In 2015, Carrie Bickmore gave an incredible speech as she accepted the TV Week Gold Logie Award for Most Popular Personality on Australian television.
The 42-year-old star famously donned a blue beanie, and spoke with heartfelt honesty to the audience about the need for greater brain cancer awareness and research.
Carrie lost her first husband, Greg Lange, to brain cancer in 2010, and has since founded a charity, Carrie’s Beanies 4 Brain Cancer.
Here, in her own words, the former co-host of The Project reveals how only her young son Ollie knew the secret that would soon become part of Logies folklore.
Bickmore donned her now famous beanie during her 2015 Gold Logie acceptance speech.
(Image: Getty)
“I often think about what I would have said if I didn’t talk about brain cancer when I won my Gold Logie in 2015,” Bickmore told TV Week.
“Many people have said how I was keeping a big secret from them. But really, I was keeping it from myself, because I wasn’t sure I was going to go through with it.”
“I decided to do it the Friday before the Logies on the Sunday night. But then I realised if I did win, and people wanted to put on a beanie, I had none to give them! I told a person I worked with and he helped me find a factory I could get beanies from.”
Bickmore with her son, Ollie, and daughter, Evie, promoting Carrie’s Beanies 4 Brain Cancer.
(Image: Supplied)“That Friday, I picked up Ollie from school and headed to the factory. He asked, ‘Where are we going?’ That’s when I told him what I was thinking of doing. He said, ‘That’s so cool!’ So he kind of went on the journey with me.”
“On the day, I wasn’t really sure if I’d do it, but he said, ‘Mum, we’ve got the beanies now – what are we going to do with them all?’ I thought, ‘I’d better do it.'”
“I was proud of Ollie for being such a good secret-keeper on the day. I had my family at the hotel [in Melbourne] while I was getting ready and had a box of beanies there.”
“Some of them asked, ‘What’s that?’ [and] I could hear them talking about it and was so close to saying something. But I thought if I didn’t win, they’d feel sorry for me and I didn’t want that. So I just kept it to myself.”
“Winning the Gold [Logie] was lovely. When you work on something day after day, it all becomes a bit of a blur and you forget that it’s still having an impact on people and their lives.”
“I feel very honoured and I certainly don’t take it for granted.”
This article originally appeared in TV WEEK in 2018 and has been republished in full.
“I feel very honoured.”
(Image: Getty)The 63rd TV WEEK Logie Awards will air on Sunday July 30, 7:30pm on Channel 7 and 7 Plus.
