Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mama Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mama Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on. I'm Meya Friedman and
Speaker 2: the team at Mumma Mea are bringing you over one
Speaker 2: hundred hours of the very best of the podcasts that
Speaker 2: we've made from across our podcast network. Do you know
Speaker 2: that we have something like fifty six different podcasts here
Speaker 2: at Mamma Mia. And if you follow this one, we
Speaker 2: have selected some others that you might like to listen
Speaker 2: to as well. And we've also brought back some of
Speaker 2: our most popular and most riveting stories from No Filter,
Speaker 2: which is what you're going to hear today. We first
Speaker 2: brought you the story of Stuart Diver in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: and as you're going to hear, Stuart was the sole
Speaker 2: survivor of the nineteen ninety seven Threadbow Landslide. His name
Speaker 2: that will be familiar to so many people. It was
Speaker 2: absolutely iconic, the image of him being pulled from that
Speaker 2: rubble after many days when everybody thought that there was
Speaker 2: no hope, and indeed under that rubble he was lying
Speaker 2: next to his wife Sally, and the experience and the
Speaker 2: losses that he would go on to survive in the
Speaker 2: years to come, were not over because unbelievably, Stuart lost
Speaker 2: his second wife as well. I was kind of dreading
Speaker 2: this interview, and I think I said that to Stuart
Speaker 2: because it sounds from what I just told you like
Speaker 2: it would be really sad. But it is actually so enjoyable,
Speaker 2: so funny. Of course, not all of it's funny, but
Speaker 2: it's one of those things that if you are in
Speaker 2: the groups of grief and thinking that you will never
Speaker 2: move past it, or heartbreak or something impossibly difficult to
Speaker 2: cope with. Stuart isn't a remarkable man, and it is
Speaker 2: truly a remarkable story, and I really enjoyed my time
Speaker 2: with him, which is why I wanted to pop this
Speaker 2: in your ears. It was an ordinary day on the
Speaker 2: thirtieth of July nineteen ninety seven in Threadbow. Thousands of
Speaker 2: people from across the country and the world had flocked
Speaker 2: to the ski town to enjoy the snow, along with
Speaker 2: the tight knit community of men and women who worked
Speaker 2: on the ski field as instructors and lift operators and
Speaker 2: in the village in hospitality. But at eleven thirty five
Speaker 2: pm that evening, the earth moved. It literally moved, and
Speaker 2: lives were changed and lost in just a few minutes.
Speaker 2: The Threadbow landslide happened fast. It hit two ski lodgers
Speaker 2: where nineteen people were sleeping. It destroyed the buildings, ripping
Speaker 2: them off their foundations, and plunged all of those people
Speaker 2: inside under tons of debris and concrete. For the first
Speaker 2: two days we were told that there would be no survivors. However,
Speaker 2: on the morning of the third day, sixty six hours
Speaker 2: after he was buried, my guest today was found alive.
Speaker 2: He was the lone survivor of one of the most
Speaker 2: famous tragedies in Australia's history.
Speaker 3: We live from Threadbow. This is a special one hour
Speaker 3: edition of ten News. I'm Sandra Sully News. Just a hand.
Speaker 3: I'm hoping you can see these pictures. They are wonderful pictures.
Speaker 3: Philart Diver has been freed. His stretcher is being moved
Speaker 3: slowly up incrementally towards the ambulance. Sixty to seventy emergency
Speaker 3: workers are waiting there anxiously to receive him and of
Speaker 3: course assess his condition.
Speaker 1: From Momma Maya.
Speaker 2: You're listening to No Filter, the podcast where people from
Speaker 2: all walks of life, tell their stories very candidly and
Speaker 2: aren't afraid to be vulnerable. My name is Mia Friedman.
Speaker 2: Stuart Diver has been through more in his fifty one
Speaker 2: years than most people go through in their entire lives.
Speaker 2: When he was just twenty seven, he was the sole
Speaker 2: survivor of a landslide which took the life of his wife, Sally,
Speaker 2: and in twenty fifteen, Stuart lost his second wife, Rosanna.
Speaker 2: Their daughter was just four years old at the time.
Speaker 2: You might say that Stuart has every right to be angry,
Speaker 2: to feel sorry for himself, to be pissed off at
Speaker 2: the world. But here's the thing, he's not. He's really,
Speaker 2: really not because on that day in nineteen ninety seven
Speaker 2: and on that day in twenty fifteen, when the world
Speaker 2: dealt him two unthinkable blows, Stuart decided to live, not
Speaker 2: just to survive, but to live in a big way,
Speaker 2: to be happy, to laugh because when things get tough.
Speaker 2: Stuart asked himself two questions, what is it that I'm
Speaker 2: actually living for and what is it that's driving me forward?
Speaker 2: And his reasons are pretty amazing, I mean looking forward
Speaker 2: to this, so I actually, like everyone else over the
Speaker 2: age of about thirty. I remember exactly where I was
Speaker 2: when Stuart Diver was pulled blinking from the rubble on
Speaker 2: live TV. I can still picture his wife, Sally's face
Speaker 2: from all the media coverage. It went on for days
Speaker 2: and weeks and months. It was one of those tragedies
Speaker 2: that the whole country felt, which is why, to be honest,
Speaker 2: I've been reluctant to interview Stuart until now, especially after
Speaker 2: learning that his second wife had passed away. But then
Speaker 2: I realized that Stuart's story and his resilience could help
Speaker 2: so many people, especially right now and his bloody great company.
Speaker 2: Stuart Diver is the host of a new podcast called
Speaker 2: The Elements. He's the single dad of twelve year old Alessier,
Speaker 2: and he's the general manager of Threadbow Resorts, and that's
Speaker 2: where he joins me from right now. I wanted to
Speaker 2: ask you prepare for an interview like this, Like when
Speaker 2: you sat down, you said, I'm looking forward to this.
Speaker 2: And I said to someone today, I'm interviewing Stewart Diver
Speaker 2: today and I'm really looking forward to it. And they said,
Speaker 2: are you being sarcastic? And I went, no, I'm actually
Speaker 2: really excited. My feelings aside, How do you prepare knowing
Speaker 2: the stuff we're going to talk about?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think the easiest way for me
Speaker 4: is the only reason that I do and talk about
Speaker 4: my experiences and what I've been through is to try
Speaker 4: and share what I've learned from those experiences and then
Speaker 4: hopefully through that others can get a positive outcome or
Speaker 4: I can influence, you know, and change something in someone's life.
Speaker 4: So I come in to a podcast or to an
Speaker 4: interview thinking what is the outcome going to be and
Speaker 4: is it worth me then delving into those emotional depths
Speaker 4: and sharing my story, and if it is, then it's
Speaker 4: actually really really easy to do because you know, my
Speaker 4: life is about trying to find the positives and trying
Speaker 4: to live in that way, and I see this is
Speaker 4: just an addition to doing that and being able to share.
