_Ugly_ Phil O_Neil _I Have Ms But Ms Doesn_T Have Me_

When you initially get diagnosed, you have other things that you worry about, like how

will my friends react?

Because you don't want people to pity you.

You don't want to be known as, oh, Phil O'Neill, he has MS.

And this is probably the first time I've actually, after nearly six years, spoken about

it so publicly.

But, you know, you start thinking, how will this affect my relationships with people?

How will people judge me?

I mean, I have MS, but MS doesn't have me.

Hi, I'm Jess Rowe, and this is the Jess Rowe Big Talk Show, a podcast that skips the small

talk and goes big and deep.

From love to loss and everything in between, I want to show you a different side of people

who seem to have it all together in these raw and honest conversations about the things

that matter.

I don't know about you, but I really crave connected conversations.

So I'm going to dig deep to give you a new window into the souls of the people we're

curious to get to know and understand.

There might be tears as well as laughter as we celebrate the real-life flaws and vulnerabilities

that make us human.

Radio host, ugly Phil O'Neill, was the voice you heard each evening in the 90s and early

2000s.

He was the host of the number one radio show for young people, The Hot 30 Countdown, and

I loved listening to it.

Phil hosted the show with his then-wife, Jackie O, and he was interviewing and partying with

the world's biggest celebrities.

But the Phil of today is a very different man compared to those wild and heady times.

He's recently married the love of his life, he's very private and doesn't care for the

celebrity side of things.

Do you know he has been in the radio business for 42 years and for the first time he talks

with me about his MS diagnosis and how that has changed his life.

Ugly Phil.

Oh, that's a bit rude, isn't it?

You hardly met me.

Wow.

But is it?

But that's how I know you.

I mean, I grew up listening to you on The Hot 30 and that's how I think about you.

Which is crazy because I'm only 21, so how long does that make you, Jess?

Oh, now come on, you're a bit like me.

You're in your 50s, aren't you?

Yeah.

Oh, God, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

59.

But though, you know, I say Ugly Phil, because I don't really know you, I suppose, and a

lot of people, that's how they refer to you, they think about you.

How would you describe who Phil O'Neill is?

The person that it took me 59 years to be, really, having broken down all of that.

Well, I guess, coming to terms with who you are, where you fit in the world, your place

in the world.

And that can take a long time, especially if you're constantly a work in progress.

But we all are.

Aren't we?

We're all a work in progress.

Well, some people don't like to do any work on themselves, you know.

Some people tend to blame all of the other environments around them, whereas, you know,

And I guess for the want and need of doing it, me, is you have to constantly reinvent,

especially in this industry, but also as a human being, you have to constantly double

check yourself too.

So when have you had to double check yourself?

Always.

Always.

I mean, there was a stage where I was doing the Hot 30 Countdown, and I was 37, and I'd

spent, you know, my entire life building up to that moment.

And I'd achieved everything I wanted to achieve.

I had success.

I had fame.

And I had fortune.

And I thought somehow that would complete me and maybe validate me.

And then I just realised one day, well, this isn't filling any of the holes that I thought

it would fill, you know.

And that's when I walked away from it.

And I went, well, okay, then obviously that's not the answer to who I am and who I want

to be.

Isn't it funny how there's this assumption, this idea that you think, yes, if I get the

big job, if people recognise me, if I'm famous, if I'm travelling here and there, I will be

happy.

I'll be validated.

I'll be complete.

Which is weird because that's the culture that we live in now, especially with younger

people, with Instagram, they all want instant fame.

And when you've had the fame, as you know, it's not all you expect to be.

You don't change.

I guess people may be around you change, but you personally don't change.

It doesn't enrich your life in any way, shape or form, except you probably jump a few queues

at restaurants, but apart from that.

And it doesn't also make you feel happier or more secure.

It doesn't give anything, sometimes worse and especially within media when you've been

working in the radio industry.

How long?

42 years.

Yeah.

And you're still here.

Yeah.

It's crazy for a person who's only 21, isn't it?

How that math works out.

I've got no idea.

But how do you survive that then?

