No Filter

What do you do when you get the worst news of your life?  Hide? Cry? Surround yourself with your nearest and dearest? Make a video about what may be the scariest journey you’ve ever been on? Briony Benjamin did all those things and more when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma at the age of 31.  Briony was our Head Of Video here at Mamamia for 2 years and produced some of the...

It was 2018. Late at night. Melissa Hopkins was sitting in her bed. She was about to reveal something deeply personal about herself to the world, something that she had been suffering with for over 20 years but had never spoken about publicly, but on the eve of R U OK day in 2018, a suicide prevention day in Australia that aims to start conversations about mental health, Melissa decided to speak o...

For 17 years, Jo Elvin was the Editor In Chief of the UK's biggest magazines, Glamour. But in 2017, Jo lost her job. And her world as she knew it shifted. Jo, who was born and raised in Sydney and started her career at Dolly Magazine had moved to the UK to further her career. Glamour was her dream gig. And she was bloody good at what she did, but one morning after a meeting with her boss, she foun...

Right now, across the country two out of three young women between the ages of 12 and 18 have been asked to send a nude photo of themselves to someone.  But what happens after they send it? Sophie Hyde is an Australian film director, mother and the creator of the hit SBS show The Hunting  that is a four part series about teen sexting and scandal.  She spent months researching why te...

Tully Smyth rose to fame after appearing on Big Brother in 2013.  She also unintentionally became the show's villain when she cheated on her longtime girlfriend with a guy she met in the house.   Since then, Tully has lived a lot of her life in the public eye and has carved out a living as an influencer.  A term she really struggles with.   Tully is the host of our br...

Tully Smyth rose to fame after appearing on Big Brother in 2013.  She also unintentionally became the show's villain when she cheated on her longtime girlfriend with a guy she met in the house.   Since then, Tully has lived a lot of her life in the public eye and has carved out a living as an influencer.  A term she really struggles with.   Tully is the host of our br...

Tiddas 4 Tiddas is a podcast series where Kamilaroi and Dunghutti woman Marlee Silva sits down with some incredible Indigenous women for some candid conversations, and today on No Filter, we wanted to share one of those stories with you.   On this episode, Marlee’s guest is 22-year-old activist and writer, Vanessa Turnbull Roberts. Growing up, Vanessa had a very different childhood...

Brisbane based singer/songwriter Amy Sheppard spent years altering the way she looked in her Instagram photos. Like most women who upload images to their feeds, she wanted to look polished, smooth, perfect.  And then she realised that she was making the women, both young and old who follow her, feel bad about their bodies.  So she decided to stop. She stopped editing out her cellulite. S...

Rachael Casella met her husband Jonny when she was training to be a police officer and he was one of her instructors. Nothing happened until the training was finished, but then, the pair fell in love.  They got married. And as they went on their honeymoon, they started trying for a baby. But, like so many things in life, nothing followed a simple plan.  Rachael did eventually fall pregna...

When American author Candace Bushnell released her first book Sex And The City , she had no idea the impact it was about to have on the world.  That book and those stories would go on to form one of the most iconic characters of the 21st century, Carrie Bradshaw. And that character was roughly based on Candace Bushnell’s life.  And since that moment, things have never been the same...

Australian actor Richard Roxburgh has an 'uneasy' relationship with fame. Most Australians would recognise him from his work in TV shows such as Rake or movies such as Moulin Rouge. But chances are, most Australians wouldn't know much about his off-camera life. Until now. In this episode of No Filter with Mia, Richard Roxburgh speaks candidly about why he has chosen not to live in Hollywood, his m...

What were you doing on Boxing Day morning in 2004?  Sarah Ayles was on a beach in Sri Lanka, putting on a mask about to go snorkelling with her business partner and ex-boyfriend, when her life changed forever.  The Boxing Day Tsunami was caused by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean and experts say it had the energy of 23,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs.  227,898 people lost their liv...

