Tracy Grimshaw is truly living her best life since leaving behind the glitzy world of TV. In fact, she’s loving her new-found freedom so much the news legend recently turned down the opportunity to receive two coveted journalism awards given to honour her long career so she could remain out of the spotlight.
Tracy reportedly wanted to “avoid the media circus” that she would have faced on the red carpet and instead chose to spend that time with friends, family and cherished pets, including two-year-old kelpie Edith who, she admits, “makes me laugh 50 times a day”.
Tracy left ACA in late 2022.
(Image: Instagram)This didn’t come as a surprise to any of her tight circle of friends, who tell Woman’s Day how the 62-year-old has been loving a life without the deadlines and pressure that came with being the host of A Current Affair (ACA) for nearly 17 years.
“She’s always hated the attention,” reveals one mate.
“Tracy sees herself as a journalist and not a celebrity, so she’s always struggled with the amount of attention that came with being one of the most famous women on Australian TV. She loves the work, but she also loves having a private life.”
She is living her best retired life!
(Image: Instagram)AN ORDINARY LIFE
And she has been able to enjoy having her life back for the past six months after stepping down as host of ACA in November and taking a year-long sabbatical, before deciding what, if anything, she will do when she returns to Nine.
Tracy says after 40 years of deadlines, she’s looking forward to not having to follow the news so closely, and won’t even begin to think about, let alone discuss, any new TV role with Nine executives until she’s enjoyed a full 12-month break.
“I’m going to leave my phone on the kitchen bench, and I’m not going to look at it all the time. I’m going to take my watch off and I’m going to tell the time by the sun,” she promised in an interview with Sunday Life last year.
Fans may be surprised at just how “ordinary” her new post-TV world is.
Tracy has made it clear that she’s enjoying the simpler things in life at home with the loves of her life – her animals. It’s a place she’s always loved and retreated to for downtime during her busy career.
She has been working for roughly 40 years.
(Image: Instagram)The small farm, located on the north-western outskirts of Sydney, is usually filled with friends, family, her collection of rescue dogs and the horses she loves to bits.
It’s a life full of laughter and love, but Tracy is anything but a recluse.
She’s been spotted enjoying theatre dates, afternoons on the water with mates, and out and about in Melbourne where she spends a lot of time.
Tracy admits she’s anything but prolific when it comes to posting photographs or information about her personal activities on social media. However, she does occasionally allow fans and friends a sneak peek at her life out of the spotlight.
When she took to the sea to enjoy an afternoon on Sydney Harbour to celebrate a friend’s birthday in March, she was flooded with comments from fans. One said it was nice to see Tracy enjoying a “long deserved time out”.
The previous month, she raved about Eryn Jean Norvill’s performance in a stage production of The Picture Of Dorian Gray, telling famous friends like Sylvia Jeffreys and Chrissie Swan that she found it “exhilarating and exhausting”.
SECRET LOVES
Tracy guards her privacy fiercely, however, especially when it comes to her personal life.
“I don’t think I’ll start. If I do start I’ll never stop,” she told The Australian Women’s Weekly in 2017.
And she hasn’t ruled out the idea of marriage altogether, saying, “Anything can happen and if the right bloke knocked on the door, then it still might. You never know.”
A year later she admitted to having had lots of serious relationships, telling Stellar magazine, “I’ve had lots of long-term relationships, but I’ve never talked about any of them.”
But if any more evidence was needed that Tracy is happiest at home, her visit to London last September to cover the Queen’s funeral provided it.
She admitted on Instagram to popping into the Household Cavalry stables “just to smell a bit of horse poo and feel like home”.
