VIDEO: Letting Loose | Kathy Lette

INTRODUCTION: Hi, I'm Kylie Minogue and tonight's Australian Story is about a dear friend of mine, the one and only Kathy Lette. She's the best social secretary you could wish to have and I'm lucky enough to call her mine. But going way back as a teenager in the 80s, I devoured Kathy's first novel, Puberty Blues. Didn't everyone. Since then, she's had a glittering career, lightly fictionalising every stage of her life, from marriage to motherhood, divorce and beyond. In tonight's episode Kathy opens up about her eventful life and why she believes that for women, life only gets better after 60.

KATHY LETTE: All my life I've always put myself out of my comfort zone but I always am true to myself and I've never tried to be anyone that I'm not.

(In dressing room before show)

Kathy Lette: The worst thing about a one-woman show is falling out with the cast. You're on notice.

ANNABEL CRABB, JOURNALIST AND FRIEND: Kathy Lette is an entirely original character. She's one of our most famous ex-pats.

(In dressing room before show)

Kathy Lette: You do get really nervous before you go out.

ANNABEL CRABB, JOURNALIST AND FRIEND: And I think she's always been of the view that you can think whatever you like of me and I don't really care. And she's practised that.

JULES ROBERTSON, SON: She's a bit like a female Peter Pan. Very positive. She's just a bundle of happy fun.

(Kathy Lette: Big Night Out)

Kathy Lette: Hello, my name is Kathy Lette. I'm an author, deranged mum of two, investigative satirist and feminist, which is why it's so great to see so many wonderful women here this evening.

KATHY LETTE: Anthropologists say that women laugh more often than men in every culture on the planet, especially in all female groups.

(Kathy Lette: Big Night Out)

Kathy Lette: Are there any men in this evening?

Men in crowd: Yeah.

Kathy Lette: I've got to warn you guys you'll be ovulating by the end of the evening.

KATHY LETTE: If we can get together and have a giggle and snicker at the men who are oppressing us, it makes you feel empowered. And that is the language of women.

(Kathy Lette: Big Night Out)

By the time you get into bed, the one thing you're fantasising about is sleep. And then you get the hand …

KATHY LETTE: I think for women, life is in two acts. The trick is surviving the interval; the menopause is the interval, the menopause is awful. But once you get through that, it's the best time of a woman's life. No one talks about this. Adventure before dementia. That's my big motto for women my age is to just, you know, go forth and be fabulous.

(Kathy Lette: Big Night Out)

He's just prodding away at my clitoris as though it's an elevator button and he's running late for a meeting. And I'm like, take the stairs.

TITLE: Letting Loose

KATHY LETTE: I came here today as if going to my execution. I was like, no. You know, I don't like talking about myself.

THOMAS KENEALLY, WRITER AND FRIEND: She doesn't talk a lot about personal things except in the broadest way. She doesn't get confessional.

KATHY LETTE: I'd rather you read my books and glimpse me through the narrative than actually lay myself out bare.

ANNABEL CRABB, JOURNALIST AND FRIEND: Of course, she's most famous as a writer. She's written many books. She co-wrote Puberty Blues, which had an incredibly transformative effect on the Australian culture.

GEORGIE ROBERTSON, DAUGHTER: It's, you know, a feminist classic. And I think even though it was written in the 1970s, it's still as relevant now because a lot of the issues that it addresses, unfortunately, are still issues today – sexist culture and sexual assault and harassment.

THOMAS KENEALLY, WRITER AND FRIEND: There is a tendency to write her off snidely for the one-liners but there is a profound seriousness underneath Kathy.

GEOFFREY ROBERTSON, QC, FORMER HUSBAND: Her novels are always best when she's dealing with her own experiences, whether they've been good or bad.

KATHY LETTE: I always try and write the book I wish I'd had when I was going through something to say to other women, you're not alone. Pretty much I've cannibalised my entire life up until this point. Probably the last book I'll write will be Menopause Blues. So I'll have Puberty Blues and Menopause Blues. My whole life will be bookended by my hormonal upheavals.

