Sonia Kruger reveals brutal private fallout from her infamous Logies speech

Sonia Kruger’s 2023 Gold Logie winners speech went down like a lead balloon with viewers – but the TV star was just as tough on herself.

Sonia Kruger has opened up about the private fallout from her controversial 2023 Gold Logie speech, revealing that she had trouble sleeping and even sought therapy as she dealt with the repercussions.

Kruger was announced as the winner of the biggest award at last year’s Logies, taking to the stage near midnight and delivering a sometimes rambling speech that had some in the audience scratching their heads.

It included some awkward jokes at the expense of fellow Gold Logie nominee Hamish Blake. The two share a manager, and Kruger said he’d privately told her he thought “people are a little over” Blake, who’d won the Gold Logie the year before.

“He said, ‘Frankly I am hoping that [Blake] will leave the agency so I can concentrate all of my efforts on you, Sonia,’” she said – as the camera cut to a bemused-looking Blake.

Kruger won the night’s biggest award - and took aim at TV golden boy Hamish Blake. Picture: Channel 7

The line perhaps didn’t get the reaction Kruger had anticipated, and she quickly clarified that she was joking. “I am paraphrasing Mark’s words … he didn’t say that,” she said.

The Daily Telegraph reports that, almost a year on from the speech, Kruger spoke about how the reaction affected her while hosting the Mercedes-Benz Sydney annual Women in Business lunch on Wednesday.

“I was having trouble sleeping,” Kruger told the audience at the event.

“I ended up talking to a therapist about it because I was not … I wasn’t letting up on myself at all about it.”

The therapist had one piece of advice for Kruger: “Treat yourself with a little bit of kindness.”

Blake revealed later that he missed the backlash Kruger had faced post-Logies as he was taking a stint away from social media.

Daryl Somers presented the award to his former Dancing with the Stars co-host. Picture: Channel 7

“Foolishly or not, I sometimes take [time] off Instagram, so I just wasn’t on social media … I didn’t realise [what was going on] until late into the next day, and by that stage the news cycle is gone,” he told Stellar’s Something To Talk About podcast in April this year.

“I can’t remember if she emailed me or I emailed her, but I realised late that next day that she was copping heat for this so I think I emailed her and just went, ‘Hey, if this is a bother, I don’t care at all.’

Blake had won the Gold Logie the year before Kruger. Picture: Getty

Having accepted his own Gold Logie gong just one year earlier, Blake said he “knows what it’s like to be up there. Your mind’s racing, you’re trying to think of something to say. People are exhausted. Everyone on stage is going for gags the whole night. Some hit, some don’t. It’s not a big deal.”

Kruger did address her failed joke on radio the morning after the Logies, saying her brain was “scrambled” by the end of the night after her day had started at 8am, adding she’d left her pre-prepared speech in her purse.

“It’s great because we’ve all known each other for a long time and a lot of us have been around for a long time but also, you kind of want to impress them with something witty or funny and sometimes it doesn’t come off,” she said.

“I was making the joke about our agent, Hamish and I, and I think people took it seriously. It was an absolute joke and the agent found it funny, I hope Hamish did too. I must give him an apology email.”