Speaker 2: That with others, that idea of purpose, finding purpose, because
Speaker 2: otherwise it becomes grief point, doesn't it just someone rummaging
Speaker 2: around in your trauma?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Absolutely, I mean I base a lot of what
Speaker 4: I've done on my belief system and what is it
Speaker 4: that I'm actually living for? So, you know, how do
Speaker 4: you survive those traumas in your life, big or small.
Speaker 4: What is it that's driving me forward? And I think
Speaker 4: that's really key because you know, you can go and
Speaker 4: wallow in that grief and you're allowed to be in
Speaker 4: that place, like you're allowed to feel sorry for yourself.
Speaker 4: There's no problem with that at all. But if you
Speaker 4: spend all of your time there, then you're not going
Speaker 4: to have a very positive life. So I think it
Speaker 4: really is working out what is it that I'm living for?
Speaker 4: And you know, for me, it's the fact that I
Speaker 4: love people. I love sharing life with people, I love
Speaker 4: caring for people, and that's what drives me forward. So
Speaker 4: whether it was living for that or living for those people,
Speaker 4: that's what gets me out of bed every day.
Speaker 2: Will you like that before the landslide?
Speaker 4: I definitely think that I was. I mean, my mum
Speaker 4: and dad definitely instilled that in me from a very
Speaker 4: young age, you know, that caring spirit. We did a
Speaker 4: lot of charity work, you know, as kids. There was
Speaker 4: a lot of things that I didn't like doing, getting
Speaker 4: forced into. But I think that whole attitude of community
Speaker 4: and looking after each other and pulling together, you know,
Speaker 4: was definitely instilled in me. I think It's definitely been
Speaker 4: refined because of what I've gone through, obviously definitely focused
Speaker 4: me more on what is truly important and probably given
Speaker 4: me a lot more clarity around that. And I think
Speaker 4: that that's probably the difference. But you know, a lot
Speaker 4: of people say, oh, you know, did the landslide change
Speaker 4: you know? You know? And I think you can speak
Speaker 4: to a lot of people who knew me before and afterwards,
Speaker 4: I'm the same person. I've definitely, hopefully because that's a
Speaker 4: long time ago, hopefully I've matured and some of my
Speaker 4: points you may have changed and developed, etc. But yeah, overall,
Speaker 4: I think deep down I'm exactly the same person that
Speaker 4: I've always been.
Speaker 2: You're the same person, but people no doubt see you
Speaker 2: differently since the landslide and everything that's happened to you
Speaker 2: than they did before. So I was going to ask you.
Speaker 2: When people are famous for whatever reasons, when someone meets them,
Speaker 2: sometimes the onus is on that famous person to make
Speaker 2: them feel less intimidated or at ease. I had someone
Speaker 2: who said to me recently, after they lost someone, people
Speaker 2: would do this thing where they'd tilt their head and go,
Speaker 2: how are you you know, and there'd be a lot
Speaker 2: of subtext in that head tilt.
Speaker 4: Do you find that, Yes, absolutely, a lot of it
Speaker 4: is looking after the other person, And that's what can
Speaker 4: become really really difficult, because you know, you're sharing your story,
Speaker 4: you're sharing some of the most emotional things that happened
Speaker 4: in your life, like the landslide, fairly traumatic a point
Speaker 4: in my life. Yet sometimes people come to you even
Speaker 4: you know, I look at you know, when Rosanna died
Speaker 4: the same thing. People come because they want to be
Speaker 4: made to feel more comfortable about them. So you spend
Speaker 4: half the time actually making them feel comfortable about the
Speaker 4: death of someone or whatever it is, rather than them
Speaker 4: because if you're okay, then they can be okay. I mean,
Speaker 4: it has some benefits, you know. And I always say
Speaker 4: for me, you know, my notoriety or you know, hate
Speaker 4: the word celebrity, but that it's always been such a
Speaker 4: positive experience because people are coming out to me going wow,
Speaker 4: you know, it's amazing, and you're still here and you
Speaker 4: love this place and you know, so it's not like
Speaker 4: I'm a criminal, So the experience is actually really positive.
Speaker 4: But in doing that, it puts a lot of pressure
Speaker 4: on me to make sure that I'm in a mental
Speaker 4: space that I'm able to share that and do that,
Speaker 4: and I don't just snap back at people and tell
Speaker 4: them to go away and do whatever, which is what
Speaker 4: you see happen a lot when you get pushed, you know,
Speaker 4: you turn the other way. So there was a huge
Speaker 4: impetus early on, not that that was the main focus
Speaker 4: for me, but definitely for me to be able to
Speaker 4: work on my mental health so that I was able
Speaker 4: to talk about everything that I'd been through and share
Speaker 4: it in a way that was positive, because you know,
Speaker 4: the reality is if I can do that to someone
Speaker 4: who's walking down the street in Threadbow, you know, and
Speaker 4: it's five minutes of my life and it's a hug,
Speaker 4: and you know, that can be in some ways, not
Speaker 4: to put say that anything special, but that can be
Speaker 4: a really really positive experience for that person. And that's
Speaker 4: how I look at it. So yeah, I never look
Speaker 4: at it as a threat.
Speaker 2: It's quite a heavy load to carry though, because I
Speaker 2: was thinking that other people who involved in traumatic events,
Speaker 2: including many of the people that you interviewed for your podcast,
Speaker 2: the elements. If someone's in a car accident, other people
Speaker 2: aren't going to want to tell them where they were
Speaker 2: when that car accident happened, but I imagined that people
Speaker 2: always want to tell you where they were when you
Speaker 2: were pulled out of that building.
Speaker 4: You nailed the number one opening. Yeah, when they approach
Speaker 4: and it is amazing. I mean, the Threadbao Landslide was
Speaker 4: really that first big Threadbow media event. It was the
Speaker 4: first time satellite dishes were in an area. It was
Speaker 4: just new technology, but they were here. It was live,
Speaker 4: it was getting broadcasts. I mean, stuff that's done every
Speaker 4: single minute of the day now in today's society. But
Speaker 4: then it was big. And I always say, you know
Speaker 4: that my face. People say, you know, twenty four years on,
Speaker 4: wouldn't people forget your face? But I say no, because
Speaker 4: what it is, it's the emotional attachment that's linked to
Speaker 4: my face. So it's going to be there forever. I
Speaker 4: have two choices to make, and that is either you
Speaker 4: deny that that's happening, you put your head down, you
Speaker 4: put on the dark glasses, and you go away, or
Speaker 4: you use it for something positive. So that story of
Speaker 4: where that person was on that day usually leads them
Speaker 4: to them talking about something else, and it'll be maybe
Speaker 4: their daughter died or their daughter had breast cancer. Or
Speaker 4: whatever it is. And for me that's the most amazing
Speaker 4: part of it, because my psychologist always says to me, Stuart,
Speaker 4: don't become a pop psychologist, So I'm not there offering
Speaker 4: people advice on the street. But it's a great way
Speaker 4: of being able to share and say, you know, one
Speaker 4: of the big things that we need to do more
Speaker 4: as a society is we need to share that stuff
Speaker 4: with each other because the more we do it, the
Speaker 4: more we realize it normalizes it and it makes those
Speaker 4: experiences seem as not as traumatic as they really should be.