KATHY LETTE: My mother gave me the greatest gift imaginable – three sensational, sassy, funny, witty, wise, warm sisters.

(Playing scrabble with her sisters)

Kathy: Don't forget mummy's not here to adjudicate.

ELIZABETH LETTE, SISTER: We grew up in Sylvania, which is in the south of Sydney. Dad was a professional footballer and he used that to pay for his university degree and became an electrical engineer.

KATHY LETTE: Mum was a career teacher, so she went on to become a principal of a school quite young.

(Playing speed scrabble with her sisters)

Kathy Lette: Whose idea was this, I'm going to have a tantrum like I did as a child and throw the board.

Jenny Lette: And that's exactly what you would have done.

VAL LETTE, MOTHER: She was a really good child. Did everything to please me. Everybody loved her. Her teachers always gave me marvelous reports about her. She kept us entertained.

ELIZABETH LETTE, SISTER: As a teenager, Kath was pretty wild. She was about 13 when she started hanging out with the surfie crowd at Cronulla and of course the attraction was boys. You know, hormones, high school. She was really there for the boys.

(Playing speed scrabble with her sisters)

Caroline Lette: Do you remember you were my babysitter? You would sit me down in front of Bill Collins' Golden Years of Hollywood and then disappear. Go off with your boyfriend to play, I don't know, Scrabble maybe?

KATHY LETTE: What I wrote about in Puberty Blues is absolutely the life that I was living. It was incredibly tribal and brutal.

Puberty Blues (1981)

Deb: Have we finished?

VO: And that was the courting ceremony in Sylvania Heights, where I grew up.

KATHY LETTE: The boys really saw women as nothing more than something to lie down on while they were having sex. You were a life-support system to a pair of breasts.

(Cronulla beach)

Kathy Lette: This was my stomping ground. So this is the Puberty Blues, you know, scenario. In that book, the girls are about 13. That's how old we were when we initiated into the surfing culture, into the top gang, which is what you all aspired to be part of that world. And I started to push back, I guess, when I was about 15.

KATHY LETTE: When I met Gabrielle Carey, the great thing about that was that I'd met a soulmate. And that camaraderie is like armour. You know, because we had this great friendship, we could start saying why should we be treated like this?

Puberty Blues (1981)

Bruce: You weren't watching

Deb: I was

Bruce: Caught this really good wave, I looked up and you weren't watching.

Deb: I was, I saw you.

Sue: Yeah, she was

Bruce: Where's me towel

Deb: Here. Here's your towel.

KATHY LETTE: It did leave a psychological scar. I mean, I was very mistrustful of men for a long time after the Puberty Blues days. I often, you know, brush over with one liners and comedy. But no, it was brutal.

KATHY LETTE: I was school captain, sports captain. I was a straight-A student, which is why it horrified my mother when I left school at 16.

VAL LETTE, MOTHER: I was very distressed. I really couldn't fathom it. Um, maybe that independent streak to just show me she could do what she wanted to do.

Salami Sisters performance

Kathy and Gabs: Well I had spoof all over my jeans. My mother asked me if I'd dropped my ice cream I said, no mama …

KATHY LETTE: Gabs and I were writing satirical songs and we called ourselves the Salami Sisters because we wrote about meaty topics. We started getting a cult following and from that, we also got a newspaper column. That's when we started writing Puberty Blues.

VAL LETTE, MOTHER: She said to me, 'Mum, I'm having a book published and it could be controversial, would you like me to use a nom de plume?' And I looked at her and thought the girl's deluded. So I said, 'No, put it under your own name,' thinking it would never see the light of day. And then when it did, there was controversy.

(ABC, 1979)

Kathy: First of all the hips have to be out a little bit like that.

VO: Kathy Lette and Gabrielle Carey don't aim to shock. They say their novel, like their weekly newspaper column, is based on accurate reporting.

Kathy: Of course it's always been the same, the boys put pressure on girls to have sex but in the surfie scene they put that pressure on them very young.

Q: How old?

