‘The Moment’ Myf Warhurst Has Been Waiting For: ‘F**k It! Why Not Give It A Go?’

In episode eight of The Moment With Myf Warhurst, she shared her intention for this new video podcast: “to give you some smart, light relief at a time when often the world just feels so chaotic and strange.” 

Three days a week – Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays around 4pm – listeners can tune in to hear Myf dissecting cultural phenomena: memes, news, or celeb stories – nothing’s off limits. 

She’s also quite partial to homing in on the ridiculous aspects of viral moments and critiquing ‘farshun’. Since she’s “chronically online” and a self-described “news junkie” anyway, Myf’s latest podcast justifies her addiction as research for work purposes as well. 

Sometimes friends or special guests are invited on for a chat, but Myf is having her own moment and we’re totally here for it. 

During her stint on I'm A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! in 2020, Myf bungee jumped out of a helicopter. She also called out ageism against women of a certain age in the entertainment industry, sharing her thoughts to camera in the Bush Telegraph room: “I hope people like Rhonda [Burchmore, fellow contestant/campmate], people like me – just regular, normal folk who are ageing – I hope we can keep working in the industry and we don’t get shut out.”

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Since then, Myf has hosted several documentaries (including Back Roads, Keep On Dancing, and The Truth About Menopause), was cast as The Narrator in The Rocky Horror Show, co-hosted Countdown 50 Years On (alongside Tony Armstrong), reprised her team captain role when Spicks And Specks returned to our screens for its 12th season in 2024 and regularly appeared on The Project. Anything we’ve missed? 

“I've done a lot of stuff for Catalyst, the science program on the ABC,” she adds, “which is bizarre. I mean, I've [got] no science background.”  

Myf says is pushing herself to be “authentically me” on The Moment, admitting, “I've never been one to really put myself out there – ‘cause I've always struggled on social media – but I've always wished I could. 

“So this is my way of getting in there,” she adds, “I think our generation, ‘cause I'm a bit older, struggles with that. And I still do. In my interior world, I'm like, ‘You can't do that. You shouldn't do that.’ But I'm like, ‘If I'm not doing it, no one else will be’ – there's not that many others, you know? I think our generation has a lot of internalised ageism; we've still got a lot of internalised misogyny, and we're women! 

“Something else I've wanted to challenge in myself, is that anxiety around… I think, as women, we were brought up to be – it had to be perfect, otherwise we shouldn't do it, ‘cause, you know, all that scarcity: there's only one woman who can do that amongst a broader cohort of fellas. But there's actually space for all of us.”

“Men have never necessarily been made to feel irrelevant; they've never been told that they're no longer welcome,” she continues." Because when you're a bloke and you get older, you become distinguished, you become a leader, you have experience. Whereas, as a woman, it's quite often been, ‘You're old, you’re irrelevant and you're ugly. We don't wanna look at you.’ And that's changed. So let's get in that space, let’s get in there and muck around.

“I wanna exist in this space as an older woman, now. I think we're the first generation where there's a lot more of us swimming around in that pond, and not just a couple. And I'm happy about that. We might as well get in that pond and give it a go, swim around. 

“A lot of this is about challenging all my little preconceived ideas… I've gotta challenge myself. There's no rules and it doesn't matter what age you start, it's never too late. Some people start in their 70s, now. I think about artists like Rosalie Gascoigne – she didn’t start ‘til very late. And why do we put those limits on ourselves?”

So how is she attempting to change the conversation? It’s by standing her ground and occupying the space she deserves with that classic confidence she’s known for.

“So what I'm trying to do is just carve out my own little space now and see how that goes,” she explains. “I mean, it might fail, but I'm less inclined to give a shit about it failing at this point, ‘cause I've had a lot of failures. In the media, you have a lot of failures over the years, and that's part of it. So I'm challenging myself not to be frightened of that. 

“‘Cause I did that menopause doco [The Truth About Menopause], too. That was another thing I pushed myself to do, because I didn't wanna be ‘the menopause lady’, you know? Internalised ageism.

“The younger generations are not as full of shame. We were so full of shame, but the only way I could get through that was to go, ‘Well, I don't know anything about menopause. If I don't – I'm educated – then no one's gonna know anything. So I need to do this for the women of my generation, and the next ones coming. And I do think it's changing, ‘cause the younger folk have no problem talking about all the stuff that we were very shameful of. 

“I just feel like I have to keep pushing myself in so many of those ways to get over myself.”

On episode two of The Moment, Myf expressed that she was immediately self-critical watching the first episode on YouTube. Instead of feeling proud and celebrating her accomplishments, Myf focused on how she thought her hair looked – greasy, even though it was clean and shiny – and admitted she was shocked by her self-described “really hectic neck”.