Because you know, a career in radio, in media isn't for the faint hearted and you have reinvented

as you've said, but what's kept you going?

What's made you think this is what I've got to do?

I want to do?

Well, it's because that's all I ever wanted to do.

When I was 16 years of age, I just wanted to be on the radio.

And I used to ring up all the disc jockeys on the air, you know, used to midnight to

dawn and hassle them.

And I just realised that what I enjoy doing the most is entertaining people, playing records,

you know, I never really bought into the whole celebrity thing.

That came along with it.

But that's why I keep doing it, because I love it.

You know, if I didn't love it, then I wouldn't do it.

Because why would you put yourself through that?

But exactly.

It has to be fun.

There has to be the joy that comes with it.

Yeah, of course.

And you know, I'm a self sabotager from way back.

And as soon as the fun ends with me, in a lot of cases, I've walked away from some high

paying careers because it wasn't fun.

Unfortunately, when you keep doing that, after a while, you find that there's nothing

else left.

There's nowhere else left to go.

So at some stage, you've also got to go, well, I've got to, you know, also deal with management

and deal with things that I'm not necessarily, you know, would have liked to have done in

the first place.

And that's part of being a work in progress, isn't it?

You learn from that.

Yeah, of course.

But of course, many people know you as being married to Jackie O as well.

That's my claim to fame.

You know, that's my pub quiz answer, who's the ex-husband of Jackie O.

Which was, I was at a pub in Glebe and they were doing a quiz night and that question

was asked, I think the question was asked or phrased, which ex-famous person used to

be married to Jackie O?

And the worst thing was no one knew the answer.

Like, tripping up there and going, hang on a second.

Because of course, you were such a successful duo on air as well.

Yeah.

But we work together now.

Well, we work in the same building, but there's no issue.

Even when I got mentioned in the paper for getting married, I'm referred to as Jackie

O's ex-husband, which is crazy because that was like 20 years ago, you know?

Well, exactly.

It was just a small part of your life.

That's right.

I mean, people don't refer to you as Peter Overton's wife.

Or maybe they do.

I don't know.

Well, sometimes they do.

It depends.

But if I think about, I haven't been married before, but previous relationships, I think

about how much I've changed since then, and I don't want to be either remembered or defined

by someone who I used to be with.

No, of course not, especially 20 years down the track.

But also, you know, you forged your own career.

You had a career pre your relationship.

You'll have a career, you know, continuing your relationship that you are in.

And I'm sorry if I said married.

I mean, I've got that wrong.

Yes.

No, married.

Yes.

17 years.

Saved Peter an engagement ring then, didn't I?

You're thanking me for this.

Yeah.

It's not who you are.

It's something that you were, you know, something that you were once with.

But for some reason, for me, it seems to me, you know, that's my only point of reference.

My pop culture references is that.

And you know, I've had a career outside of that, that hot 30 career.

You know, I've been successful in several other ventures on air and I guess people forget

about that.

Oh, they won't.

I won't when I start reminding you.

So 1970.

Wasn't that awkward?

Because you guys had split up, but then you still kept working together.

That must have been tricky.

Well, it was difficult.

I mean, but you know, whenever two people part who were married, of course, it's a rocky

period and to continue doing a radio show together in the middle of that, especially

when people didn't know we were married, was difficult.

But we worked our way through it.

And it's funny how many people go, oh, they're in the same building now.

Well, that's fine.

Fine.

I was only telling her today that I was coming to do your podcast and we were chatting about

that.

It's no big deal.

But also, too, to me, it reveals that both of you are such professionals.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, she's been very, very successful at what she does.

She has a great show.

She's worked very, very hard to get to where she is.

She's weathered some storms, I'm sure that, you know, with a withered me.

That's for sure.

She's got through that.

She has a great show with Kyle.

But as I said, our on air period, same as our marriage, was a long time ago.

I mean, you and I, when we start dating, you'll be known as the former partner of Peter Averton.

So tell me about your best friend, Samantha.

Well, we've been together for such a long time and we've been through so much.

We've been through more than most couples go through in a lifetime in the last two years.

We were in the UK.