Speaker 4: I realized, Wow, it's a lot of other people in
Speaker 4: the world going through unbelievable amounts of pain and suffering
Speaker 4: and trauma every single day. So what is it we
Speaker 4: can do as a collective to help each other rather
Speaker 4: than me just focusing on myself, which we all do
Speaker 4: as an individual. And I just need to look after
Speaker 4: my mental health and I'll be fine. But the real
Speaker 4: good test for me is that working is that I
Speaker 4: can talk about it to you today. That shows me
Speaker 4: that all of that work that I've done on my
Speaker 4: mental health with my psychologist over twenty four years has
Speaker 4: paid off.
Speaker 2: Three enormous things happened to you in a very short
Speaker 2: space of time, a matter of hours. Twenty four years ago,
Speaker 2: you were involved in a major trauma and nearly lost
Speaker 2: your life.
Speaker 1: You lost your.
Speaker 2: Wife, and you became the most famous man in Australia.
Speaker 2: All of those three things happened and no doubt inextricably linked,
Speaker 2: but they're three very different things to process. How do
Speaker 2: you go about unpicking them from each other?
Speaker 4: It took a lot of work with my psychologist in
Speaker 4: the months and years afterwards. Is the reality of it,
Speaker 4: because there's bits there that are me surviving and coming
Speaker 4: out and that celebrity that was forced upon me or
Speaker 4: thrust upon me in some ways was a hugely positive experience.
Speaker 4: In other ways there were negativities that went with that
Speaker 4: as well. Obviously my life in the initial stage is
Speaker 4: me surviving, a huge positive but then to be followed
Speaker 4: up by sixty five hours of horrific drama, and then
Speaker 4: couple that, as you say, with Sally dying. We basically
Speaker 4: had to separate all of that out and work out okay,
Speaker 4: So within all of those points, there's some huge positives
Speaker 4: and some huge negatives, So we had to deal with
Speaker 4: what are the negatives? And how are we going to
Speaker 4: deal with those so they don't just keep resurfacing through
Speaker 4: my life and being reliving that traumatic experience. And that's
Speaker 4: not to say the traumatic experience goes away. It stays
Speaker 4: with you for life, you know. That is the greatest
Speaker 4: myth ever. Anyone who goes through any sort of trauma,
Speaker 4: it generally you can do as much work as you want.
Speaker 4: It stays with you for life. So for me, it
Speaker 4: was not only separating those experiences, but then working out
Speaker 4: what was it that I was going to keep and
Speaker 4: use as the positives to go forward. So, you know,
Speaker 4: me living that's a pretty easy one because I got
Speaker 4: to live and share my life with everyone else. Coming
Speaker 4: out and being a minor celebrity and doing that well,
Speaker 4: really that, you know, in some ways is just operational stuff.
Speaker 4: You get a good media manager around you, and life
Speaker 4: goes on. So the biggest one in there was obviously
Speaker 4: the death of Sally, you know, and that's horrific and
Speaker 4: I sort of can look back on it now having
Speaker 4: lived through the death of Rosa when she died of
Speaker 4: breast cancer. Two very very different experiences, you know, same outcome,
Speaker 4: but two very different experiences, And I now realize why.
Speaker 4: You know, Sally's death was so traumatic, it's that no goodbyes.
Speaker 4: Really you look at that and you go, there are
Speaker 4: no real positives you can drag out of that. You know,
Speaker 4: you're twenty seven years old, the love of your life
Speaker 4: dies in two and a half minutes next to you.
Speaker 4: Where do you get the positive? But that's where I
Speaker 4: come back to, you know, where we started talking initially,
Speaker 4: What is it that I'm living for? In that situation there,
Speaker 4: I tried to save the life of the person I
Speaker 4: love the most in the world. I tried to care
Speaker 4: for the person I loved the most in the world.
Speaker 4: I was unable to do it. You know, I tried
Speaker 4: to stop a drowning. She drowned, and that was it
Speaker 4: hugely horrific. But when I look back at that, in
Speaker 4: the most stressful time of my life, what I did
Speaker 4: was I tried to take care of the person that
Speaker 4: I loved and cared for the most in the world.
Speaker 4: So my fundamental belief came to the fore. So when
Speaker 4: I look at that now, I look at my life
Speaker 4: and I say, that was really devastating. But I look
Speaker 4: at Sally and I go, wow, you know, would she
Speaker 4: want me to still be at that spot thinking that
Speaker 4: I failed in doing that, or would she want me
Speaker 4: to be going on to live a life focusing on
Speaker 4: what I believe in, focusing on my values and using
Speaker 4: that to drive me forward. And that's what I believe
Speaker 4: she would want me to do. People could say her
Speaker 4: life was wasted, but I look at it and say, yeah,
Speaker 4: her life was definitely cut short, but there is a
Speaker 4: real duty on me to then live my life to
Speaker 4: the fullest in the most positive way, in memory of
Speaker 4: her and what a beautiful person she was and all
Speaker 4: of those amazing beliefs and traits that she had, And
Speaker 4: that's what drives me forward. And that's happened again. You
Speaker 4: know with Rosannah, the same process happens hugely traumatic, but
Speaker 4: you know, and sometimes it can sound a bit facetious,
Speaker 4: but it's not. You know, you can get positives out
Speaker 4: of these huge tragedies, and that's the only way I
Speaker 4: see to go forward.
Speaker 2: Post Traumatic growth is the term for that, isn't it.
Speaker 2: A lot of people aren't familiar with that term. Most
Speaker 2: people understand post traumatic stress disorder, but post traumatic growth
Speaker 2: is when I remember a friend who lost a baby
Speaker 2: said that she felt that the light in her life
Speaker 2: was turned up by the loss of that baby, not
Speaker 2: extinguished and not turned down.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's that thing. Do you go nuts and go wow,
Speaker 5: you know I'm out? Yeah, every day is going to
Speaker 5: be my last. You know, you can try that, but
Speaker 5: that doesn't last very long. You can do that for
Speaker 5: a couple of months and you can pretend, but the
Speaker 5: reality is your.
