Sonia Kruger is cool, calm and collected given she’s just been nominated for another TV WEEK Gold Logie Award.
“I’m actually really excited and looking forward to it,” the star tells TV WEEK. “I don’t know why I feel like there’s not the pressure I had last year. There’s been some sort of weird release, and I feel that, this time, I’m just going to have a really fun night.
“I was well behaved last year and look what happened, so this year, all bets are off!”
The 58-year-old is recalling her controversial acceptance speech at the 2023 awards when, up on stage after being announced as the winner of the Gold Logie Award for Most Popular Personality On Australian Television, she poked fun at fellow nominee Hamish Blake by re-enacting a conversation she’d had with the manager they share.
“He said, ‘Frankly, I’m hoping that he [Hamish] will leave the agency so I can concentrate all of my efforts on you, Sonia,’” she said.
The jokey quip drew a lukewarm reaction in the room, with Hamish looking unimpressed. However, it was the media pick-up the next day that overshadowed Sonia’s Gold Logie win and had her seeking counselling.
“There was a lot of talk,” she says of the fallout from her speech. “But I think a lot of us in television are our own worst critics – and I do have a bit of that problem with perfectionism. I’m a Virgo, so I’m a bit of an over-thinker, an over-analyser. Nobody can criticise us more than we can criticise ourselves.”
Sonia says she made sure she emailed Hamish the next morning to make it clear it was all a joke.
“He was like, ‘Oh my gosh. Don’t be crazy – nobody understands how surreal it is in those moments up on stage’. He was really so sweet and gorgeous [about it],” she says.
Her acceptance speech, and the reaction to it, was reminiscent of 2021 Gold Logie winner Tom Gleeson, the Hard Quiz host who upset many in the industry when he took a dig at the awards in his speech.
“Tom actually came up to me at the after party – I think he could see I was a little shell-shocked – and he was like, ‘Listen, it was OK,’” Sonia says. “He picked up on a funny line I said and told me he liked it, so he gave me something positive, which I thought was really lovely.”
So what if she were to win again this year?
“I’ve thought about outsourcing it [her acceptance speech],” she deadpans. “Seriously, if that [winning] was going to happen again, I don’t think I could [give another speech], because it could be worse than last year.
“And do you know what I’ve realised? I said to Craig [her partner Craig McPherson] afterwards that I’ve realised I’m actually terrified of public speaking.
“He was like, ‘Sonia, you work in television – if that’s the case, you’ve totally chosen the wrong career.’ Maybe I’ll just get Sam Pang [this year’s Logies host] to read it out.”
No-one could ever accuse Sonia of outsourcing her work. For more than 20 years, it seems she’s been a constant in our living rooms, whether it be delivering the news on Today Extra or hosting reality shows such as The Voice or Dancing With The Stars. After 14 seasons, she’s currently the main host, with Dr Chris Brown as her wingman.
Even after all these years, Sonia says she finds it all a privilege to do.
“It’s amazing, and I still love doing it so much,” she says, adding that career achievements such as Logie nominations make her stop to reflect on how much she’s accomplished.
“It’s an acknowledgement of everything I’ve done,” she says. “I’ve hosted interesting, sometimes bizarre, some successful, and some not-so successful, shows, but to get to the point where you’re nominated is really the key.
“It’s the greatest acknowledgement of that, and not something that should ever be taken for granted.
“Often we forget that we’re not curing cancer; we’re not saving lives. We work in entertainment. But it’s things like this [the Logies] that do make you realise what a great and fun industry this is to work in.”
But while she does love working, Sonia admits she’s enjoyed “flying under the radar” a little this year.
With reality show Big Brother on ice for the foreseeable future, the gap in her schedule allowed her to focus on another up-and-coming talent in her life: her nine-year-old daughter Maggie.
“I think the [public] perception is that I’m really busy,” Sonia says. “In actual fact, we shoot our shows quite tightly, which has given me a lot of free time for Maggie.
“Just the other day, Maggie had her first dance eisteddfod and won, and it was a big deal for their dance company. I fully turned into a stage mother. I’m probably going to have to rein that in a bit, actually.
“But really my focus is always her and spending time with her, and I feel like the balance is really good at the moment.”
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