Kathy: 13, 14, 15

KATHY LETTE: It caused seismic shock around the country. I mean, really, it really polarised the community because young people say, yes, that's our lives. And older people had no idea what their kids were getting up to.

VAL LETTE, MOTHER: Strangers would phone me to say, how could I be teaching other people's children when I couldn't control my own?

KATHY LETTE: It was pretty horrific and my father was traumatised too. So I didn't go home for quite a while. Maybe a year.

KATHY LETTE: And then of course, the movie was made very quickly after that. We did get this unbelievable attention, and it was a lot to suddenly be in the spotlight. Our friendship didn't survive it because it was a very intense time. The fun evaporated and the serious side of life, you know, just overwhelmed us, so we just grew apart.

KIM WILLIAMS, MEDIA EXECUTIVE AND FORMER HUSBAND: I think she struggled at that time, but she came through it and it made her very strong. And she is a very strong person.

KATHY LETTE: I met Kim Williams when I was 21 and he ran something called Musica Viva, and he was very erudite. And what I've since realised in my own psychology is because I left school so young, I'm like Eliza Doolittle – I'm always looking for Henry Higgins. And so I met Kim and he opened the world up to me.

KIM WILLIAMS, MEDIA EXECUTIVE AND FORMER HUSBAND: I wasn't Henry Higgins, but I certainly … you know, she became part of my life and my life was all about music and art and cinema and theatre.

KATHY LETTE: I quickly moved in with Kim then I started really writing on my own again. I mean I still had sort of trainer wheels on because I was used to writing with a partner.

KIM WILLIAMS, MEDIA EXECUTIVE AND FORMER HUSBAND: She was very insecure and would ring me at work multiple times every day to check on a word or a phrase or a spelling. And for me, I was remarkably patient and I'm not known for being a very patient person.

(Geoffrey Robertson's Hypothetical, 1988)

Geoffrey Robertson: We're friends and relatives and neighbours, ladies and gentlemen, who live in the picturesque town of Melanoma.

GEOFFREY ROBERTSON, QC, FORMER HUSBAND: I was doing a show called Hypotheticals and I needed a cast. I thought Kylie Minogue. A few days before I got a telegram saying Kylie can't make it. You'll have to make do with Kathy Lette. Little did I think I'd be making do with her for the next 25 years.

(Geoffrey Robertson's Hypotheticals, 1988)

Geoffrey Robertson: What he really wants to do is go and stay in the backroom of Kathy Lette's beach house. Kathy, you've become a mother. Unmarried of course.

Kathy Lette: Of course. Where are we, Queensland? Yeah.

Geoffrey Robertson: And you're here getting material for your new novel, you're bludging the dole …

KATHY LETTE: After the show, we just … we talked and we talked until the sun came up, you know. And we fell madly in love, I was obviously married to Kim, I didn't want to hurt him, and Geoff was going out with Nigella Lawson.

GEOFFREY ROBERTSON, QC, FORMER HUSBAND: What is it about love? It makes you put aside all rationality and leap into it.

KIM WILLIAMS, MEDIA EXECUTIVE AND FORMER HUSBAND: On the day of her 30th birthday, I gave her a surprise party at the Sydney Theatre Company.

KATHY LETTE: I didn't know he was planning the surprise 30th birthday party for me and I thought, I'll just get past my 30th birthday and then I'll tell him.

KIM WILLIAMS, MEDIA EXECUTIVE AND FORMER HUSBAND: When we got home Kathy was very distressed and you have that light bulb moment when suddenly you realise something and I said, 'Who is it?' And all was revealed – that she and Geoffrey had been conducting a relationship for some time and she was going to relocate to the UK. I was devastated. I was very, very distressed.

KATHY LETTE: My guilt gland still throbs, but I just I couldn't help running away with Geoff. It just was too big, and Geoff felt the same.

GEOFFREY ROBERTSON, QC, FORMER HUSBAND: It was difficult, obviously. Kathy left her husband and I left Nigella Lawson, whom the British tabloids had been insisting I was about to marry. And there we were a couple of months later, ensconced in London.

