No Filter

[Part 1 of 2] One day, Ariane Beeston looked at her newborn baby, Henry, and saw a dragon. And not a cute, happy dragon - but an upset, red-faced dragon. At that moment, Ariane knew something was very wrong. Other very wrong, very scary things were happening too. A few months later, Ariane would be diagnosed with postpartum psychosis. But a diagnosis was only the beginning of her odyssey - one tha...

In this conversation, Mia speaks to Jackie O, the equal highest paid person in the media industry in Australia. After working together for 23 years, Kyle Sandilands and Jackie completely dominate breakfast radio.   She talks to Mia about the long recovery from divorce, co-parenting, being on Hinge, the media being obsessed with her weight and behind the scenes of negotiating a huge radio contract....

Jackie O was deep into a years-long addiction to pills and alcohol until one phone call changed her life. There’s a reason Jackie O kept her addiction to pain medication and alcohol a secret for so long: shame. But now, she wants to share her story of recovery and healing with the world and to help other people get the help they need - and so she’s sharing the hard truths of the years she spent st...

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Mitch Larsson is a former male escort with stories you would not expect from someone who was paid for sex. If you haven't heard this conversation before, it's worth the listen! Mitch was a lawyer and stay at home dad but decided he wanted to change careers. And at first, his wife was supportive. In this episode he tells Mia about the time a client’s mum walked in on them, a lady in her 70’s who bo...

[Part 1 of 2] Anna Grosman is a Melbourne-based mother of two and staunch advocate for women’s sensual empowerment. She’s recently launched Her Confidant  - an elite male escort service that aims to satisfy a woman’s libido, body and mind. Anna believes that putting a male escort on retainer will be one of the new trends of 2025 - as more and more women decide to go #boysober - rejecting the datin...

Today, you’re going to hear a conversation about vulvas. And it’s not something we speak about often. But our guest today has made a living out of photographing them. Ellie Sedgwick is a body-positive, nude photographer who founded Comfortable In My Skin, a movement empowering people to love the skin they’re in. But, Ellie hasn’t always felt comfortable with her own vulva - she’s gone from being s...

[Part 1 of 2] Bethany Joy Lenz has been in two cults. The first is the cult-classic TV series, One Tree Hill, where she played the role of Haley for ten years, alongside cast members Sophia Bush and Chad Michael Murray. Yet, what few people knew is that the entire time she was on the iconic show, she was in another kind of cult - the dangerous, isolating, manipulative kind. In this Australian excl...

We bring you an episode of CANCELLED, which is all about Ballerina Farm.  Today we are diving into the world of ‘Trad Wives’ and more specifically the world of Ballerina Farm which is both a brand and a woman. Hannah Neeleman is a mumfluencer, a mother of eight children and has amassed a huge 10 million followers on Instagram who follow her literally churning butter and collecting eggs from her ch...

Trad Wives like Hannah Neeleman and her Ballerina Farm empire have captured our imagination - and divided our opinions. Trad Wives are an Instagram phenomenon using highly-produced content to promote traditional family values - specifically, the idea that women would be happier if they stayed home and served their husbands and children, trading in a life of career-focused grind culture for a life...

Young love. Remember that?! Meeting someone at your part time hospo job where you’re together every night, you start making eyes at each other and one thing leads to another - soon, you’re spending the night at their family home and having dinner with their parents. Well that’s exactly how Emily met Josh. And when you meet so young, it really only goes one of two ways. You either grow up and apart...

[Part 1 of 2] This episode is going to help you have better relationships - and understand the bad ones you’ve had in the past - or might still be having. Because the origin of every relationship we have is our attachment style, and knowing what yours is and how that affects the way you interact with people and the romantic partners you choose can be a game-changer. Mia talks to clinical psycholog...

Sometimes, a story can save a life. This is one of those stories. Anna Martin is a recovering gambling addict who, as you’ll hear, almost lost her life to this insidious industry. Anna gambled in the shadows. She didn’t want anyone to know about her gambling habits, or the risks she was taking, or just how bad it got…to the point where she almost lost her life. Shame and secrecy are killers. And g...

