It’s easy to look at Mick Fanning and think life’s a beach.
He’s a three-time world surfing champion who has earned millions of dollars doing what he loves. He even part-owns a brewery. But what on the surface looks like a dream existence masks years of pain and suffering below.
Now for the first time, the 39-year-old surfer is talking about his deep blues, which at their worst meant he didn’t leave his house for months on end.
Tom Steinfort reports that Fanning’s tough times began after his epic battle with a shark in 2015. Most of the world thought he was indestructible, but the truth could not have been more different.
It has taken five difficult years, but now with help from his mates, his mum and his fiancée, Mick Fanning has risen from the depths. He also has a brand-new reason not to leave home: fatherhood.
Reporter: Tom Steinfort – Producers: Laura Sparkes
LIVING HELL
If you have a free moment, spare a thought for Australian academic Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert.
Her situation is grim. She’s about to start her third year as a prisoner in Iran and is being held in an unimaginably squalid, coronavirus-infested jail outside the capital, Tehran.
Her crime, according to the Iranian regime, is that she’s a spy. Dr Moore-Gilbert emphatically denies the accusation, but her appeals have all been ignored or rejected.
As Sarah Abo reports, it means her only hope now is for the Australian government to come to her rescue.
Reporter: Sarah Abo – Producer: Garry McNab
KATY’S SMILE
Congratulations Katy Perry! Three days ago the pop superstar added “mum” to her already impressive resume when daughter Daisy Dove was born. She and actor-fiancé Orlando Bloom are said to be positively blooming.
And the baby’s perfectly timed arrival could not have been scripted any better, coinciding with the release of Katy’s new album, the perfectly titled Smile.
For this story, reporter Tara Brown first caught up with Perry back in March when she was visiting Australia to support victims of the catastrophic bushfires.
But then COVID put a halt to filming until a few weeks ago when a heavily pregnant and very excited mother-to-be told Tara how she couldn’t wait to meet her daughter.
Reporter: Tara Brown – Producer: Thea Dikeos