Speaker 4: Life just goes back to normal. And I always said that,
Speaker 4: you know, my whole aim of my life has been
Speaker 4: to get my life back to normal. Now what the
Speaker 4: normal is is it's a new normal and it's changed.
Speaker 4: But a big part of that is making sure that
Speaker 4: you're comfortable with the past. Growth is about that. You
Speaker 4: have to be comfortable with what's gone on, you know,
Speaker 4: the feelings of guilt, all of those such negative emotions.
Speaker 4: You need to have dealt with all of that so
Speaker 4: that you can grow. And the really big thing is
Speaker 4: to not feel guilty about that. You know, society sometimes
Speaker 4: has a lot of these norms that go around that
Speaker 4: put pressure on us to stay in that spot. Oh
Speaker 4: you haven't quite grieved enough. You can't go on and
Speaker 4: have a new relationship. What's he thinking? That's terrible? You know,
Speaker 4: all of those sort of things you have to say, actually,
Speaker 4: this is me. If I dealt with that grief in
Speaker 4: one week, probably highly unusual, But if I did, that's me.
Speaker 4: And if I felt that I've dealt with that, that
Speaker 4: I'm allowed to move on with my life. If that
Speaker 4: grief also takes five years, or if it's with me forever,
Speaker 4: which is generally what happens, then that's okay too. And
Speaker 4: I think that, you know, we need to give ourselves
Speaker 4: when you go through those sort of traumas, that space
Speaker 4: to be able to deal with it. But yeah, you
Speaker 4: have to be able to really, really comfortable with your
Speaker 4: past to be able to go forward. Otherwise you just
Speaker 4: keep delving back and it's just becomes a circle round
Speaker 4: and round and around, and you never get to go forward.
Speaker 2: What was Sally like?
Speaker 4: She was amazing. I mean it's hard now. A lot
Speaker 4: of the memories have gone. You know, it's a long time.
Speaker 4: Twenty four years is a long time. But you know,
Speaker 4: the bits that I remember of Sally is that she
Speaker 4: was well liked by everyone around her because she was
Speaker 4: always bright and bubbly, and she was happy and she
Speaker 4: had that carefree attitude. Yet she had this really deep determination.
Speaker 4: She knew where she was going and she knew what
Speaker 4: she was doing. It was sort of like, don't cross me.
Speaker 4: I'll be nice and if you're nice, and we'll keep going.
Speaker 4: But she really did have that drive, and that's what
Speaker 4: I've thrived on. When she was alive and I was
Speaker 4: with her, you know, we were great duo together in
Speaker 4: all of the things that we experienced, and we drove
Speaker 4: each other. But I've used that going forward to say,
Speaker 4: you know what, would Sally actually accept that behavior? Probably not?
Speaker 4: So you know what, am I accepting it before? Let's
Speaker 4: use some of her traits to make my life a
Speaker 4: more positive place to be.
Speaker 2: To be pretty resilient and secure to date a widower.
Speaker 4: I think you do. Because the great thing is I
Speaker 4: can always refer back and this has happened. So Rosanna
Speaker 4: used to say, so, what would Sally have done this situation?
Speaker 4: I said, ah, well, obviously Sally would have just let
Speaker 4: me do whatever I wanted because that was the sort
Speaker 4: of person she was. Maybe you should model your life
Speaker 4: on her.
Speaker 1: No, it's that sort of bit you can't compare, can you.
Speaker 4: No, that's right, but as a humans we do. So
Speaker 4: you're looking and going, oh was she more beautiful than me,
Speaker 4: or did Stuart's friends like her more than me? You know?
Speaker 4: And then on top of that, then you've got the
Speaker 4: family members, so you've got Sally's mum and dad, You've
Speaker 4: got all of these other complications that go on. And
Speaker 4: when you look at it like that, yeah, I'm amazed
Speaker 4: and you I take my hat off to Rosanna for
Speaker 4: taking on the challenge and going out with me, because
Speaker 4: there was an enormous amount of baggage that came with me,
Speaker 4: not necessarily caused by me, but caused by who I
Speaker 4: was and what was around me, and whether that was
Speaker 4: the attention of media, friends, all of these things. There's
Speaker 4: a lot of pressures that come from every and she
Speaker 4: had to put up with a huge amount in her
Speaker 4: life because of the fact of the landslide, and more
Speaker 4: so probably in a lot of ways because Sally had
Speaker 4: been my partner.
Speaker 2: Because it's very different to the idea of someone's ex
Speaker 2: isn't it when it's a relationship that didn't end by
Speaker 2: your choosing? And in the most traumatic way. Was there
Speaker 2: any competition? Was there any feelings of rivalry jealousy, even
Speaker 2: though they're not logical or rational.
Speaker 4: I don't think she ever did. I mean, not that
Speaker 4: we really spoke about. In her I mean, Rosanna was
Speaker 4: in a lot of ways very similar to Sally. She's
Speaker 4: very very strong, probably more so, and she knew where
Speaker 4: she was going and what was happening in her life,
Speaker 4: and probably if she hadn't gone out with me and
Speaker 4: married me, should have been just happy on her own
Speaker 4: and continued on her life. So she was very much
Speaker 4: her own independent person, and I think that helped her
Speaker 4: a lot. So I don't think there was doubt there
Speaker 4: in her mind. I think the doubt probably came in
Speaker 4: through some of those people around who weren't so positive
Speaker 4: about that relationship, and that negativity crept in, and then
Speaker 4: you start doubting yourself, and then you start feeling more pressure,
Speaker 4: and then you sort of imagine that. And I think
Speaker 4: that that was probably a bigger struggle for her within
Speaker 4: our relationship and definitely put a lot of pressure on
Speaker 4: her that shouldn't have been there.
Speaker 2: If this isn't too personal, I was going to ask
Speaker 2: about your relationship with Sale's parents. The three of you
Speaker 2: have lost the person you're closest to. What happens after
Speaker 2: that as your life continues, But hers doesn't.
Speaker 4: Sally's parents were separated at that time, and I had
Speaker 4: a great relationship with both of them. I have a
Speaker 4: great relationship, but very different relationships currently Sally's dad, I'm
Speaker 4: very close to her. He treats me like his own son.