“I think we're very hard on ourselves, especially as women – I'm sure everyone is, it's not just a gender thing – but I do think we feel like we need to be perfect, and we're not,” she explains. “And once you sort of – I mean, I haven't got there yet, but the aim is to shed a bit of that and just fucking enjoy this, enjoy it all. B

“ecause, otherwise, what's the point? Why are we doing what we're doing? We're in a creative industry, so it should be joyful and educational and all those things that we got into it for in the first place. But we forget that. Or I do. We've gotta get out of our own way, I think.

“No one cares as much as we do about ourselves, so I don't know why we put those limits on ourselves. 

“I've got resting bitch face – enjoy that, everybody,” she shares, laughing. “These days, it's all sag, you know? It's all downward. So I've gotta get over myself and not worry about that, because, really, I don't think people judge us as harshly as we do… I wonder why we are so self-critical? ‘Cause that's something I really have to work on.”

Myf and her Bang On co-pilot Zan Rowe jointly won the Best Host award at 2024’s Australian Podcast Awards. Bang On is currently on indefinite hiatus. When the pair  alled time on their pod, after a whopping 333 episodes, the Bang Fam community went into mourning. 

“Oh, I know,” Myf acknowledges. “We miss Bang On and we're certainly not ruling it out in the future. 

“I miss Zan, obviously, but that had come to its natural conclusion. ‘Cause, you know, I'm not at the ABC anymore and I started [Bang On] when I was on a permanent basis there. And after eight years – I mean, we'd had a gorgeous time and we did that beautiful tour [2024’s Bang On Live]. And we're still great friends, so that's lovely. 

“But I'm also happy to have that challenge of – I've never done just me; I've done it in radio, but radio is different to this [The Moment]: you're not on camera and you can look at your notes and do other things, whereas this is full-on! 

“It's different. I love it, I actually love it. And I'm probably not the most amazing at it yet, but I'll get more comfortable with it. If I don't give it a go, I'm gonna be way too old – ‘cause I'm 52 now! And I've just gotta do it, gotta have some fun.”

If you need a Zan and Myf fix, check out episode seven of The Moment: “It’s a Bang On reunion with Zan Rowe.”

Myf had previously listened to Big Small Talk and a couple of other MIK Made podcasts before she pitched her idea to the Sydney-based creative studio. 

“I loved how Bang On tapped into that popular culture, cultural critique side of things,” she explains. “But there was nothing for that audience on a weekday basis – and more bite-sized – and I just thought, ‘Oh, I'm going to do that.’ And it just came to me. 

“I know myself, I know what I can do and I think it feels really safe at the moment for me to do something like this, driven by me.”

The Moment’s producer, Amelia Chappelo, was at triple j when Myf was also working at the station back in the early 2000s. Having spent many years working with “all the big podcasting companies” in America, Amelia returned to Australia and became MIK Studio’s Head Of Content And Podcast Executive Producer.

“I've got [Amelia] overseeing [The Moment] – which is wild; one of the best in the country,” Myf enthuses. “So her eyes are really good on it, I trust her. And content is driven by me – yeah, it's freedom.”

When Myf tuned into the AFL Grand Final pre-show entertainment, she clocked her dear friend Ruva Ngwenya alongside Snoop Dogg – supplying BVs – and immediately wanted to hear how she felt performing in front of 100,000 people at the MCG. 

We thoroughly recommend you listen to episode eight of The Moment, which dropped just four days after the Granny.

“I just wanna turn it ‘round,” Myf reveals of how swiftly she recorded Ruva’s moment for posterity. “And if stuff like that happens, I can throw the other plans out the window and just do what I want. We're seeing what works at this stage, seeing what feels comfortable. And we’re still playing around, ‘cause there's no format.”

During the episode titled ‘Do nepo babies have it tough?’ Myf recounted the social anxiety she experienced before attending a book launch for Fashion Critical: Red carpet lewks and LOLs from an undercover fashion critic. 

After flying into Melbourne during extreme storms and getting changed in a Dan Murphy’s carpark, she almost convinced herself not to go at all. 

But, eventually, Myf plucked up the courage to enter the event solo, immediately ran into her friend Joel Creasey and had a fabulous time.

Myf wanted to share this story on The Moment after noticing her Instagram post about it earlier that day particularly resonated with her followers. “This is your reminder to go out, do the thing,” she posted, “because it’s never as hard as you think it might be and sometimes it’s even better.” 

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“Anxiety is very real and, for me, it got really bad,” Myf reiterates. “And the aim is to work on that and hopefully it gets easier, at some point.”

So who are some of the other non-males of a certain age that Myf reckons are doing exciting things in digital media at present? 