We moved there, I guess, to reestablish who we were and what we wanted to do.

It was a reset.

And we went there right in the middle of Covid.

And we both were working at a radio station where we got retrenched.

Our lease ran out, so we didn't have anywhere to live.

So we ended up being homeless and just moving from Airbnbs to hotels.

We did about 16 to 18 moves in about two months.

And that puts a great deal of stress on any relationship.

Apart from that, we've had, you know, the ups and downs that lots of couples have had.

But she's stuck with me and she's my best friend.

And I just I love seeing her every day.

I wake up every morning and she's there.

And I love, you know, I love just being at home with her.

She makes me happy.

And what else could you ask for?

I mean, if she was a bit richer, I would like that.

If she was an heiress, it would have been a lot better.

But what are you going to do?

But looking at your face when you talk about Samantha, it changes.

You lighten.

She makes me very, very happy.

I'm very, very lucky.

And so what then made you decide we're getting married?

This is what I want to do.

I don't know.

She said, well, the 22nd of the second 22 is coming up.

It's supposed to be lucky.

And we decided, well, let's go and get married and let's just do it without the palaver,

without, you know, all of the people that are involved.

Let's just go down to the park near where we live, invite a couple of friends as witnesses

and stand there and have a glass of champagne and look at the opera house.

Of course, it poured with rain.

It was the rainiest day of the year.

And everybody else had the same idea about getting married in these two little rotundas,

which were the only refuge from the rain.

So it was it was a little bit like, you know, an express train of marriages, you know.

Do you? Yep. OK, next.

It's good luck, though.

It's good luck when it rains on your wedding day.

Yeah. Well, I hope so.

But otherwise, we're in trouble because I wasted afternoon, wasn't I?

And has life changed being married?

Is it different? Not really.

Sam says it's changed her a bit.

I mean, there's, I guess, more permanence to it.

But no, I mean, when you've been together for so long, I don't think it changes.

Don't know if that's the right answer, by the way.

We'll find out in the taxi on the way home.

Because, of course, as you said, Sam is listening to the interview.

Yeah, that's right. Isn't she?

Does that make you feel nervous or not?

No, no, Sam and I have worked together at different radio stations on different programs.

And so I'm used to, you know, her.

Actually, I'm glad she came so that I could afterwards, I can say to her,

did I say the right thing?

But surely you always say the right thing.

I am incredibly insecure.

And so I'm never sure whether or not I'm, you know,

I'm saying the right thing.

And I've read a great quote, which Phil Collins said, you know, he said,

if he was in a room of 200 people and somebody dropped a scrap of paper on the floor,

he'd wait until everybody left and then go and pick up that piece of paper

and see if it was something that was written about him.

And that's me, you know.

That's a heavy load to carry, though, isn't it?

Yeah. But that makes it part and parcel of who you are as a human being.

When you, you know, come to grips with things like that,

when you come to grips with insecurities and anxiety, as you would well know,

you know, you overcome the obstacle by diving through the wave.

Of course you do.

I think what I always find fascinating is it seems media attracts insecure people.

We look for that validation within the roles that we do,

with the feedback from audience and adulation.

Yeah.

But it doesn't, as we said earlier, fill that hole.

No.

But we need to sort of find that elsewhere.

Yeah. But, you know, you have to look internally for,

because externally you won't get the answers.

And also we live in an age now where we're being judged so fiercely by people,

anonymous people on keyboards too, which is, you know, terrifying, the idea of that.

But that's the age that we live in.

You either, you know, invest in reading all of the things that people write about you.

No, you can't.

Or you don't, you know what I mean? Please tell me you don't.

And what I was going to say about that is, well, you don't read it at all.

And so I just don't read it at all.

Especially when it's like, who are these people?

Yeah.

I used to find I would invest too much time in, oh my God, that so-and-so said this or this or this.

And then I go, well, wait a minute, I don't even really know these people.

Why am I worrying about what they think or what they say about me?

Yeah. I care whether or not people I know and like value me and if I've offended them.

But people who are outside of the realm of that, people on the internet, I can't control that.