Speaker 4: So he basically said, you're my son, then, you're my
Speaker 4: son now. And he's been hugely supportive of everything that
Speaker 4: I've been through relationships, and the same thing when Rosanna
Speaker 4: and I started going out, he was one hundred percent
Speaker 4: there to support her and said you are now my daughter,
Speaker 4: which was an amazing way of doing it. You know,
Speaker 4: he's a hugely intelligent guy. He processes things really, really well,
Speaker 4: and that was his way of dealing with it. And
Speaker 4: I have great respect for him and he's been a
Speaker 4: great mentor and a real support for me over the
Speaker 4: last twenty four years and even prior to that, when
Speaker 4: I was married to Sally. With Sally's mum, it was
Speaker 4: people deal with things differently, and I think mothers, you know,
Speaker 4: from that female perspective, deal with things differently. So you know,
Speaker 4: we've given each other a fair bitter space over the years.
Speaker 4: You know, we're still keep in contact. You know, we
Speaker 4: text each other you know, we call occasionally, but Sale's
Speaker 4: mum definitely struggled with Sally's death, and I understand that,
Speaker 4: and I understand all of those processes. But the better
Speaker 4: thing for both of us was just to give ourselves
Speaker 4: a bit of space so that could work through that,
Speaker 4: and sometimes that can take a very long time.
Speaker 2: I'm mea Friedman and you're listening to No Filter with
Speaker 2: Stuart Diver. When you got back from your honeymoon and
Speaker 2: Rosanna discovered that she had breast cancer, did a part
Speaker 2: of you think this isn't fair about yourself, Like, haven't
Speaker 2: I been through enough?
Speaker 4: There were two things that happened. One is I went
Speaker 4: straight into survival mode again, so you know, just click
Speaker 4: into that mode. What can we do? I've got to
Speaker 4: make her live. I've got to this is the person
Speaker 4: I care and love for the mostly well, I've got
Speaker 4: to know just shooting off in all those directions, which
Speaker 4: is what you do. I mean, anyone who goes through
Speaker 4: a cancer experience knows, oh, we've got to get an operation,
Speaker 4: and we've got to get scans, and then chemo a
Speaker 4: lot to do, and it just goes on and on
Speaker 4: and on. So that in some ways was a good thing.
Speaker 4: It gave me that focus and I was able to
Speaker 4: for that next twelve months to two years just focus
Speaker 4: on Rosanna living. That was it, and that in some
Speaker 4: ways helps you deal with things emotionally as well. The
Speaker 4: feeling sorry for myself bit always comes in. I'm going
Speaker 4: to feel that today. I feel sorry for good because
Speaker 4: you're allowed to let some rubbish that goes on.
Speaker 2: Glad you say that, and it's not rubbish like it's
Speaker 2: kind of like if you were going to say no.
Speaker 2: It's all about everything. Like, you have every right to
Speaker 2: be pissed.
Speaker 4: Off, absolutely, and the key is it's what you do
Speaker 4: with that. So if that becomes a negative in your
Speaker 4: life and you're sitting in the corner and you've got
Speaker 4: the earphones on and you're not socializing and you're not
Speaker 4: moving on or doing anything, then that's an issue. Yeah.
Speaker 4: My psychologist Alway says, feel sorry for yourself as much
Speaker 4: and as often as you want. That's no dramas. Just
Speaker 4: don't do it all the time, you know, make sure
Speaker 4: that you're getting out of that. And there'll be days
Speaker 4: there where I will even now where I'll turn around
Speaker 4: and go, this is really shit. I just don't want
Speaker 4: to continue. This is garbage. What am I doing here?
Speaker 4: I am pretending, you know, I'm pretending for everyone that
Speaker 4: I'm happy all the time and life's amazing, and I
Speaker 4: just don't want to do it, so I'll go into
Speaker 4: those dark spaces. But luckily, you know, I've done enough
Speaker 4: work on myself that I've got the tools to be
Speaker 4: able to pull myself out. And I think that's the
Speaker 4: key with Rosanna. You know, those first couple of years
Speaker 4: were highly emotional, but we probably weren't dealing with a
Speaker 4: lot of that emotional side because you're just especially living remotely,
Speaker 4: you're driving two and a half hours to hospital, You're
Speaker 4: doing all of that sort of stuff. It consumes your life.
Speaker 4: So it probably wasn't until about three years after Rosanna's
Speaker 4: initial diagnosis when things are looking good and you know
Speaker 4: she was in remission and you're never quite in remission,
Speaker 4: but yeah, the cancer pretty well gone away, and so
Speaker 4: we're looking then at planning our future, and so you're
Speaker 4: starting to talk about babies and do we want to
Speaker 4: have babies or can Rosanna have a baby? I know,
Speaker 4: probably not due to all the treatment she's been through,
Speaker 4: all of those complexities, and that's when really we both
Speaker 4: went and started seeing my psychologist. We reached a point
Speaker 4: there where you just can't you know. And I've always
Speaker 4: said that psychologists are great mind's given me awesome tools
Speaker 4: to get through things. But I don't ever want to
Speaker 4: be the person like in some ways the US model
Speaker 4: where you have a therapist for yourself, a therapist for
Speaker 4: your dog, a therapist for your cat, and you use
Speaker 4: them all day, every day, and you end up relying
Speaker 4: them all the time. I think there's individual responsibility to
Speaker 4: make sure that you're doing the hard work and you're
Speaker 4: going forward. So yeah, there were periods of five or
Speaker 4: six years there where I hadn't seen my psychologists a
Speaker 4: talk because everything was going well, but obviously Rosanna's diagnosis
Speaker 4: and then obviously all of the other stuff that comes
Speaker 4: with that as you go through that whole survival experience.
Speaker 4: We went back and I saw him again and in
Speaker 4: the same thing, gave us some great tools and things
Speaker 4: that helped us work out what was our future, where
Speaker 4: were we going to go? And then obviously then as
Speaker 4: Rosanna the cancer came back and all the secondary cancers
Speaker 4: came back and Rosanna got sicker, then that became even
Speaker 4: more prominent again, and by then Unlessia had been born,
Speaker 4: not to jump too far in front, but unless you
Speaker 4: had been born, and then Alessia only being four years old.
Speaker 4: But we involved her in all those sessions as well,
Speaker 4: and then it became a big pre grieving experiment in
Speaker 4: some ways for us, but able to do what you
Speaker 4: would say is do death the right way? Having experienced
Speaker 4: it the very traumatic way with Sally, to try and
Speaker 4: what did we learn from that? And how am I
Speaker 4: going to make sure that Rosanna's death, although it's going
Speaker 4: to be hugely traumatic for both Alessia and myself, how
Speaker 4: do we do that as right as we can? And
Speaker 4: then that became the focus that thread goes all the
Speaker 4: way through all of those experiences in my.
Speaker 2: Life, her diagnosis and particularly when the cancer returned. To
Speaker 2: say that would be truering for you would seem like
Speaker 2: an understatement. So how did the dynamics shift between her
Speaker 2: looking after you and being painfully aware of what was
Speaker 2: going to be afflicted on you for a second time,
Speaker 2: and you looking after her not just the physical side,
Speaker 2: but emotionally dealing with her devastation at leaving you and Alessia, it.
