No Filter

In this conversation from the archives we go back to 2003, when a two-year-old girl captured the hearts of Australians after she was involved in an accident at her NSW childcare centre. Her name was Sophie Delezio. A vehicle crashed into the centre and caught alight, trapping Sophie and burning 85% of her body. After that accident, she lost both her legs below the knee, her right hand and ear. Thr...

There’s something we need to talk about more. In this episode of No Filter from the archives Naomi Watts, Alison Brahe-Daddo & Dr Ginni Mansberg sat down with Mia Freedman to talk about the Bermuda Triangle of women’s health. The funny and the not so pleasurable, hot mess stuff. They get real about the rollercoaster that is menopause and peri-menopause. The chaos, brain fog, sex dr...

The world knows Naomi Watts as one of the most iconic and accomplished actors of her generation - from The Ring to Mulholland Drive, King Kong to The Impossible - and so much more. But Naomi Watts is starring in a new role now…the role of author and advocate and innovator for menopausal women. She’s written an incredible new book, Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I’d Known About...

Can a woman really grow a baby without knowing she is pregnant? The answer is YES, as supermum Erin Carty proves! Erin’s story is one of bravery- as she details coming to terms with being an instant mum. You’ll hear about her husband’s heroic actions, their family’s shock and the incredible way Erin grew to bond with her bub.  Diary Of A Birth features mums telling the...

Happy New Year - No Filter listeners - how are you going so far in 2025? Did you survive the silly season? Did you make any “new year, new me” resolutions? Maybe you’re one of the many people who chose to get through the holidays sober…or maybe you enjoyed some Christmas tipple but now you’re feeling sober-curious. Wherever you might be on the mocktail to cocktail sp...

What do you do when you receive a phone call saying that your daughter has murdered someone? Mary Pershall spent 28 years trying to shield her youngest daughter Anna from her demons. First, it was anorexia, then other mental health issues and later drug use including marijuana and ice. But one act of rage in 2015 changed the course of Anna and her mother's life forever. So how do you deal with the...

Tara Westover was 16 when she stepped into a classroom for the first time. She didn’t know how to talk to her peers, had never heard of the Holocaust and thought that she was sitting amongst heathens. Today Tara holds a PHD in intellectual history and political thought from Cambridge University. She’s attended Harvard as a fellow, and has just written her first book, a memoir called Ed...

Never has the cliche “truth is stranger than fiction” applied more than to the woman on today's episode. You couldn’t make Susan Francis’s life up - it has too many twists. It begins with an adoption story and the mystery of her biological parents, it includes a secret sister, a heartbreaking confrontation, unexpected love and a series of events that were so dramatic that s...

How do you prepare for prison? How do you tell your young daughters that you aren’t going to see them for a very long time? Kerry Tucker was jailed in 2004 for one of the biggest white-collar crimes committed by a female in Victoria at the time. She’d been stealing money from her employers. She owned up to it, went through the process and spent 4.5 years behind bars in a maximum securi...

When you think of a psychopath, you probably imagine someone like serial killer Ivan Milat. But according to David Gillespie, it's more likely to be your boss or your grandma. Five to 10 per cent of the population qualify as psychopathic, and the rate can be as high as 20 per cent among corporate leaders and politicians. So how do you spot them? What do you do if you have to work for or with them,...

It was an ordinary day on the 30th of July, 1997 in Thredbo, but at 11:35pm the earth moved. Lives were changed and lost in just a few minutes. The Thredbo Landslide happened fast. It hit two ski lodges where 19 people were sleeping. It destroyed the buildings, ripped them off their foundations, and plunged those inside under tonnes of debris and concrete.  For the first two days, we were tol...

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...

On the 12th of September, 2018, Australian Academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert was arrested at Tehran’s International Airport in Iran. She spent 804 days incarcerated in Tehran’s Evin and Qarchak prison for espionage, a crime she never committed. She was an innocent Australian stuck in a foreign prison...with no way of getting home. Kylie’s story about her imprisonment, and what happene...