In 2000, Ada Nicodemou joined the cast of Home and Away, Australia’s second longest-running soap opera, after Neighbours. She signed on for a 6-month contract to play the role of Leah Patterson-Baker. But 21 years, and a few near-death experiences and a few husbands (Leah’s had way more husbands than Ada who has only had one) one of Australia’s best-known and most-loved actors is still at Summer B...

You can hear part two of Mia's conversation with Ada here.   Ada Nicodemou is in love again…with her longtime co-star and on-screen husband, James Stewart. Ada Nicodemou has played the character of Leah Patterson on our screens for 24 years as one of the most iconic stars of Home & Away. In this exclusive interview, Ada tells Mia how the last few years have seen her choose herself after a life...

You can hear the second half of Mia's conversation with Suzanne here . When Suzanne Heywood and her little brother were told by their parents that they’d be leaving the UK, leaving school, leaving their friends and their dog to go and sail around the world for three years…Suzanne had her doubts - but like so many little girls, she trusted her father - he was her hero. But as you’ll hear in this ca...

For many years Paulina Porizkova was the most recognized face in fashion & beauty - from her iconic Sports Illustrated cover to being the face of Estee Lauder. When she married rock star Ric Ocastek from the iconic band, The Cars. From the outside looking in, it seemed like she was living the dream. To  look at her, she really did seem like the woman who had it all. But while Paulina was as vi...

Hugo and Spencer live with their loving parents, Michelle and Jono, and are surrounded by extended family, including their grandmother Jasmina and their Auntie Sophie. But how Hugo and Spencer came to be in the world is a very unique and unusual story: their grandmother Jasmina and their aunt Sophie were actually - also - their surrogate mothers. Why did Jasmina decide to be a surrogate for her da...

Subscribe to Mamamia Writer and activist, Africa Brooke, used to call people out on the internet all the time - because this is what the culture wars told her she needed to do.  Until one day - she suddenly stopped.   In 2021, Africa wrote an open letter and posted it online. She called it: “Why I’m Leaving the Cult of Wokeness” and it immediately went viral. The letter changed her life, but not i...

Subscribe to Mamamia On Halloween morning, Charlotte Cowles - an Ivy League educated journalist and mother of a two-year old son - received a life-altering phone call from a government agent who informed her that she had 22 bank accounts, nine vehicles and four properties registered in her name, and that she’d wired more than $3 million to Jamaica and Iraq, and that a car had been rented in her na...

Subscribe to Mamamia Are you triggered by trigger warnings? Do you need one before you read a story about anxiety? How about before you see a photo of a meal that includes meat? What about before you watch a performance of Macbeth ? Trigger warnings are supposed to protect us, but do they? Rachael Casella lost her daughter Mackenzie when she was just seven months old. And she refuses to put a trig...

You can hear the second half of Mia's conversation with David here.  Subscribe to Mamamia David Finch is a lot of things: he’s an Autism and Neurodiversity consultant, the author of The Journal of Best Practices; A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man’s Quest to Be a Better Husband, an essayist for the New York Times Modern Love column…and he’s also UNmarried. In this two-part specia...

You can hear the second half of Mia's conversation with Tia here.  Subscribe to Mamamia Tia Levings was raised within the same strict Christian fundamentalist ideology as the infamous Duggar family from 19 Kids And Counting . By the time she was 19 years old, Tia found herself in an abusive marriage where the violence was sanctioned by the church. In this must-listen episode of No Filter, Tia tell...

Subscribe to Mamamia Jen Glantz was so sick of being invited to weddings and asked to do so much work…for free. So she did what any good entrepreneur does: she turned it into a business called Bridesmaid For Hire. In this episode of No Filter, Jen spills all the tea about her life as a professional bridesmaid - the good, the bad and the ugly (and all the dresses!) For more about Jen Glantz and Bri...

Subscribe to Mamamia Eve Wiley is one of the featured voices in the Netflix series The Man with 1000 Kids, but the story of how she came to be a fierce advocate for victims of fertility fraud is a deeply personal one…and one you have to hear to believe. In this episode of No Filter, Eve Wiley tells Mia Freedman how she finally found out that she is the child of fertility fraud and how she discover...