Speaker 4: Just becomes an amazing team. So it's just going back
Speaker 4: and forwards and trying to look at what each person needs.
Speaker 4: So what physically you need and what I physically needed
Speaker 4: to survive. And it's a huge amount of things that
Speaker 4: go in there, you know. And it's simple things like, Okay,
Speaker 4: we've got to get to the doctor, We've got to
Speaker 4: get this test, through to more physically intimate things like
Speaker 4: your sex life and what's going on there and all
Speaker 4: of those difficult all the way through to what is
Speaker 4: actually going to happen to a lessier when I die?
Speaker 4: Do you have the skill set to be able to
Speaker 4: do this? And all of those things. There's so many
Speaker 4: other factors that go in there. We just had to
Speaker 4: work on them as a team together and just make
Speaker 4: sure that if our focus was on a Lessier and
Speaker 4: her having the best life after her mumma died, then
Speaker 4: that's what united us. So everything we did was basically
Speaker 4: focused on her. So because Rosanna knew that I was
Speaker 4: going to be fine, I could cook, I can clean,
Speaker 4: I could do all of that sort of stuff, all
Speaker 4: of those simple things. I can get a lessier to
Speaker 4: school daycare. She wasn't at school at that time, so
Speaker 4: I had a job there was no real issues in there,
Speaker 4: so we just put all that to the side. We
Speaker 4: don't have to worry about that. What do we need
Speaker 4: to worry about. We're going to worry about the fact
Speaker 4: that we've got a four and a half year old
Speaker 4: here who's going to grow up without a mum.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: One of the concerns that I spoke about before we'd
Speaker 4: even had a lessier was this exact thing happening. So
Speaker 4: we're already spoken about this years before with the psychologist
Speaker 4: because I said to Rosanna, my aim, because I'm selfish,
Speaker 4: is I want you to live if having a baby
Speaker 4: puts a strain on your body or does anything and
Speaker 4: you die. It's not the fact that I'm going to
Speaker 4: be left as a single dad. I had no fear
Speaker 4: of that. It was the fact of Alessia wasn't going
Speaker 4: to have a mum, and then where were we going
Speaker 4: to go with that? So I think we'd already had
Speaker 4: all these discussions, so we already knew that Alessia was
Speaker 4: going to be the key, and I think it was
Speaker 4: for her. I mean, Rosanna did some amazing things unbeknownst
Speaker 4: to me. It was Alessia's eleventh birthday, on Friday, and
Speaker 4: I didn't realize Rosannah left a whole lot of boxes.
Speaker 4: I opened them up a year after Rosannah had died,
Speaker 4: and in it was a birthday card written for Alessia
Speaker 4: for every year until she's eighteen. And they are just
Speaker 4: the most amazing cards. She didn't tell me she was
Speaker 4: doing this. She put this away. I knew she'd put
Speaker 4: away clothes. She loved clothes. She loved the Prada and
Speaker 4: she loved her Gucci bags, and so she'd put away
Speaker 4: all her favorite pieces so that when Alessia gets to
Speaker 4: an age, she can get them out. And it's about
Speaker 4: locking away those beautiful memories, whether they're in physical items
Speaker 4: like or whatever they are. She did this amazing recipe
Speaker 4: book of all her favorite recipes, so Alessia because her
Speaker 4: Unlessa used to cook together all the time, and so
Speaker 4: for me, now that's the thing that Alessi and I do,
Speaker 4: and we get that cookbook out and we make some
Speaker 4: of her mom's favorite recipes and so just you know,
Speaker 4: those positive memories out of something that can be so negative.
Speaker 4: So Rosanna was doing all this stuff while I was
Speaker 4: at work. Yeah, and she was very, very sick at
Speaker 4: that point in time. And she knew she was going
Speaker 4: to die. And then yea, I looked on my phone.
Speaker 4: I only found a video probably eighteen months after she died,
Speaker 4: which was like a goodbye video. Alessia and I are
Speaker 4: playing in the parking camera and she'd basically being diagnosed
Speaker 4: with a brain tumor that day and it was not
Speaker 4: going to be good. And she's writing the crying doing
Speaker 4: this video to the two of us playing in the park, saying,
Speaker 4: you know this is your mom. I know your dad's
Speaker 4: an amazing guy. He's going to look after you so much.
Speaker 4: I'm just like I'm going. And she never told me.
Speaker 4: She didn't say, here, have a look at this. We've
Speaker 4: done this, and we never sat down and did any
Speaker 4: of that. We didn't do the big photo shoot and
Speaker 4: the pre death video and all of that sort of stuff.
Speaker 4: It just came from her innate ability to understand what
Speaker 4: I would need after she was gone. And those things
Speaker 4: are so important to me in being able to hold
Speaker 4: the positive memories of her life and to make sure
Speaker 4: that that's what I'm instilling into Alessier, you know. And Alessia,
Speaker 4: she comes to me her biggest fear is I've forgotten
Speaker 4: my mum. I don't have any memories of mummy. And
Speaker 4: I'm saying, well, okay, what's one thing that you do remember,
Speaker 4: because that's all we need to hang on to, and
Speaker 4: she goes her hug. They used to lie on the
Speaker 4: couch for hours because Alessia was young, and Rosanna from
Speaker 4: the age of zero to four and a half, she
Speaker 4: spent every day except one with Alessia, so it was
Speaker 4: pretty cool for Alesia to have her mum around that much.
Speaker 4: But she remembers the hugs and I'm going, well, that's beautiful.
Speaker 4: So what do the hugs mean? That means that mummy
Speaker 4: love me. That's all we need. We don't need anything else.
Speaker 4: You know, we can discuss in more depth as she
Speaker 4: gets older, any of those stories, and it's those sort
Speaker 4: of things a key. It doesn't always go perfectly all
Speaker 4: the time, where there's always massive lows is all of
Speaker 4: those things. It's a rollercoaster for her as well, But
Speaker 4: at least the over riding sentiment for her and for
Speaker 4: I is that the memories of her mum and what
Speaker 4: comes back are positive and that's how we're trying to
Speaker 4: live our lives. And we don't always get it right,
Speaker 4: but you know, we're given out our best shot.
Speaker 2: Rosanna herself was proof that you could learn to love
Speaker 2: after losing the love of your life again, did you
Speaker 2: guys ever talk about you dating meeting someone else after
Speaker 2: she was gone?
Speaker 4: Yeah, we had a list.
Speaker 1: You had a list.
Speaker 2: Who was on the list to you?