ANNABEL CRABB, JOURNALIST AND FRIEND: They were often construed as an odd couple, even though they weren't really. Both Australian, both expats living in London. Although his presentation, of course, was completely different – you know, this sort of magisterial, plummy voiced QC. And she was just this sort of colourful riot of irreverence.

KATHY LETTE: The British establishment was very snobby about Australians anyway but they went out of their way to be rude to me. And it was very, very awkward for a while, I must admit. If I looked vulnerable in their company, it was like sharks smelling blood in the water. So, you know, I had to be quite tough.

(60 Minutes, Nine Network, 1991)

VO: Literary terrorist Kathy Lette is on the rampage. Armed with her high-powered notebook and poison pen, she has a new batch of victims in her sights. And she's taking no prisoners.

KATHY LETTE: If one of them condescended to me or was rude to me at a party or something, I'd say, 'Oh, what a great line, just let me write that down – I'm going to give it to a real bitch in my next novel.' And when they could see that it wasn't affecting me, they sort of started to back off.

GEOFFREY ROBERTSON, QC, FORMER HUSBAND: Dealing with the criticism that she faced. I think deepened and broadened her perspective as a writer.

KIM WILLIAMS, FORMER HUSBAND: I don't think it was bad for the brand to be the reckless, Down Under, irreverent wit. I think that was probably quite good for her brand. And her career really, really took off.

ELIZABETH LETTE, SISTER: Kath and Geoff always wanted to have children, and when she moved to London, it wasn't long until she was pregnant with Julius.

KATHY LETTE: Jules was born in November 1990. In fact, I was pregnant on my wedding day trying … I was wearing control-top pantyhose to try and not to show the bulge. And then my daughter Georgie was born in 1993, two-and-a-half years later.

(60 Minutes, Nine Network, 1991

Kathy with baby Jules: I'm not hypothetical. I'm real.

KATHY LETTE: Jules was an amazing baby. I mean, he talked early, he walked early. I mean, Geoff and I kept looking at each other thinking we had this little genius on our hands. And then at about 13 months, it was as though his computer crashed. He lost his language. He retreated into himself. And he was three when he got the diagnosis of autism.

GEOFFREY ROBERTSON, QC, FORMER HUSBAND: Kathy came into motherhood as someone who'd taken life pretty lightly and suddenly had a child who had complex needs and she gave him terrific support.

KATHY LETTE: It was a very expensive, long, drawn-out, incredibly anxious time of my life. You know, autism is a daily battle, especially when they're small.

GEORGIE ROBERTSON, DAUGHTER: School was really tough for Jules. And I was beating up boys that were two years older than me because they were picking on him in his class.

KATHY LETTE: One day when he was nine, he came home with a sign sticky taped to his back saying, 'Kick me, I'm a retard.' You know, he's saying to me, 'The kids are calling me a retard. What is a retard mummy? Am I a retard?' I mean, as any mother you might as well just rip your heart out of your chest and stomp on it? But how do you protect them all the time? You can't.

JULES ROBERTSON, SON: A lot of people believe that everyone with autism acts the same or has the same form of autism. When autism, everyone, people's autism are different.

(Kathy and Jules preparing for audition)

Kathy: This is an audition for Coronation Street. You know what that is?

Jules: Yeah, a big show in Manchester. It's been going for a long time.

KATHY LETTE: When people ask me, you know what advice I could give them for their autistic child, I would just say indulge their obsessions.

(Kathy and Jules preparing for audition)

Kathy and Jules preparing for audition

Kathy: I'll play the mum. You're playing a guy called … what's his name? Ali?

Jules: Ali.

Kathy Yes. And I think you're a doctor.

KATHY LETTE: My own son wanted to be an actor. I couldn't see it but I enrolled him in acting classes and I used to go and watch him and I'd think, you're really good.

(Kathy and Jules preparing for audition)

Kathy: I just thought because we're family …

Jules: Michelle, we're not family.

Kathy: I'm your mum.

Jules: You gave birth to me, but you're not my mum.

Kathy: But you're my flesh and blood.

Jules: And that's it. There's nothing else.