So you still then, the people who you love, who know you best, you still worry about what they think?

Oh, all the time, yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Why though? Why is that?

I guess I just want to be liked.

But isn't there, though, a part of you that then can say, I'm not only liked, I'm actually loved?

I mean, take, for example, Grant Denier, you know, he suffers from the fact that he wants everybody to like him.

And that surprised me because I know Grant, and every time I see him, he smiles, he smile lights up the room.

I don't know if you know him personally, he's got this real warmth to him.

And I just think, how can you possibly come to that conclusion because you're such a lovely man?

Which then begs the question, how do you come to that conclusion?

You're going to tell me. You're going to tell me what a lovely guy I am.

That's why I'm here, isn't it?

But in the sense of there are people, you know, your beautiful wife, Sam, and other people in your life who love you, who are there by your side, surely that is enough for you or freeing.

I know for me that because I know, say, with my husband, with my kids, they're in my corner and I know that they love me and I don't worry what they think of me.

I mean, surely if you did an interview with someone after the fact, Keith Urban or whatever, you'd be thinking to yourself, gee, I hope that person liked me as an interviewer, because as somebody that, you know, puts themselves out there, you're going to have that.

You know, it's the same kind of thing with me.

It's like you want people to respect you and like you, whether they do or not is, you know, sometimes out of your hands, but still.

Do you ever kind of go, oh, I'm enough?

Yeah.

You do?

Yes.

Yeah, now, but it took a long time, took a long time.

And what was it that made that happen for you?

I think the illness when I was diagnosed with MS, that was an epiphanous moment for me to suddenly, you know, take stock of what was important and what wasn't important and then became much more of a work in progress from that day.

So let's talk about MS and your diagnosis.

How, first of all, did you realise that you had MS?

Well, the thing about MS is it's a very difficult thing to diagnose.

And it's no two cases are ever the same.

So for doctors, from what I can gather, it's very difficult for them to immediately come to the conclusion that this is what's going on.

And I had something that happened in March.

I went to see the doctor.

We had some scans, nothing came of it.

And then I went away and came back again in August because something else happened.

And once again, they couldn't find anything.

So everything sort of proved inconclusive.

And then in October, I had this numbing on the side of my face, which never went away.

And then as that progress went down my arm and I had all of these scans and everything, they couldn't find that.

Then I did an MRI and I went into the doctor thinking it was a pinched nerve.

And this went on for quite a few weeks and I was sitting there waiting for what I presume was going to be a diagnosis of a pinched nerve or something like that.

And she said, OK, your scans have come back and you've got MS.

And I just went.

Initially, my thought was, well, I don't really know what that is.

I mean, you may as well have told me I've got kryptonite, you know, because I didn't really understand exactly what that was.

I knew of the disease, but I didn't know what the implications were.

So we talked about that, the fact that the following day I had to go and see a neurologist.

And so I went home, cried for about 10 hours, got drunk, cried for about 10 hours.

And then the following day was day one.

And that was day one of the journey.

And that was in 2016.

So what a journey then. So that's six years.

Coming up to six years, yeah.

And talk me through that when going home and literally breaking down.

I was petrified. I had no idea what was going to happen.

No idea whatsoever.

And I thought, OK, well, I'll Google it, but don't actually Google things.

And then I broke down. I cried.

Sam cried for about 10 hours.

The following morning I woke up and went, well, you know, this is day one.

I'm going to go and see my neurologist.

And that was when the journey began from that day on.

And with that journey, how did it look at the start?

Scary, confusing, confronting, because you're going to see people that you wouldn't ordinarily go and see.

You know, obviously you realise that this is more serious than an ordinary GP's appointment.

And then I went and had all these other things done.

I went and had skin checks and my eyes checked and everything like that.

A friend of mine said to me, don't Google the symptoms.

Just go with whatever they tell you.

And nobody, I mean, there's that sort of stoic professionalism that you deal with.

But you also want somebody to say to you, well, OK, here's the deal.

And eventually one doctor I went to and I said, OK, here's the deal.

Here's what you should do. You should go and try and find out as much information as you possibly can.