“There's so many great people doing all sorts of things,” Myf enthuses. “I mean, I've always thought Kate Langbroek was a phenomenal broadcaster and she has slipped into podcasting [No Filter].

“I think of Kate Forster [author/host of The Blunt And The Beautiful podcast] on TikTok, who's another lady like me, middle-aged. But she's so incredibly bright and smart, and tells it like it is. She's got a hundred and something thousand [169.4K] followers on TikTok already, and just kinda started as a challenge to herself.

“Em Rusciano's flippin’ amazing. That Rage Against The Vagine podcast – which is about perimenopause – is all [about] her experience, but she's branched out to talk to experts and give advice,” she adds. “That's where the really interesting stuff is happening – people making their own stuff. It's incredible. 

“That podcast is one of the most helpful things I've listened to in a long time, and entertaining... Yeah, she's nailed that. And she does her own [podcast], Emsolation, and that's so funny. But I think people like her are perfect for that podcast space.”

A beloved broadcaster (triple j, Double J, Triple M, ABC local radio), TV presenter, podcaster, author, the voice of Bluey’s Aunt Trixie and former Managing Editor of Inpress (the Victorian street press publication that merged with The Drum Media and Time Off to become The Music in 2013) – Myf Warhurst has worked extensively in the entertainment industry since her beginnings as a print journalist.

Of her street press days, she reflects, “It felt like you were making something that helped people, ‘cause when it came out, everyone read it. Because there was no other info, you know? It helped artists and creatives, ‘cause they got publicity. And it wasn't always about whether or not they took our ads, but that helped.” 

Now that Myf has branched out and gone solo, we can't help but wonder whether she ever found being associated with a network limiting in terms of the topics that were up for discussion. 

“For every broadcaster, you have to be aware that your audience is broad. And especially at the moment, politically, it's probably quite difficult for broadcasters,” she points out. “‘Cause you say one thing and it can go either way depending on how your audience perceives it. And I love the ABC, don't get me wrong. But my last job there was local radio – that finished up in 2019 – and that's a broad audience. 

“I was sort of doing what I'm doing with The Moment then. It was a two-hour daily, almost like a magazine radio show. It was art, popular culture – all that stuff. And the difficult thing with that is it was national, so your audience comes from all over the place. But also the [audience’s] age [demographic] is all very different: from very old people to people my age. I think, in a way, that job has become more difficult, ‘cause you're trying to cater for so many different people and I realise that maybe that's not my ability. 

“I feel like, with The Moment, people come to you because they like you or they wanna hear what you think about things; it feels more intimate, yeah. It's more – they make a choice rather than you're just on their airwaves in the car. So the stuff I pick – I know my audience, I know what they're going to like after all this time and I know that they'll be interested in it if I am. Whereas I think when I was doing radio, you're trying to cater to everybody in the best possible way. 

“I had a lotta freedom and I had great producers on that show, too. But just in terms of content, I think when I had to cater for everybody – I loved it, but I'm also more interested in pursuing what I'm interested in now. So that's where I'm at and it's amazing. And I do it at home, in my home! They’ve set me up with broadcast quality equipment and I do all that. So that's all a new challenge and I think I needed it. 

“When we're in the studio, that's in Sydney ‘cause MIK don't have a studio in Melbourne so far. I think they will get one eventually. Everything else is just online, which is the way of the future. I mean, it always was on Zoom and all that during lockdown, as we know, but I feel like people are just so much more accepting of it now.

“I'm doing old-school things like intros and coming up, and that's radio stuff. But you don't even have to do that. Who knows? Maybe I'll ditch that. Maybe it'll just be me talking at the camera about something – that's the freedom of it and I'm looking forward to allowing myself that freedom to experiment more, ‘cause who knows? I dunno, that's the exciting bit for me. I know all the structures and how things should work and who I could get on, but also it's getting the word out there, too. 

“I know that the estimate for what they wanted for the numbers for the first week or two was already at the goal, so I was chuffed. And it's so hard to tell, because it's different formats, different platforms. There's YouTube – I mean, we're starting at the bottom with YouTube, because I haven't done anything on there, so it's, like, a couple of hundred. Maybe that'll change, maybe not. I dunno.

“It's all about [YouTube] now, which is weird for me as a broadcaster. I always loved podcasts, ‘cause it was only about – they chose you, you were in their ears. 

“But people watch YouTube in the same way that we listen to radio, they just have it on in the background and the algorithm will play you if they think that [the viewer would be] into you. It's a totally different world.