JULES ROBERTSON, SON: Being an actor is very exciting. It's very interesting playing someone who isn't you. It wasn't easy, but I always thought I was quite a convincing actor.

KATHY LETTE: He won some awards and then he got cast in a little film, and then he got cast in a big BBC show called Holby City. It's a medical drama.

JULES ROBERTSON, SON: The guy I played, Jason, had a different type of Asperger's to me, I would say. He took on a lot more responsibility than I ever could.

GEORGIE ROBERTSON, DAUGHTER: For so long, autistic people haven't been allowed to tell their own stories. Jules is really breaking down those barriers and he's done so well

GEOFFREY ROBERTSON, QC, FORMER HUSBAND: He gets more recognition than either of us. We walk down the street, people ran up to him and see him as Jason from Holby.

KATHY LETTE: Raising Jules has made me a more compassionate person. Much more compassionate. And he's also taught me to, you know, turn negatives into a positive. He's taught me not to judge people; to sort of understand how complex and diverse humans are.

JULES ROBERTSON, SON: Tennis and acting on my two passions, I think. I've been playing since I was four, so I've been following the big tournaments for a long time.

(Jules and Pat Cash playing tennis)

Jules Robertson: I've been working on my one-hander

Pat Cash: Jesus, that's good.

Jules Robertson: I'm trying to get it like yours.

KIM WILLIAMS, MEDIA EXECUTIVE AND FORMER HUSBAND: He's the only person I know who knows every Wimbledon score from the get-go. And I mean every score ever.

(Jules and Pat Cash playing tennis)

Jules Robertson: That must have made you think … reminded you of 1987 – 7-6, 6-2, 7-5.

PAT CASH, FORMER TENNIS CHAMPION: He knows all the stats. He knows all the data and all the dates. You win some, you lose some in tennis. And Jules is quite happy to remind me of my … the ones that I lost. Which is a part of life, I suppose.

KIM WILLIAMS, MEDIA EXECUTIVE AND FORMER HUSBAND: Kathy is genuinely a collector of celebrities and an avowed name dropper, but not in a show-off sense. It's just part of her chemistry.

ANNABEL CRABB, JOURNALIST AND FRIEND: She's got this kind of infectious warmth which is not made up. She's always reaching out to people, I think. She never feels or seems closed, either to people or to possibilities

KATHY LETTE: I don't want to go for gold in the Name Drop Olympics, it sounds like that, but I'm just trying to paint you a picture. Salman Rushdie love Scrabble. Kylie love Scrabble. So we'd have Scrabble nights where they'd be competing.

GEORGIE ROBERTSON, DAUGHTER: We often describe mum's house as the unofficial Australian embassy because she's had pretty much everyone to come and stay from, you know, political refugees like Julian Assange to literary icons like Tom Keneally.

THOMAS KENEALLY, WRITER AND FRIEND: She has the gift for life and for friendship that few writers have. Many writers are too narcissistic to go on cultivating friendships. If Kathy likes you, you're never going to escape.

(Book launch, Brisbane, April 2022)

Kathy: The hard thing about being married to a human rights lawyer is you could never get the high moral ground. Because when I used to say to Geoff, 'Oh, come in here and change this nappy', he'd be, 'Well, I'd like to, but I have 350 people on death row in Trinidad.' What could I say? Although after a year I started saying, 'Oh, let them die.'

KATHY LETTE: Geoff will be the first one to say that he's workaholic and he worked really full-on right through our marriage. So the burden did fall on me. And it just got a bit too exhausting.

GEOFFREY ROBERTSON, QC, FORMER HUSBAND: I'm sorry that I didn't spend more time with family at particular times but it's something that you realise afterwards.

KATHY LETTE: Geoff and I separated probably now it's been about five years, I think.

GEOFFREY ROBERTSON, QC, FORMER HUSBAND: It was as friendly, I think, as divorces can be. And we're still good friends. We have two children and, as people eventually find out, children are forever.

GEORGIE ROBERTSON, DAUGHTER: We still hang out the four of us. We even went on holiday last year, the four of us, for a few days. So in some ways not much has changed.

