruined it.
“It’s his life. I’m happy with three out of four,” Gunsberg says.
“It’s nice to watch people fall in love. And I get to go to work and help that.”
The Bachelor isn’t the type of show that viewers casually tune into; they engage fervently with office sweeps, viewing parties and devouring the hilarious next-morning online recaps of episodes. (Gunsberg loves the recaps, by the way, even if they often poke fun at his hairstyle.)
It’s water-cooler viewing at its finest. That’s why the host has contempt for the paparazzi hellbent on trying to ruin the surprise.
Almost half this season’s dates are estimated to have been papped and when the final rose ceremony was filmed in June in Bali, producers reportedly called in the Indonesian military to try to stop prying lenses snapping Strahan and his last ladies.
(The ending of last year’s The Bachelorette finale with Sam Frost was spoiled by paparazzi shots that revealed the winner hours before the last rose ceremony went to air, much to the ire of dedicated viewers.)
“I wouldn’t want to be someone who makes a living spoiling the fun for everyone. I couldn’t do that,” Gunsberg says.
“The joy of this show is the surprise. As a cyclist, finding out the winner of the Tour de France without watching all the stages is just watching a person on a podium. It’s all about how they got there.
“It’s just a disrespectful thing to do to the fans and take their fun away.”
Would Gunsberg go on a TV dating show himself?
“No, I wouldn’t. But if I had the mad rig and the out-of-control abs that you need a contour map to get around, probably.”
Not that Gunsberg needs the small screen to help him find love. He proposed in January to Griffen, a single mum he met on The Bachelor set in 2014 when she filled in doing his hair and make-up.
Post his 2011 breakup with Israeli actor and producer Noa Tishby after three years of marriage, Gunsberg had been bemoaning his single status to his regular make-up artist.
“I’d been saying to Carla that I can’t go on internet dating and I’m sober so it’s hard to go to pubs and I don’t like being around alcohol any more and I’m deaf so I can’t have conversations — I’m never going to meet anyone,” Gunsberg says.
“And she said, ‘I’ve got another job next week and I’ve got someone to come in and take care of you. Oh, and you’re welcome.’
“The next week, I roll into work on my bike covered in sweat and dressed in day-glo cycle gear — be safe, be seen — and there she is, this beautiful Fijian with Disney princess eyes. And away we went.”
The relationship also came with the added responsibility of fatherhood — to Gigi.
“One day I woke up and thought, ‘She’s no longer just my girlfriend’s kid — I’ve got to protect you and keep you safe from harm.’ They don’t tell you that you fall in love with the kid, too. I’d jump in front of a train for her.”
Gunsberg’s coy on whether he and Griffen will add to their family, but he does say the couple’s fur baby, Frankie the cute cavoodle, who has his own Instagram account, has brought them all closer together.
Apart from duties on The Bachelor, Gunsberg co-hosts a Brisbane breakfast radio program with Abby Coleman and Stav Davidson on Hit105, broadcasting into the sunny state from the comfort of his Bondi pad.
“I’ve got a line into my house and my commute is 17 steps, with a coffee machine at step nine,” he says.
The gig marks a full circle for Gunsberg, who started his radio career — including five years hosting syndicated countdown show Take 40 Australia on almost 100 stations — at 20 doing the station’s graveyard shift.
“All my friends were in Ibiza and Amsterdam having the wildest time and I’m there playing Bryan Adams songs at four in the morning but I loved it.
“(Radio’s) so nimble. By the time I tell you any news on radio, you’ve read it 10 minutes ago on your phone. There’s nothing new I can tell you, but what I can give you is an authentic opinion, an authentic point of view, an authentic sounding board, maybe a different point of view, an opportunity to open up a discussion you possibly hadn’t considered.”
It’s why he started his eponymous podcast in 2013, “a weekly conversation with someone who’s figured out a way to get paid to do what they love to do”.
With about 6000 listeners each episode, he’s featured comedians, entrepreneurs, vets and athletes, and recently James Mathison, his former Australian Idol co-host who ran against ex-PM Tony Abbott in the safe NSW Liberal seat of Warringah.
“(The podcasts) have allowed me to make the show I’ve always wanted to,” he says.
“I have absolutely the most wonderfully authentic conversations with human beings who happen to have extraordinary jobs sometimes. I’m very grateful to have these conversations that folks are really receptive to. Life’s too short not to be authentic. With YouTube and podcasts, you don’t need a network if your story’s good enough.
“One day I just opened up the mic and said, ‘Things are terrible, I’m on four kinds of medication and I’m gaining a kilo a week, I don’t know what’s going on,’ and starting talking about my mental health. It wasn’t as if there was a concerted effort to say, ‘Today’s the day I’m telling people I’m crazy.’ It just happened and the feedback’s been so positive.”
Gunsberg started in radio, but it was applying for a role on Foxtel’s now-defunct Channel [V] music network that propelled him into the nation’s youth culture alongside Mathison, Yumi Stynes and Jabba.
During seven years with the station from 1999, he travelled the globe following bands and music festivals, played on Powderfinger’s (winning) cricket team against Coldplay and pashed Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson in a live interview. He later divided his time between Australia and Los Angeles for a decade.
Gunsberg was born in the UK but moved to Australia as a baby when his parents — his Czech dad and Lithuanian mum, both doctors, met working in a hospital in Stoke-on-Trent — followed family to Adelaide before settling in Brisbane. Gunsberg is the second of four boys.
He laments that one of his younger brothers, who’s based in Shanghai, can’t wed in Australia. The family will soon travel to New Zealand, where same-sex marriage is legal, for the nuptials.
“My brother’s love for his fiance, what does that have to do with anyone else’s relationship? Nothing. These two men actually love each other and are so good for each other and are so happy together, who’s to say they can’t have the same rights, privilege and respect that I get to have?
It makes me very sad that my own brother can’t marry the man he loves in our own country. It’s all about love.”
Indeed.
The Bachelor Australia returns on Wednesday, July 27 at 7.30pm on Channel 10
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