This week on the show we spoke to psychic medium John Edward, who over the last three decades has helped thousands of people communicate with loved ones who have crossed over to the other side.  But when Mia finished her interview with John, she realised she forgot to ask him one very important question.  What about lost babies? Do they ever come through? John’s answer may make you...

John Edward is a psychic medium who over the last three decades, has helped thousands of people communicate with loved ones who have crossed over to the other side. In fact, if you were around in the early 2000’s you probably saw his show Crossing Over on television.  But when he was young John grew up being very skeptical about psychics.  And he had good reason to be. He lived wit...

At the start of the year, we had an episode of No Filter that we got a lot of feedback about so we thought we’d revisit this story... For years, Leigh Campbell, our executive editor here at Mamamia kept a secret.  It was about her fertility. And the struggles she had to fall pregnant.  Leigh and her husband Rich had been trying to have a baby for years.  They had countless rou...

When Lisa Taddeo set out to write a book about female desire she had no idea she would spend eight years inserting herself into three very different women’s lives. Tracing their history, capturing their stories and being a fly on the wall when it came to their sex lives.  Lisa is an American writer and journalist. She’s a wife, a mother and her new book Three Women is one of the m...

Every family has a secret. But some secrets are more shocking than others. Some secrets take longer to come out. Angela Hamilton always had an inkling that there was something not quite right with her dad. She hated him and feared him. He was violent towards his wife and three children throughout their lives and prone to explosive racist outbursts. He rarely spoke about his past but it always seem...

To subscribe to our new podcast Tiddas 4 Tiddas, click here.  Marlee Silva is 23 years old. She grew up in suburban Australia with her sister and her parents, not realising that some people perceived her family as different.  All that changed one day when she was 12 years old and it marked a turning point in Marlee’s life as a proud Kamilaroi, Dunghutti woman. Marlee is the ho...

Richard Lowenstein first met Michael Hutchence when he was 23 making music videos for the likes of Hunters & Collectors and Cold Chisel. Michael liked what Richard made and commissioned him to make some music videos for INXS.  Little did Richard know almost 40 years later he’d be the man making a documentary about his best mates life. The good. The bad and all the mysteries that fol...

Amanda Keller has been on our screens and in our ears for over 30 years. She’s done everything from host breakfast radio with Andrew Denton, and now Brendan Jones, to stick her head out of a submarine on national TV as a presenter on Beyond 2000 . She’s made people laugh and think for three decades and now, because of that, Amanda Keller is nominated for a Gold Logie. The shining star...

On the 20th of June this year, con-man Hamish McLaren was sentenced to 16 years in prison after stealing more than $7.5 million from his victims, including his ex-wife Bec Rosen. Today on No Filter we're revisiting Mia's chat with Bec. 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 t...

When Pauline Hanson was elected into politics in the mid-90s, author Benjamin Law was in high school on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. He’d grown up in a very white area. But up until that point, he hadn’t really considered his race. Sure, he was Asian Australian, but that had never really been a problem. And then, Pauline Hanson made her maiden speech in Parliament and all of a su...

When Georgie Dent was asked when her nervous breakdown began, she had to think. Really think. Was it at 19 when she found herself diagnosed with a disease she’d never heard of? Was it a few months later when she was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease? Was it at 24 when by all accounts, her life was perfect - working as a lawyer at a prestigious firm in Sydney and living with her then boyfr...

How do you prepare for an interview with a woman who changes people’s faces for a living? You look at your face for a very long time. At least that’s what Mia Freedman did before this interview with Dr Naomi McCullum, a woman also known as the doll maker. Dr. Naomi McCullum is a cosmetic physician who runs a luxury clinic in Sydney called The Manse, where she and her team sculpt women'...

A lot can happen in 30 years of someone’s life. You can build a solid career. Meet the love of your life. Have a baby. Mourn the loss of your dad. Enjoy the family you’ve built. And then watch it implode. Over the past 30 years, Angela Bishop has become one of Australia’s best-known entertainment reporters. She’s been on every red carpet at every awards ceremony in Australi...