No Filter

Mia Freedman is still on a mission to burst her bubble. And today, she’s taking to it with a pitchfork. She’s calling up Andrew Bolt. A right-wing conservative who writes Australia's most-read political blog.  And it's a conversation to make you think, to make you question, and to perhaps re-order some of the opinions and ideas that may have been cemented in your mind. Show Notes...

You’re 27. You’ve just gotten divorced after a very brief marriage. And you’re watching your favourite show on TV. It’s about an all women’s soccer team. Two girls kiss. And then it hits you. You’re a lesbian. You’re also a huge country music star. And you don’t know how your fans will react. So you don’t tell anyone. You raise your son. You po...

Marriage is hard. Kids are hard. Carving a career in the music industry is hard. Luckily, Em Rusciano is a try-hard. You might know her from her brutally honest facebook page, from her time on Australian Idol, her brekkie radio gigs, her side-splitting standup, maybe you ran alongside her at athletics or your kids go to school with hers. But this refreshingly honest conversation gets to the c...

Mia Freedman is trying to figure out what the hell just happened with the US election. And the main thing Mia's realised is that she lives in a bubble. It's a pretty crowded bubble of like-minded centre lefties who cannot fathom how 'the most influential nation on earth' could elect Donald Trump. So, in a bid to burst the bubble, Mia has decided to call up four people she knows who...

Two years ago, Brisbane breakfast radio star Robin Bailey lost her husband. In the aftermath, stricken with grief, she poured herself into work. Then last month, after ten years on air at the radio station, she lost her job. In her first interview since being let go from the 97.3 Brisbane breakfast team, the mother of three opens up to Mia Freedman about grief, the first thing she did after she wa...

The thing about being on live TV for 20 hours a week is that you can’t fake it. Pretenders don't last. So the Lisa Wilkinson you know from ten years on the Today Show is the same Lisa Wilkinson you meet in real life. Mia Freedman talks to her former boss about what happens when you realise your husband is drinking and eating too much, the hardest part about marriage, and how Karl Stefan...

Mia Freedman is trying to figure out what the hell just happened with the US election. And the main thing Mia's realised is that she lives in a bubble. It's a pretty crowded bubble of like-minded Centre Lefties who cannot fathom how 'the most influential nation on earth' could elect Donald Trump. So, in a bid to burst the bubble, Mia has decided to call up four people she knows who...

Mia Freedman is trying to figure out what the hell just happened with the US election. And the main thing Mia's realised is that she lives in a bubble. And it's a pretty crowded bubble of like-minded Centre Lefties who cannot fathom how 'the most influential nation on earth' could elect Donald Trump. So, in a bid to burst the bubble, Mia has decided to call up four people she knows...

You’re a successful comedian who is married to a man who doesn't want children. Suddenly, the ticking of your biological clock is the only sound you can hear. The story of what happened when you forced him into IVF is one that will shape both your lives. This is Meshel Laurie’s story. The radio host, author, feminist, podcaster, social justice warrior, mother, ex-wife, T...

The day Mia has been waiting for is here. It’s the US election. So it’s no surprise that when the American bestselling author Jodi Picoult came into the office, Mia asked her all about her take on Trump and Clinton. From asking where Oprah is, to talking about how the polling works, Jodi Picoult has all the answers. The full No Filter interview with Jodi is coming soon.  Show...

What happens when you give birth to a baby girl who isn’t yours? You will never breastfeed her, never live in the same house as her, and will never, ever be called 'mum'. This was Shannon Garner’s experience not that long ago. The mother-of-two decided to be a surrogate for a gay couple she had never met, and around 12 months later, Shannon gave birth to their baby Elsie. Unsurpri...

You can’t cure death. But you can try and make it kinder. And that is what Andrew Denton plans on doing for many chronically ill Australians. The iconic journalist and former host of Enough Rope  has made it his mission to understand voluntary euthanasia since the death of his own father. Denton's created a podcast called Better Off Dead , and now he’s using his profile to ma...

