Today star and David Jones ambassador Renée Bargh’s first shoot with baby girl

Renée Bargh may be tight-lipped about Hollywood celebrities but she opens up about being a mum of two and an unrushed bride-to-be, as she poses with her newborn daughter.

Before returning to Australia in 2020, Today reporter Renée Bargh spent a decade in Los Angeles deploying her laid-back, conversational style to interview stars for US entertainment show Extra.

She so disarmed A-listers that they showed her photos of their children unprompted (George Clooney), shared insightful anecdotes (Jennifer Aniston) and even calmed her nerves (Oprah Winfrey).

“She held my hands and looked into my eyes the whole time,” Bargh tells Stellar about Oprah, who didn’t even seem to notice the nervous correspondent’s sweaty palms.

Renee Bargh interviewing Oprah Winfrey.

And with George Clooney, left.

As for her worst chats, Bargh says with a smile, “There were definitely some disappointments. But I am not going to name names – because I am not done with my career yet.”

But since welcoming two-year-old son Tide and three-month-old daughter Soléil with fiancé Andrew Lange, Bargh, 38, has discovered that unnamed Hollywood divas are no match for a young household.

Still breastfeeding both children, Bargh says she rarely gets a moment to herself and admits the lofty standards she thought she’d maintain for her offspring have loosened.

“I cave constantly,” she says, laughing. “It’s funny, the things you say you’ll never do as a mum before you’ve had children. I would be like, ‘I would never let them eat that’, or ‘I can’t believe you let them watch that!’ And now there are days when I am going, ‘What hour of screen time are we into?’”

Renee Bargh pictured with her newborn daughter, Soléil. Picture: Simon Upton for Stellar

While Bargh misses her tight-knit crew of friends back in the US, she is happy to leave the constant travel and long hours behind because “interviewing people in my Ugg boots over Zoom just feels so much more me right now”.

Another sacrifice: trading red carpet glam for trackie daks. “Usually, I’m in active wear or in pyjamas,” she admits.

“Most of the time, my hair hasn’t been brushed and I’m lucky if I’ve gotten in the shower.”

And so, with Soléil in tow, Bargh relished a brief return to glam for her Stellar fashion shoot. “I was like, gosh, it’s so nice to have hair and make-up done, but it’s just so not what my life is right now,” she says. “It’s very messy and it’s very raw and it’s all consuming, but also so beautiful.”

Bargh discovered she was pregnant with Soléil soon after taking a new role as a Friend of David Jones.

Renee Bargh – an official ‘friend’ of David Jones – relished a return to glamour for her Stellar fashion shoot. Picture: Simon Upton/Stellar

Recalling her childhood growing up outside the coastal NSW town of Byron Bay, Bargh adds, “When we would go into the city, we would go to David Jones and it always had this mystique and magic about it. So to be working with them feels like a real privilege.”

Still, she admits she was initially worried her changing body could impact the planned campaigns. “I think we always have this fear about telling our employer [that] we’re pregnant, right?” she says, shrugging.

But far from seeing the news as bad timing, Bargh says the retailer lent into her situation by pulling together a maternity shoot in October 2024. “[I’m] really excited about where we are in the industry,” she says, adding that “things are shifting and changing” for working mothers.

Now that she’s in the trenches of motherhood, Bargh says she has gained more appreciation for non-judgmental love and support.

Her mother-in-law steps in to do dawn babysitting shifts when she’s needed on the Today show, while friends offer advice on sleep schedules, wake windows and entertaining toddlers.

“I think we’re so powerful when women come together,” she enthuses. “I don’t know where I would be without the strong women in my life. I have girlfriends who are on their fifth pregnancy and my sister has three. I’d be absolutely lost without them.”

Now that she’s in the trenches of motherhood, Renee Bargh says she has gained more appreciation for non-judgmental love and support. Picture: Simon Upton for Stellar

Those friends include fellow David Jones ambassador Megan Gale, with whom Bargh joined forces for a special Mother’s Day high tea at the Elizabeth Street store in Sydney on Friday.

“Megan actually gave me a bit of a pep talk around welcoming my second and how beautiful it is,” Bargh says of Gale – mum to nearly 11-year-old River, and Rosie, seven – who reassured her by “talking about the stage of life that she’s in, and how hard it is in the beginning, but that it all just pays off”.

Getting engaged to Lange in March doesn’t mean a wedding is imminent.

“My parents have been together for 40 years and they are not married,” Bargh says. “We met later in life and I really wanted to have kids, so that was the priority. I have never cared about a big wedding.”

She reveals that when the time comes, her special day will be a casual affair involving her children.

“I’ve got so many friends that have had weddings in the last couple of years and I just watched them completely crumble in the stress and anxiety of it,” she reflects. “I just feel like it shouldn’t be that. When it feels right, we’ll do it.”

Read the full interview with Renee Bargh inside tomorrow’s Stellar via The Sunday Telegraph (NSW), Sunday Herald Sun (VIC), The Sunday Mail (QLD) and Sunday Mail (SA). For more from Stellar and the podcast, Something To Talk About, click here.

Originally published as Today star and David Jones ambassador Renée Bargh’s first shoot with baby girl