And I thought that he was talking to me and humanising the whole situation for me, which was the first time that had happened.

This was three or four weeks into it.

At that stage, you know, I was just walking around going, well, I don't know what the implication is.

And immediately, you know, you sort of when you get the things like this within a couple of days,

you start Googling to find out who else has MS and, you know, what their journey's been like.

And one of the good things about being able to do this podcast is to be able to say to people, well, you know, Phil O'Neill has MS and he's doing well as a result of it.

So I think it's important to for people to know that, you know, you have to deal with it, but the options are there as well.

And that's where I started my journey, you know, from finding out about MS.

I went and looked at neuroplasticity.

I went and looked at neural pathways.

You know, I'm just a disc jockey. My skill is talking about Jimmy Barnes's latest song, you know.

And then I looked at mitochondria and I looked at gut health.

I did a lot of spirituality. I read a lot of books.

Bernie Siegel, Louise Hay, I was a Buddhist for about 10 minutes, but that was, you know,

that didn't last.

Quite a lot of literature involved in that.

You know, I went to church for the first time in 40 years.

You know, I did the entire the gamut of what I needed to know, what I needed to do to comprehend exactly what was going on with me.

And as a result of that, I changed my lifestyle, I changed my diet.

And I've probably, you know, people say I've read people say that in some cases something like this is a blessing.

And I wouldn't have understood what that meant until I went through it and I changed my lifestyle.

And I've probably saved my life in a lot of ways by changing my diet and a lot of things like that too.

So let's talk more about that.

And I think the point that you make is such a good one by sharing your story that other people who have MS,

have a diagnosis, might have a loved one with MS, that there is a sense of this is how you can live with it.

So it's important that you share your experience and the way you've navigated through it.

So how have you done that?

I mean, you said you did all of that different sort of research and tried this and tried that.

What does your day look like now?

And how are your symptoms now?

I still have, you know, symptoms that happen every day.

But that's the peculiar thing about MS, that it's such an unusual disease.

And as I said, no two cases are the same.

So what are your symptoms then?

Well, I get all kinds of things.

I get, you know, quite bad headaches.

I get quite bad depression.

But there's no real textbook to say to you, OK, this is what you're going to get on day one.

This is what you're going to get.

Nobody knows what's going to happen.

You know, my symptoms may not get any worse at all.

They may do. I don't know.

Because is it essentially is your brain destroying tissue?

Is that what happens or?

Your immune system, I mean, again, I'm no doctor, but your immune system's turned on

and it attacks the myelin sheath, which is the sheath that covers your nerves.

So you end up with nerve damage as that destroys that and can send off all kinds of things.

And that's why it can manifest itself in different ways.

In so many different ways.

And, you know, that's the confusing thing for so many people that I've now talked to who have MS,

who go, you know, I don't know whether what this is is MS or whether what this is is just a headache.

You know, there's a lot of things that happen as a result of that.

And in terms then of how you're treating it, what does that involve?

I don't have milk. I don't have dairy.

I don't have gluten. I don't eat anything like that.

I'm very, very, very strict with my diet.

I'm boring as hell to go to dinner with.

So what do you eat? Air or live on air?

I eat air. That's right. Yeah. That's gluten free air, though.

I eat vegetables, eat fish.

But, you know, somebody said to me, if it's got a label on it, then that's probably not going to do you any good.

So and that's what works for me.

I can't speak to anybody else's experience and I'm not going to certainly advise anybody else on what they should do.

That's what works for me based on a diet that I read about in a book called Overcoming MS by Professor Janelik,

a Melbourne professor, and I follow that.

I go to the gym a lot, you know, and I don't drink.

So I'm, you know, I'm as boring as a stick.

But what a change in terms of compared to your earlier life when you were like the life of the party and partying with all the sort of rock stars and total shit.

Slash and I were only talking about that the other day in the jacuzzi.

No, but seriously. Yeah, it's a complete change.

But I mean, when you get to 59, you don't really want to go out a good night out as if you've got a chair at nine o'clock at night and you're about to go home.

