No Filter

In December 2017, Kristen Roupenian’s life changed forever when her short story in The New Yorker went viral. ‘Cat Person’, which was published in  The New Yorker ‘s December 11 issue, navigates a brief relationship between a 20-year-old university student named Margot, and an older man – Robert – who she meets while working in a movie theatre candy bar. Yo...

There’s a fresh new face on breakfast TV and her name is Brooke Boney.   She describes herself as a proud Gamilaroi woman. And Brooke is proud. She grew up in a housing commission, was raised by a strong single mother and is the eldest of 6 kids.   So how did she end up as The Today Show’s entertainment reporter smack bang in the middle of some high drama and unimaginable pub...

Sex, drugs and rock and roll. That’s what we used to worry about when it came to the things that would mess up kids. These days the rate of things like teen pregnancy, smoking, drinking and drugs have fallen off a cliff. But they've been replaced with phones, screens, social media and video games, all of which are potentially addictive. David Gillespie knows exactly how we get addicted to th...

Julie Bishop hasn’t been a private citizen for 20 years. But a few hours after this interview was recorded, that changed. An election was called and Julie's position as the Member for Curtain came to an end. She’s been present for some of the ugliest moments in politics, both in Canberra and around the world.  And she's dealt with it all with her signature class and style. Sh...

Turia Pitt has been through an enormous amount in her 31 years. She was an engineer and ultra-marathon runner when she was caught in a bushfire in 2011. She's recovered from having 70% of her body burnt, learnt to walk again, written 3 books, got engaged to her long-term partner Michael, raised millions for charity and given birth to her baby boy Hukavai. Now Turia's latest book is a gift to young...

The first time Bec Rosen met Hamish McLaren she thought he was a bit of a tosser.  Bec was a single mum who had just ended a bad marriage and, along with her three young sons, she’d moved to Blueys Beach on the NSW North Coast. Bec’s family were in the early stages of rebuilding their lives when Hamish appeared and made himself indispensable.  So indispensable in fact, that&n...

Mandy Nolan has five kids to three different dads. Two of them she married and one was her defacto partner for many years. This is a woman who knows a lot about blending a family. And blending it again in a different way. And then again. The thing with blending though is that once you mix lives together, you can’t un-blend them. Once connected, the bonds Mandy and five kids have with all of...

When Josh and Sean Szeps met they knew instantly they'd found "the one." How did they know? Because Josh insulted Sean. The pair met in 2011 in a dive bar in New York, moved in together in 2012, were engaged by 2013 and married in 2014. While many gay couples feel that having a relationship and a family is difficult, for Sean and Josh they felt they were always in the right place at the right time...

For the past 20 years, Mia's guest has been the voice for over a thousand victims and survivors of child sexual abuse. Right now, Lisa Flynn is representing the father of one of the choir boys who was sexually abused by George Pell at the age of 13. This boy’s young life was never the same and “R,” as he’s been known throughout the trial, withdrew from his family and began...

Six months after her husband died unexpectedly, Simi Polonsky gave birth to her third child.  She was grieving the death of her husband, Shua, and celebrating the birth of her new son. And not in a million years did she think that her life would end up looking like that. Simi was born into a big Jewish family in Sydney, her father was an Orthodox Rabbi and she was one of seven kids. In her ea...

A woman’s work is never done. And author Gemma Hartley knows this. Whether she’s at home or in the office, there’s a whole layer of labour done predominantly by women that most men can’t even see. Emotional labour is being the person who notices problems, delegates solutions and makes sure life goes smoothly for everyone around her. It’s noticing there’s barely...

If people stop you in the street, what’s the first thing they say to you? "Hello!"? Or "How are you?" For author and journalist Carly Findlay her experience is very different. Carly was born with a rare genetic skin disorder called Ichthyosis, which affects approximately one in 200,000 newborns.  Ichthyosis causes the skin to build up and scale and when people see Carly they often ask w...

Roxy Jacenko doesn’t like being the centre of attention. If you are one of her 230,000 Instagram followers, you might find that hard to believe. But the Sydney businesswoman insists her businesses, selfies and TV appearances aren’t about fame or attention. They’re about money. This is the second time Mia has spoken to Roxy for No Filter. The first time, Roxy’s husband Olive...

