Alpha males, shock encounters and a double identity: the extraordinary life of Liz Hayes

Something To Talk About

Before she became a regular presence on TV screens across Australia, veteran journalist Liz Hayes was simply Beth Ryan, the daughter of a dairy farmer and a housewife in rural New South Wales. Now, as she looks back on her extraordinary life and career in a new memoir, Liz joins Something To Talk About for a thought-provoking and often very funny conversation about the places she has been, the people she has met and the things she has seen. (And trust us, there have been plenty.)

Liz considers how the success she achieved across the past several decades mirrored the struggles and triumphs that so many women of her generation endured as they battled societal expectations and came up against “alpha males” along the way.

She’s also full of fascinating anecdotes, whether reminiscing about the “hysterical moment” her then-flatmate Richard Wilkins encountered an A-list celebrity in her bedroom or marvelling at the phone call she received from former prime minister Bob Hawke, who invited her to join him on a private jet to the Gold Coast. And for the first time, Liz clears the air on her recently resurfaced 2012 interview with disgraced comedian and actor Russell Brand.

I’m Liz Hayes from HarperCollins is available online and in-store from November 15.

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Chapters

1. Alpha males, shock encounters and a double identity: the extraordinary life of Liz Hayes (00:00:00)

2. Marker 33 (00:33:21)

3. Marker 34 (00:53:48)