You know, I think the other thing, Jess, is when you initially get diagnosed,

you have other things that you worry about, like how will my friends react?

Because you don't want people to pity you and you, you know, you don't want to be known as Phil O'Neill.

He has MS. So for a long time, I didn't.

And this is probably the first time I've actually, after nearly six years, spoken about it so publicly,

because you also worry about what your employer is going to think.

And I thought I was the only one that thought that.

But it seems to be a pattern for a lot of people.

They worry about, you know, things that you don't need to worry about.

But, you know, you start thinking, how will this affect my relationships with people?

How will people judge me?

You know, perceive me? Yeah, perceive me.

I mean, I have MS, but MS doesn't have me, you know.

That's a really powerful way of thinking about it.

But what choice do you have?

You can either succumb to it and, you know, wait for what may or may not happen,

or you turn it around and you go, no, I'm going to be really positive about this.

I'm going to live every day to the extreme.

I'm going to find, you know, elements of my life that make me really, really happy and embrace those.

You know, I don't tolerate fools anymore and I don't tolerate situations where I'm not happy.

You know, there's no need for that.

But it took so long.

Again, this is about the epiphanous thing of MS.

It took so long for me to go, why am I doing this?

Why am I suffering this?

Why am I putting myself through this when I don't need to?

I think that's extraordinary to be able to sort of shift your thinking in that way

when it could be something that is, I mean, it is a very debilitating illness

and it would be easy to go down the path of, oh my God, what does this then mean?

And my life suddenly is all that is sort of encompassing.

Yes, of course.

But I'm no exception to the rule.

I'm just another person on this planet who has to deal with things that everybody on this planet have to deal to.

Well, you know, a lot of people have to deal with, you know, illness is a certainty of life.

How you deal with it is what makes you and your experience either a good or bad experience, you know.

But chronic illness is something very different.

And I think not enough people talk about that impact of what it means day to day and getting through each day.

Yeah, exactly.

And, you know, educate yourself, but have a positive outlook.

And if you look at women like Louise Hay, who had cancer, and she wrote a book called You Can Heal Your Life.

And I think she only passed away a couple of years ago.

She was about 90, I think.

It's also your attitude that will carry you through.

And that's really important to me.

How much with your relationship with Sam, did your diagnosis sort of change the relationship?

Well, it put a great deal of gravity on the relationship for her side, I'm sure, you know,

because she had to go through me searching for an answer.

And that wouldn't have been easy for her to live with, as I'm sure the case is for anybody that has a partner.

Because also, you know, I'm glad it happened to me and not her because it must be terrible for somebody who has a partner who's ill

because you love that person so much and there's so much that you want to do, but you can't do anything about it.

But the thing that she did for me is she stood by me and she was there and she's still there as my rock, you know.

And I realise now how difficult the first five years of it were for her because that's all I talked about.

You know, it was all I wanted to try and sort.

You know, I was desperate to find the answer to this and she had to put up with that.

So I bought her a cat. She's OK now.

Well, cats can fix all sorts of things.

They made the truth.

You talk about, you know, wanting to find the answer.

Of course, life is never just about one answer.

But for you now, how have you, I suppose, found that answer that's right for you?

Just to live every day in the moment.

Be so grateful because, you know, we've been given this gift of life.

It sounds I guess it sounds cheesy, but, you know, it's not cheesy.

It's true. Yeah, we have an incredible gift of life.

We get to be, you know, there are some insects that live for a day.

You know, we get to live our life on this incredible planet.

I was sitting here in a studio surrounded by blue sky and trees.

And I think that, you know, I really came to appreciate things that I didn't appreciate,

like this incredible planet that we live on, this wonderful opportunity to have life.

And, you know, I embrace that.

You spoke earlier about depression sometimes being a part of the MS as well.

How do you manage that side of things?

Fortunately, people that know me just go, oh, he's, you know, suffering from depression.

We'll just let him get through it.

And then I just get through it.

You know, I do what I can to get through it.

And Sam appreciates it and understands it.

I don't wallow in it.

But I also don't feel guilty as well.

I used to feel guilty about the fact that, you know, because I'm normally quite a gregarious person.