KATHY LETTE: Most divorces are now initiated by women. Once you're through the menopause, what happens to you hormonally is that your oestrogen levels drop, which is your caring, sharing hormone, and your testosterone comes up. So for the first time ever you get a little bit more bolshie, a little bit more selfish – a little bit more like a bloke, actually – and you put yourself first.

(Cronulla Beach)

Kathy Lette: It's so interesting being here, Cronulla again, and remembering when I was here as a teenager and of course I was so anxious and so nervous about how I looked. And to be here now, you know, post menopause feeling so liberated, so at ease in our skin.

Elizabeth Lette: Our wetsuits.

Kathy Lette: Our double skin, yeah. It's a really nice bookend to my life.

KATHY LETTE: It is the best time of a woman's life. It is. It's liberating not to be in the male gaze. I would say to women, you've put yourself second your whole life. You know, once your kids have left home, once you start to think about retirement, this is the time for you. So, you know, carpe the hell out of diem. Wear whatever you like, do whatever you like and do whoever you like. That's what I would say.

KATHY LETTE: My boyfriend's from Derry, and he grew up in the Troubles. We had what they call in the movies a 'cute meet'. He was in the park practising Bach under a tree and I was walking by and I thought that's the most beautiful music I've ever heard.

BRIAN O'DOHERTY, PARTNER: She gave me her number and I didn't ring. I literally knew nothing about Kathy. And then when we did meet up, though, I was absolutely blown away because she's a person who's so upbeat. Every day is a joy for her. And I get contact highs from her passion for life.

JULES ROBERTSON, SON: It's great that she's got a partner at this stage of her life. She likes to keep him out of the limelight. He's not even mentioned on her Wikipedia page.

(Kioloa Beach, NSW south coast)

Jules Robertson: Mum is Australia's best-selling author.

Kathy Lette: Oh, here we go.

Jules Robertson: Australian national treasure, darling.

Kathy Lette: I think I'm more of a buried treasure

Jules Robertson: Along with Geoffrey Robertson.

Kathy Lette: Waiting to be discovered, dug up.

KATHY LETTE: While I'm saying carpe the hell out of diem, have fun, I will never actually be able to cut the psychological umbilical cord that keeps me tethered to Jules because he needs me. The big worry, too, when you have a child with special needs is what are they going to do when you're no longer around? So my big aim now is to just get Jules completely independent, self-sufficient, with support.

JULES ROBERTSON, SON: When I go back to London I've got a flat in Holborn so I'll be trying to work on my independent skills there. I sometimes wish I had more friends and a girlfriend.

(Val's birthday picnic at Kioloa)

Kathy: Hi everybody. Thanks for doing the salad.

KATHY LETTE: I would love to boomerang back to Australia. My favourite people are here. My sisters are here. My mum's still here. The trouble is Jules has his career there. At the moment I'm trying to spend about six months of the year in each place.

GEOFFREY ROBERTSON, QC, FORMER HUSBAND: The umbilical cord of one's birth home is always there.

(Val's birthday picnic at Kiola)

Val Lette: I'm a blessed woman at 90 to have such a wonderful family.

GEOFFREY ROBERTSON, QC, FORMER HUSBAND: In terms of whether she would have been as popular as a writer had she stayed in Australia, I don't think she would have. I think she needed to get away.

KATHY LETTE: Every time you read a novel about a woman my age, she's either a victim, you know, or dying with unfulfilled hopes in her flat and gets eaten by the cat. You know, I want to write stories about women my age where they're the heroine and they're having adventures and it's life affirming and I'm going to call it 'I-don't-give-a-shit lit', because at this age, you don't care what anybody thinks about you. I'm hoping this term catches on.

ANNABEL CRABB, JOURNALIST AND FRIEND: She's one of those people who has relished every phase of life, even the bits that have been really hard. I mean, she's kind of a poster woman for making the most out of life, I think.

(Kathy Lette: Big Night Out)

Kathy Lette: I think we might have a little bit of a bop on stage. Who wants to come up and dance with me?