How far would you go to get your children back if they had been taken from you? Would you travel to a foreign country? Hire a person skilled in the recovery of child abductions? This is exactly what Brisbane mother-of-three Sally Faulkner did to be reunited with her two children Lahela and Noah. But things didn’t exactly end up going to plan. This is the story behind the botched 60 minutes r...

Who’s the biggest supporter of women? According to himself, it’s Donald Trump. But then again, he also thinks Aleppo is a 'fat' supermodel. Mia Freedman is joined in the studio again by Amelia Lester, the Editor of the Good Weekend - and gatecrasher and resident Trump impersonator Rosie Waterland. So what happened today? What does this mean? Did Hillary just nail it? And what now? Show...

If you've ever listened to Triple J news, you'd be familiar with the smooth-talking tones of newsreader Nas Campanella. What you might not know, though, is that she's completely blind. A national newsreader who can't read the news, and doesn't use braille.  So how does she do her job? How does she text, date, cook, and buy clothes? And why, at 29, do people still treat her like a child? For a...

Mia Freedman has a new hobby. It's not knitting, or even sport. It’s American politics. Actually, that’s a lie. It’s Donald Trump… and how much she hates him. He’s a name caller. He makes fun of people with disabilities, of grieving mothers who have lost their soldier sons, of women. Soooo many women. So she decided to invite Amelia Lester, the former Managing Editor...

This is not an interview about breast cancer. This is an interview about an extraordinary friendship between two hilarious women. Tracy Bevan lost her best friend, Jane McGrath to breast cancer, but that’s not what defined their connection. Their relationship went to the darkest places you can imagine and then lifted them higher than they thought possible, over and over. It’s a friends...

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 suburban housewife who writes for a hobby. Australia’s most successful author, this mother-of-two from Sydney has sold over six million books.  She's one of the few authors in the world to ever have three books on the New York Times best...

She enrolled in The Bachelor to 'shake things up' in her life. Two years on, Sam Frost is Australia's sweetheart: the loveable girl-next-door with a brekkie radio gig next to Rove McManus. But the path to get there was paved with pain. She had her heart smashed into a million pieces in front of the nation, which sent her spinning into despair and grief. But her belief that she would be happy again...

How do you make an ordinary person seem like a rock star? You put them in front of Richard Fidler. His cult ABC radio show, Conversations,  is Australia's most popular podcast, downloaded more than 1.8 million times per month. And Richard is the puppet master; drawing you deep into the stories of people you have probably never heard of. Today, he is on the receiving end of the questions. &nbs...

She's feisty, funny, and after she scowled into the spotlight on The Bachelor Australia, she found herself as the crowd favourite. But for Keira Maguire, it came with a massive amount of scrutiny. After Woman’s Day revealed she grew up in a polygamist cult, the Bachelor star talks to Mia about being cast as the villain, growing up "different" and what she’s going to do next. The i...

She's one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood. She votes on the Academy, which decides who will get the Oscars. She’s produced box office smash hits Wild, Gone Girl, Warm Bodies and Milk just to name a few. And up until last week she had a production company with Reese Witherspoon. So how did Bruna Papandrea go from the outer Adelaide suburbs to a leading lady boss of Hollywood?...

Ita Buttrose is an Australian icon. She's the founding editor of Cleo Magazine. Cold Chisel once wrote a song about her. The author of 11 books. A former Australian of the year. Host of Studio 10. And when she sat down with another former magazine editor Mia Freedman for this interview, what did they talk about? Everything, obviously. Show Notes Your host is Mia Freedman. With...

In 2011, Loren O'Keeffe's world changed forever. Her 24-year-old brother Dan walked out of the family home and disappeared. Loren quit her job immediatley, set up a Dan Come Home movement and spent the next five years answering emails, trawling soup kitchens and chasing every lead that came her way.  In March of 2016, all that came to a halt, when Dan's body was found under the family ho...

Look around you. Look at the women in your life. Did you know, one in three of them will have a miscarriage in their lifetime? And around 2000 women this year will have a stillbirth. That's a lot of women you know.   I am one of them. And so is my very dear friend, Rebecca Sparrow. That’s why at Mamamia, we decided to establish a support group for these women.&n...