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Liz Hayes three ex-husbands, a secret identity and a stalker

The veteran storyteller is finally sharing some of her own tale.
Liz Hayes reports on her father's death on 60 Minutes
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By the time she turned 40, 60 Minutes star Liz Hayes wasnโ€™t just a household name, she also had three failed marriages behind her.

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Now, the TV host โ€“ whose autobiography Iโ€™m Liz Hayes: A Memoir is out this week โ€“ is finally opening up about her tumultuous relationship history.

โ€œIt was ugly, it was unpleasant,โ€ Liz says of the negative attention she received.

(Credit: Getty)

โ€œIt was a crap time. Letโ€™s face it, these things are not great. And itโ€™s magnified. It becomes bigger than Ben Hur,โ€ says the star, who married her first husband, builder Brian Hayes, in the late โ€™70s when she was just 21.

They split in the mid-โ€™80s around the time she scored the gig as co-host on the Today show in 1986.

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โ€œYouโ€™re looking at yourself. Youโ€™re reading about yourself. Youโ€™re noting that the view of you is pretty grim, so you come away thinking I am pretty grim, Iโ€™m a bit of a failure on that front.โ€

Liz was married to advertising millionaire John Singleton for less than a year in 1991, and a three-year marriage to Sydney doctor Stephen Coogan followed. That ended in 1997.

But her fourth union โ€“ with former 60 Minutes soundman Ben Crane โ€“ is the one that stuck and the pair have been together for more than two decades.

Her marriage to entrepreneur John was short-lived.

(Credit: Supplied)
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โ€œYou could go knock on everybodyโ€™s door and say, โ€˜Well, can I give you a bit of backstory?โ€™ You canโ€™t do that, so you just have to accept that thatโ€™s the deal. But frankly, itโ€™s a bit soul-destroying to have seemingly the world telling you, โ€˜Yep, youโ€™re a dud,'โ€ the 67-year-old adds of the interest in her rocky relationship history.

Throughout it all, the TV host kept her first husbandโ€™s last name. But she reveals sheโ€™s battled an identity crisis over the years.

โ€œI grieve Beth Ryan, because I quite like Beth Ryan. Liz Hayes is who Iโ€™ve become. I was born Elizabeth Ryan,โ€ says the veteran journalist, who was born to dairy farmers in the regional NSW town of Taree.

โ€œWhen I hear someone say, โ€˜Hi, Beth,โ€™ I know theyโ€™re in my soul. When I realised, oh, Iโ€™m now Liz Hayesโ€ฆ thatโ€™s a very odd moment. Itโ€™s peculiar.โ€

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โ€œWriting this book and writing โ€˜Beth Ryanโ€™, I hear my dad, my brothersโ€ฆ Iโ€™m not Liz Hayes. To this day Iโ€™m Beth. It was only when reading the book that I went back and realised how big a deal it was to let go of that,โ€ she says.

Liz Hayes breaks down in emotional interview
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Itโ€™s a rare show of candidness from Liz, who has closely guarded her private life, in large part due to a terrifying experience with a man who stalked her for 25 years.

โ€œI just had to change everything I did,โ€ says Liz of learning to live with the threat after court orders did nothing to deter him.

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