Speaker 4: Well, it was like there was someone called Mia. I
Speaker 4: can't remember.
Speaker 2: Me.
Speaker 4: That list is gone. You worry.
Speaker 2: Rosanna sent us all from the grave.
Speaker 4: She was doing it probably in some ways because she
Speaker 4: wanted to choose who was going to be Alessier's mum.
Speaker 4: So she wanted to be sure that I wasn't just
Speaker 4: going to go out and go out with a nineteen
Speaker 4: year old and yeah, waere we go, you know, unless
Speaker 4: you would be left off to the side. So in
Speaker 4: some ways from her, her list was a little bit selfish,
Speaker 4: and it was a very unrealistic list. It was never
Speaker 4: happening because two of the people were married and it
Speaker 4: was not gonna happen anyway. But in a lot of
Speaker 4: ways comfort No, that's right. But what it did was
Speaker 4: it bought that discussion forward and from my side, and
Speaker 4: you know, this is something very personal, but from my side.
Speaker 4: When you know that your wife is going to die
Speaker 4: and you're going to be on your own. You need
Speaker 4: some beacons, you need something to say it's worth living for.
Speaker 4: And if I think that I was never going to
Speaker 4: have a loving partner again and this was the end
Speaker 4: of two wives and that's it. You're done, that's a
Speaker 4: horrible place to be. So in my mind, I would
Speaker 4: also then fantasize, and it sounds you're a nice bloke,
Speaker 4: you know your wife's sick, but I would fantasize about,
Speaker 4: oh maybe I go that person or that could be
Speaker 4: just to give some relief in your brain. The person surviving,
Speaker 4: you know, through cancer, it's a horrific experience for them.
Speaker 4: And I do a lot of work with Breastcancer Network
Speaker 4: Australia and a lot of the cares that I speak to,
Speaker 4: whether they're males or females, it's also horrific for them
Speaker 4: as well. You know, they're going through enormous amounts, so
Speaker 4: you need these little bits of escapism to get away.
Speaker 4: And that was one of them. But we talked openly
Speaker 4: about it and we always got a good laugh out
Speaker 4: of it. Yeah, it was one of those ones, and
Speaker 4: I think it really helped me because it was like
Speaker 4: saying Stuart, You're allowed to get a partner when I'm gone.
Speaker 4: That box has already ticked. There was no guilt, There
Speaker 4: was no you know, when Sally died, there was a
Speaker 4: whole lot more guilt and everything out of oh you
Speaker 4: know what would be going on here? But now I'm
Speaker 4: only twenty seven. She would have wanted me to go
Speaker 4: and meet someone else, wouldn't she have? But you never
Speaker 4: got to ask that question, whereas with Rosanna I was
Speaker 4: able those questions were answered before any of that ever happened.
Speaker 4: And I think that that's, you know, for me, was
Speaker 4: really comforting and made me realize, you know, that I
Speaker 4: be able to love again. He touched on that a
Speaker 4: little bit before. You know, how much love does a
Speaker 4: human have? Do you run out at some point after
Speaker 4: you've been through so much loss and you just think
Speaker 4: I can't roll the dice again? I think it's actually
Speaker 4: the opposite. I think what happens is, you know, I've
Speaker 4: realized what an amazing part of my life having too, loving,
Speaker 4: caring people like Rosanna and Sally in my life was,
Speaker 4: and what they added to my life. So why wouldn't
Speaker 4: that be something that I'd want again in my future?
Speaker 4: Because it just to me. It's not saying that I
Speaker 4: need someone in my life. I can't survive on my own.
Speaker 4: I'm fairly strong, independent individual. But what an amazing thing
Speaker 4: when you meet that person and what it adds to
Speaker 4: your life. And that's where I am probably comes to
Speaker 4: my belief system about loving and caring for your fellow
Speaker 4: people and your community, etc. That you know that love
Speaker 4: is actually boundless, there's a never ending reservoir of it,
Speaker 4: and that's how I feel.
Speaker 2: Sales interviewed you for her book An Ordinary Day. She
Speaker 2: wrote about driving away thinking that guy is a bloody legend.
Speaker 2: Which of my friends can I set him up with?
Speaker 2: And then she thought to herself, hang on a second,
Speaker 2: you know, what are the statistics of losing two wives?
Speaker 2: Does that mean that the next person he meets is
Speaker 2: more or less likely to meet an untimely end? And
Speaker 2: then she went into this very Lee style long explanation
Speaker 2: of the statistics and showing that they were no more
Speaker 2: or less likely than anyone else.
Speaker 4: Yes, lucky, Yeah, I love the way she looked at that.
Speaker 4: It was good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. With her typically data led brain. So I was
Speaker 2: thinking the difference between when you married Rosanna, you were
Speaker 2: Australia's most famous grieving widower. Did it feel like a
Speaker 2: relief to put that down and say this is the
Speaker 2: next chapter?
Speaker 4: Yeah, one d percent. I mean for me, it was
Speaker 4: about getting that normal see back in my life. I
Speaker 4: mean that's what it was. I mean I always wanted
Speaker 4: with Sally we were married, I always wanted to have kids,
Speaker 4: you know, all of that sort of stuff. So with
Speaker 4: Rosanna I was able to recreate that again. You know,
Speaker 4: it was just I mean, obviously unbelievably unfortunate that she
Speaker 4: was diagnosed with breast cancer so early into our marriage,
Speaker 4: because obviously we're planning to have kids right then and there,
Speaker 4: and you know, it didn't happen for another twelve years
Speaker 4: after that, so it was long. But all of those experiences,
Speaker 4: it is amazing. And I do look back at it
Speaker 4: sometimes and think that maybe I'm a little bit crazy,
Speaker 4: But all of those experiences, they didn't detract from the
Speaker 4: fact that how crucially important a loving relationship is in
Speaker 4: your life. And for me, you know, it highlighted that
Speaker 4: despite all the negativity and everything that went on with Rosanna,
Speaker 4: the positives far outweighed that. What she taught me about
Speaker 4: myself and everything that we shared together far outwigh to
Speaker 4: any of that. Now, logically cut short, that's the real tragedy,
Speaker 4: But the rest of it was actually an amazingly positive experience.
Speaker 2: Still, you're not a man who invites pity. You're just
Speaker 2: not someone that I'm inclined to feel very sorry for. You.