The last few years of Abi Morgan’s life would make an incredible TV show, although you might not believe it because of the plot twists. One of those twists is that Abi herself is an Emmy-award-winning screenwriter of movies like Iron Lady, with Meryl Streep, and TV dramas like The Split. But nothing could have prepared her for the cascading series of events that began on a very ordinary day....

When Louisa Hope walked into Sydney’s Lindt Cafe 10 years ago she didn't expect her life would change forever. Louisa is one of the survivors of the Sydney Siege. She and her mother were held at gunpoint and trapped for 17 hours before the gunman executed cafe manager Tori Johnston on his knees in front of her. Another hostage, Katrina Dawson was killed moments later in gunfire when police s...

Have you ever been love-bombed by a romantic partner only to have them go cold as soon as they’ve snagged you? Have you ever been in a relationship with someone who made you feel crazy because of their ability to seem SO great in front of the neighbours but be SO different behind closed doors? What about a boss who steals your ideas, your thunder and your inspiration…Or a parent who a...

The Believe in Magic charity was set up by a 16-year-old girl and her mother. Megan and Jean’s charity helped grant wishes to sick children in a make-a-wish sort of way and some kids, including Megan, even got to meet One Direction members. The charity was founded because Megan was diagnosed with a rare brain condition and a few years later a brain tumour. A group of internet sleuths became...

Cait West was raised inside an fundamentalist Christian patriarchal cult that believed that women should be submissive to men and that girls should be raised to serve their husbands…by first serving their fathers. Until she was 25 years old, Cait was what is referred to as a ‘stay-at-home daughter’ - what exactly does that mean? And how did Cait decide to finally leave? Listen to this timely, impo...

[Part 1 of 2] Having one baby is hard. Imagine four! This is the incredible story of Taylah Tudehope-Glachan ’s pregnancy and birth with her quadruplets. In Part 1 of Taylah’s tale, she details a roller-coaster fertility struggle; think PCOS, endometriosis and IVF. Plus what it was like discovering her successful transfer had resulted in four babies. You’ll hear about high-risk pregnancy, exactly...

Samantha Azzopardi spent 10 years receiving care as a troubled teen. It would be years before the truth came out that she was actually an adult woman.  Her scams stretched decades and impacted families, friends and even children, in Australia and abroad. But it wasn’t money that she wanted…    In this conversation, Mia speaks with investigative journalist Sharon Davis, co-host of the successful po...

There’s a reason why behavioural scientist Dr Ali Fenwick is one of the most followed relationship & psychology accounts on social media (and it’s not just his fantastic dancing). In this special episode of No Filter, Clare Stephens explores the real meaning behind the red flags and the green flags we encounter in our relationships with others - from romantic partners to family, the workplace...

At the intersection of sex, marketing and the gig economy, you will find Annie Knight, who has been branded ‘Australia’s Most Sexually Active Woman’. Annie is a 27-year-old Brisbane woman who makes her own sex content and sells it to subscribers via Only Fans where she is in the top 0.02% of creators on the platform. Only Fans became wildly popular during the pandemic, with thousands of Australian...

For years, Erica Garza struggled with sex and porn addiction - an addiction that had to reach rock bottom before she sought help. Now, Erica Garza is on a mission - she wants to take away the stigma and shame surrounding women who struggle with sex & porn addiction.  How does a habit become an obsession...and an obsession turn into an addiction? And what does recovery look like? (spoiler alert...

Simmone Jade McKinnon was - and is, to many - Stevie from McLouds Daughters. She joined that iconic Australian show fresh from another era-defining TV moment, Baywatch, with a Hollywood star fiancé on her arm and a creative career in full flight. And then everything changed. Simmone and her son Madigan have been living in a caravan and then a shed in her family’s back paddock for the best part of...

In this special episode of No Filter, Mia Freedman shares a story about a very vulnerable time in her life...when she was dealing with big life challenges around marriage and fertility and career...and what happened when the place she went for help turned out to be, well, a cult.  THE END BITS: Subscribe to Mamamia Join the Month of MOVE Get $30 off a Mamamia subscription and get unlimited access...