“I mean, I don't really watch a lotta YouTube, but all the kids – that's all they watch. They don't watch normal telly, they don’t really listen to radio in the same way that we did. So you've gotta be there [on YouTube], I think. And that's been the hard bit, ‘cause it's not my natural place. Even though I've done telly for 20 years, it's still not my natural place to just talk at a camera. But, you know, fuck it! Why not give it a go?

“It's quite easy to hook up stuff online when you don't have to be somewhere. I just wanna get all my friends on. I just wanna get good, smart people on. And if it's celebrities, I wanna get people who have something to say, you know? Not necessarily just because they're doing a tour or whatever. It's gotta be a bit more now, for me; if they get to talk about something that's important to them and that feels real. 

“So, yeah, look, no limitations at this point. I'll have astronauts on if they wanna talk to me [laughs]. I’ll do anything! Anything that gives [viewers/listeners] a spark for their own lives. ‘Cause, I dunno, everything’s so grim at the moment; I find it difficult to navigate. I wanna offer people something that's not an avoidance of any of that, of course – it will incorporate it – but that will help them navigate it a bit. That's where I wanna be, too. 

“I talked to Rosie O'Donnell [for episode ten], which was amazing,” Myf continues. “She's just landed, and she’d never been to Australia before. And I talked to her about being the target of, you know, one of the most powerful people in the world: Donald Trump. She's a really sensitive person and I was like, ‘How do you cope with that?’ And she gave a really, really good answer that was talking about how it's just awful when that happens – obviously she had to move countries, too, ‘cause some dickhead in Walmart’s telling her to F-off or whatever. Because they feel empowered to, ‘cause Trump's been having a go at her. 

“But she's like, ‘You’re propelled by knowing that the world will turn and you’ll be on the right side of it, and you can see patterns emerging.’ And I was like, ‘Well, that's a really good answer.’ So she goes, ‘I deal with it because I'm doing something greater’ – and I think that's getting stuff back from someone like that. I’m like, ‘Oh, that's great,’ you know? Whether or not we got anything else of interest, who knows? But that, to me, was what I wanted to hear. “I wanna hear how they navigate now, ‘cause everything’s up in the air at the moment, I feel. Not only the media, but all of it; no one knows what’s what.

“I wanna just help people through that, so the people who listen have some fun, have a laugh. Laughter – we need it, ‘cause we forget! We need to laugh over similar things, and share jokes and funny shit. You've just gotta throw it out there and this is my opportunity. 

“There's lots of pop culture podcasts, but I think the ones I like are the ones that are [hosted by] people I trust. And I hope that people trust me.

“It feels exciting to me, ‘cause I'm not just making something; I feel like I'm trying to change things about how I look at myself and what I'm capable of. And I needed a challenge at this point, ‘cause it's that time of life: you either keep going or you settle down and quieten down. I'm like, ‘Nah, I'm not ready for that’.” 

On the ‘Jimmy Kimmel Is BACK’ episode of The Moment, Myf’s special guest, Ashley Ray, helped her unpack the American talk show host’s suspension, which sparked free speech debates. While wrapping their chat, Ashley admitted she’s “such a fan of Bluey”, before revealing that all three members of the band Hanson share her passion for the popular Australian animated series Myf’s voice features in.    

“I mean, Aunt Trixie’s had about six lines in the whole series, but that doesn't matter – we’ll use that,” Myf trails off laughing. “In America, [Bluey is] huge! I went over to America at the end of last year to do interviews for Macy's – you know the parade that they have? [The annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade] The BBC own Bluey, it's not the ABC – they’re in agreement, but the BBC own the rights. So they took me over there and I'd never seen anything like it! They’re blowing up the [inflatable] Bluey and I interviewed little kids and stuff and just the level – ‘cause it's the most-watched TV show in America at the moment. 

“Admittedly, the little kids have just got it on repeat, but who cares? And all these little [American] kids are speaking Australian slang, like they’re going, ‘We wanna take out the bin,’ and their mums are going, ‘[puts on an American accent] Nooooo, it's trash!’ It was adorable. And they were talking about jocks, ‘cause there's an episode about jocks, and the parents are going, ‘Noooooo, it’s underpants!’ And the kids are going, ‘No, jocks.’ 

“So [Bluey is] huge over there; you don’t know how big it is until you’re kind of there to see. So, yeah, that's exciting. I mean, who knows? I'm still waiting for my offer to go in the movie, but it may not happen. I don’t know.” 

Whether or not Aunt Trixie makes an appearance in the Bluey movie remains to be seen. But one thing’s for sure, Myf is on a roll with The Moment. When Myf guested on her fabulous Rage Against The Vagine podcast, Em said it best by rating Myf’s current “blissful mole” era as her favourite to date. 

The Moment With Myf Warhurst drops three times a week: Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays around 4pm.