If you grew up in the 70s in Australia, you probably look back on that period and smile. Maybe you think of it as a simpler time or "the good old days."  But were they really? In his new book, The Land Before Avocado, journalist and broadcaster Richard Glover investigates whether the past really was as great as everyone thinks it was. As a child of the late ‘60s and early &lsq...

When Christine Armstrong, author of The Mother of All Jobs, became a mother it never occurred to her she would have to give up her job. At the time, she was working in London in a high level corporate job. But after the birth of her first daughter, she realised being full-time mum AND a full-time employee was bloody hard. So, she started looking for answers. She interviewed other working moth...

Mia Freedman is bringing you a special episode of No Filter this week because our Executive Editor Leigh Campbell has some news... Leigh has been a high profile journalist for more than a decade. She’s worked at Cosmopolitan Magazine, Huffington Post and Mamamia. She has a huge following on Instagram and is the host of the You Beauty podcast.  But if you've been following Leigh on socia...

You might remember William McInnes from Seachange , or Blue Heelers , but what you may not know about him is that he can really tell a story. He’s been doing it for the past 30 years, first as an actor and later as a writer. William has written over 11 books. A lot of them, around the themes of growing up in Australia.  And his latest, Fatherhood, is a personal tribute to Aussie dads ev...

When you meet 98-year-old Holocaust survivor Eddie Jaku, it’s hard not to be happy. He’s full of life, advice and stories about a world few people remember. A world few people can imagine. A world many people want to forget about. But not Eddie. Because that dark world ended up giving him the biggest gift he could have asked for; the gift of life.  On the 10th of November 1938, Ed...

Mia’s back with more candid conversations that count in 2019, and she’s kicking it off with a woman who couldn’t be more opposite to her. For the past eight years, Miriam Lancewood and her husband Peter have lived in the wilderness of New Zealand. No phones. No internet. No bed. No refrigerator. No electricity. No concept of time. They’re completely off the grid. And while...

Welcome to the No Filter summer series, where we look back at some of our most popular interviews over the past 3 years. Today, it's Mia and Liane Moriarty talking about her life since the release of Big Little Lies, we hope you enjoy it... She’s been called the 'Obama of popular fiction'.  An author whose books all turn to gold. But at home, Liane Moriarty is considered to be a suburba...

Welcome to the No Filter summer series, where we look back at some of our most popular interviews over the past 3 years. When we asked you guys, our listeners, what some of your favourite No Filters were over the past few years, there were a lot of votes for Hughesy. So here we are.... Dave Hughes has one of the most iconic voices in Australian media. From hosting the Logies to touring internation...

Welcome to the No Filter summer series, where we look back at some of our most popular interviews over the past 3 years. Esther Perel is a relationship expert, and to this date - Mia's interview with her has had over 100,000 downloads. So we thought it would be the perfect time to revisit it... When couples therapist Esther Perel speaks to large groups of people about her area of expertise, sex an...

Welcome to the No Filter summer series, where we look back at some of our most popular interviews over the past 3 years. As the Pink Test is about to kick off in Sydney, we thought we'd take a listen to Jane McGrath's best friend Tracy Bevan... As our Australian Cricketers turn the SCG into a blushing meadow for the Pink Test, it's a reminder of Jane McGrath's legacy. The mother of two, and wife t...

Welcome to the No Filter summer series, where we look back at some of our most popular interviews over the 3 years. First up? The man known for his conversations, Richard Fidler... Richard Fidler doesn’t like to be interviewed. But he does like interviewing other people. He records up to 300 Conversations a year as the host of Conversations on ABC radio. But he very rarely gets interviewed h...

You’re at work, doing your job and a male coworker tries to slut-shame you in front of the entire office, taunting you about how many men he thinks you’ve slept with. In most workplaces, this would be a sackable offense. But in the Australian Parliament, it’s just another day in the office for Sarah Hanson Young. Or at least it was until one day in mid-2018 when she decided she&r...