Speaker 2: Just don't invite that. There's something about you. How much
Speaker 2: of that is intentional, because pity is not something that's
Speaker 2: nice to feel. People are directing towards you, right, But
Speaker 2: I imagine you had that a lot after the landslide.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh absolutely. I mean, and everyone can project what
Speaker 4: they're feeling towards you in any way they want. I mean,
Speaker 4: after the landslide, there was a little bit of I
Speaker 4: did want to portray a really positive image. I didn't
Speaker 4: want to be the person crying on sixty minutes, you know,
Speaker 4: getting that pity in, and I made it conscious of
Speaker 4: it not to do that. In two ways that was
Speaker 4: really detrimental. One was it was really really emotionally hard
Speaker 4: to do, so it destroyed me after those interviews. And
Speaker 4: number two, it's like you said, it actually portrayed this
Speaker 4: image of maybe I am a little bit cold, or
Speaker 4: maybe I am a little bit emotionless. Even in some
Speaker 4: of the straightforward ways that I talk about things today,
Speaker 4: you could definitely read that in. But that's how I
Speaker 4: process things. I don't want people feeling sorry for me.
Speaker 4: What I want is I want people to be able
Speaker 4: to look at me and say, here's a guy who's
Speaker 4: gone through something in his life, and look at that
Speaker 4: he's living and enjoying life. That's as simple as that.
Speaker 4: You know, the podcast, the elements that we did, a
Speaker 4: lot of those people very similar experiences. They just happen
Speaker 4: to be people throwing in an unfortunate situation who came
Speaker 4: out the other side. You know, we all have or
Speaker 4: they all had that humbleness to say, I'm no one special.
Speaker 4: I've never felt special. I sit here talking to you today, Maya,
Speaker 4: and I don't feel special. I just feel that I'm
Speaker 4: someone who's been through something unfortunate and happened to come
Speaker 4: out the other end. And I think that's really key.
Speaker 4: The people who think that I am special is the
Speaker 4: media in a lot of ways, and people external who
Speaker 4: perceive that and want to put that on me. That
Speaker 4: can be also used to benefit me and to benefit
Speaker 4: those around me as well. So I'm not saying that
Speaker 4: that's a negative thing, but at the end of the day, yeah,
Speaker 4: in some ways, how I've managed, you know, my public
Speaker 4: persona has definitely had some outcomes that you have not
Speaker 4: been as positive as you would like. Maybe I should
Speaker 4: have cried a bit more on those TV shows, and
Speaker 4: maybe I should have outwardly shown a little bit more
Speaker 4: emotion to show that I'm human. But I thought to myself,
Speaker 4: if I'm going to have fifteen minutes on a major
Speaker 4: television network, then I should be making that worthwhile and
Speaker 4: I should be getting a message across it. You can
Speaker 4: get this is in very very close proximity to the
Speaker 4: end of the landslide, you know, But I'd already made
Speaker 4: that conscious decision to do that. Was it detrimental or whatever?
Speaker 4: I think this positive message still got out there, you know,
Speaker 4: And I would do the same again. It's just my
Speaker 4: makeup and what I do. I'll feel sorry for myself,
Speaker 4: and I do enough of that. I don't need other
Speaker 4: people to do it for me.
Speaker 2: Do you sometimes feel sorry for yourself?
Speaker 4: Yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, was it like being a single dad or are
Speaker 2: you not a single dad?
Speaker 4: I have a partner, you have a partner because I
Speaker 4: have a lot of love to give.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we live seent me separate lives because we live
Speaker 4: in slightly different parts of the country.
Speaker 2: Well that's easy during lockdown.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Oh, this is going beautiful for us at the moment.
Speaker 1: Seriously, can I catch your brakes?
Speaker 2: Do you?
Speaker 1: Honestly?
Speaker 4: I know really what's going on here. I am the
Speaker 4: most fortunate guy in the world in that I've met
Speaker 4: another just unbelievably amazing woman. You would think, how much
Speaker 4: more can someone teach me about my life? She's teaching
Speaker 4: me so much that I had no idea about myself
Speaker 4: in relation to a lessier, in relation to who I
Speaker 4: am as an individual. You know, I thought I knew
Speaker 4: at all when I was going out with Rosanna, and
Speaker 4: from what I've been through, I've got so much more
Speaker 4: to learn and she is a huge part of that.
Speaker 4: And he's contributing an amazing amount to my life. Do
Speaker 4: you have that love to give us? Speaking about it before?
Speaker 4: You know? So much more to give and so positive
Speaker 4: to be in that relationship and the same thing. Lots
Speaker 4: of loads, lots of highs, lots of in between time,
Speaker 4: but to still be able to share that positivity you know,
Speaker 4: with someone else is such an amazing thing, you know,
Speaker 4: And the same things happening is what happened with Rosanna.
Speaker 4: In the questions about what would Rosannah have done in
Speaker 4: this situation? Oh no, no, she would have done nothing.
Speaker 4: It's all. But it's the same stuff going around, and
Speaker 4: it's like, you know, the comparisons and the same things
Speaker 4: happening with friends, and I'm going happened this all? But
Speaker 4: it's like a deja vu, going back to some people
Speaker 4: being nice, some people are being critical, some people you've
Speaker 4: moved on too quickly. What are you doing moving on
Speaker 4: with someone who's got that many kids? Just leave us alone,
Speaker 4: like we're happy, we're happy in doing what we're doing,
Speaker 4: and we just want to move on and live our
Speaker 4: lives post lockdown in some sort of normal way.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of lucky women around you, Stuart Diver, Alessia,
Speaker 2: this new partner of yours, Sally and Rosanna for having
Speaker 2: you in their lives when they did and for as
Speaker 2: long as they did. It's just been a delight to
Speaker 2: talk to you.
Speaker 1: Just awesome. I mean I thought you would be, but
Speaker 1: you just don't ask.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. So are you. It's been great
Speaker 4: chatting today.
Speaker 2: You're not a bad podcaster either. I have to say
Speaker 2: I am watching that back. Thank you for listening to
Speaker 2: this No Filter. I walked out of the studio after
Speaker 2: this interview with just the biggest grin on my face
Speaker 2: and the biggest spring in my step. It was such
Speaker 2: a great day at work. I just loved talking to him.
Speaker 2: He's just such a special, amazing person. You can hear
Speaker 2: Stuart's new podcast The Elements, all about surviving a natural disaster.
Speaker 2: Wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're in the
Speaker 2: mood for another show, why not check out our daily
Speaker 2: news show, The Quickie, hosted by Claire Murphy. The assistant
Speaker 2: producer of No Filter is Lucy Neville. The executive producer
Speaker 2: is Eliza Ratliffe. I'm Meya Friedman and I'll see you
Speaker 2: Mom and Maya. If you're looking for something else to
Speaker 2: listen to, like and follow all of our Mom and
Speaker 2: Mea podcasts, which are currently bringing you Hot pod Summer
Speaker 2: one hundred hours of summer listens, from spicy conversations to
Speaker 2: incredible stories, fashion, beauty, where the friends in your ears
Speaker 2: Over Summer