Carrie Bickmore weighs up TV return: ‘I don't feel like I've left'
While the then co-host of The Project gave the appearance of being effortlessly confident as she accepted her award with a speech about the need for more awareness of the toll of brain cancer, it was a different story behind the scenes.
Having welcomed her daughter Evie just six weeks earlier, Bickmore was sleep-deprived, and secretly grappling with the anxiety that has dogged her since she was 19 years old and starting out in radio.
'I reckon I thought more that night about having a panic attack than I did enjoying the dinner or chatting to people – or the feeling of winning,' she tells The Watchlist.
'It's why it's beautiful to have this legacy of the beanie campaign from that night. It forces me to think about it more often and remember it.'
Soon after her speech, Bickmore made a mad dash to her baby, who was being looked after by her mum Jennie in a nearby hotel room.
'Mum met me in the lift and was like, 'You're just in time to feed her, great timing.' So it's funny – behind the glamour, there's all this other stuff happening.'
Indeed, as she points out, Bickmore can tell what time photos of her were taken on the night 'purely based on the size of my cleavage'.
'When I was having the dress made, I didn't think about the fact that I needed to breastfeed. 'So as the night wore on, my boobs just got bigger and bigger.'
A lot has happened since Bickmore was on the Logies dais.
She has raised nearly $27 million for cancer research via her charity, Carrie's Beanies 4 Brain Cancer, and shifted focus to her drive-time radio show Carrie & Tommy for the Hit Network.
She tells The Watchlist that while she does miss being on TV, 'Our radio show is filmed every day. A lot of people watch our show rather than listen to it. So weirdly, I don't really feel like I've left.'
In any case, she'll attend tonight's ceremony as a guest.
'For me, it will forever hold a very special place in my heart,' she says of the Logies.
'But also, I just really like seeing friends I've made over the years from different networks.
'I like celebrating the industry that has provided me [with] so much and has such incredibly talented, creative people in it.
'And I'm somebody that just likes an awards night.'
As for the show that brought her that Gold Logie a decade ago, Bickmore says she misses the people she worked with across her 14 years on The Project.
And she believes that viewers feel the same way since the show was axed in June: 'The show is going to leave a massive hole. Not just from a TV perspective, but for its place in people's hearts.'
And if she does eventually make a more permanent return to TV? Bickmore says it will be on her terms. 'I don't have that desire to prove myself,' she explains.
'I'm only going to do something that I really love, and right now, that opportunity hasn't popped up.
'I'm so happy doing what I'm doing that I just feel really at peace with where I'm at in my career.
'I've got so many creative ideas. The next thing I do, if I'm honest, I might even just create myself.'
The TV Week Logie Awards air at 7pm tonight on Seven and 7Plus. Read the full story and see the cover shoot with Carrie Bickmore in today's issue of The Watchlist, inside The Sunday Telegraph (NSW), Sunday Herald Sun (Victoria), The Sunday Mail (Queensland) and Sunday Mail (SA).
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