And I try to be the life of the party and keep everybody entertained.

But at times you can't do that.

Then you feel guilty because you're sort of thinking to yourself, you know,

why am I bringing everybody down with my mood?

But you've got to have those moments to yourself.

Of course you do. And also it's not a choice.

You're not choosing to feel that way.

Depression is an illness.

It's something that it's not of our choosing.

No, that's right.

But, you know, that's again part and parcel of this great jigsaw puzzle that is MS.

And with MS, because I've recently been reading some of Selma Blair's memoir.

And she talks in a similar way about it as you do, about it almost being this moment for her

where everything made sense, what had happened leading up to her diagnosis.

But also how her life is very different, but she makes the most of every moment in it.

When I first got MS, I had no idea what it was or how it would affect me.

And so my speech, as you'll notice, is I have spasmodic dysphonia right now.

It is interesting to put it out there, to be here, to say this is what my particular case looks like right now.

And it could be very different in a year for the better.

And it's crazy to think that it would take something like, you say, a chronic illness

for you to suddenly appreciate life, you know, when you had all of those years beforehand

where you were, you know, angry at your boss, angry at your situation.

You're thinking, this isn't fair, why is this happening?

Yeah, that's right. But the little things really aren't important when the big things happen.

And often I find it's those, the things that you worry about never transpire, never happen.

It's the sort of the thunderbolts from the blue that blindside you.

I know that you are an ambassador for anxiety and I've suffered anxiety as well before I was diagnosed.

And I read a great quote that said, you know, I've been through some incredibly terrible things

in my life and some of them actually happened. And that's the thing about anxiety.

You just create all of these incredible scenarios. I'm a great scenario creator.

I can give you, you know, Cecil B. DeMille disaster movies that, you know, I foresee in the future.

That never happened.

Exactly. Because I'm sure in all of those rabbit warrens your mind would have gone down.

You wouldn't have thought I'm going to have MS.

No, no, which was probably one of the worst outcomes, if not the worst outcome of all of them.

And, you know, I dealt with it. But, you know, anxiety is, as you well know, it is stabilitating.

But there's a way out of it.

Tell me more about life now for you. You say you make the most of it.

What's a day like? Or a good day for you?

Every day is a good day. Every day is a good day, even the bad days.

I get to go to do a job that I love, that I'm still able to do, even all this time down the track.

I get to spend time with my best friend all the time.

Your rock?

Yeah, exactly. I get to go to the gym and I'm still very active.

And whenever I have gym days where I don't feel like going, I go, well, hey,

maybe next week you might not be able to go to the gym again.

Well, I'm going to go and do it now then and enjoy it.

So there's, you know, my cooking's getting better.

I cooked this crazy barramundi dish together and it was actually all right, you know.

How amazing.

Yeah, I know. So come over for dinner, you know, anytime you want.

Oh, yes, please. Well, I'm a crap housewife. I do mince many different ways.

Yeah, well, I was before this too. Yeah, I know.

Once Sam said to me I'd cook something and she actually said to me, this is shit.

I reminded her about that the other night when I cooked this great barramundi dish, you know.

I said, oh, was it that bad? So, yeah.

Also, I mean, work is a big passion for you, as you say.

I mean, since you've been a little boy, you've loved broadcasting and being on air.

Yeah, it completes me. It's a third of who I am.

Is there ever a part of you that worries with MS that the impact will have on your voice?

Yeah, I've worried about all of those things, but what can I do?

You know, I'm doing everything I can in my power to keep myself really healthy.

Uh, you know, if it impacts it and I don't do it anymore, then I'll deal with that.

You know, then I'll go and do something else. It's not going to end my life.

I'm not going to, you know, be, you know, fall over in a heap.

And I think too, you know, listening to you talk now about where you're at in your life

is quite a revelation in the sense of thinking about you as the kind of the cool, ugly feel

surrounded by rock stars now to where you're at in your life.

It has been quite a journey.

Oh, incredible journey. I've, you know, had more lives than a cat.

You know, I had so many different things happen to me, a roller coaster that's,

you know, up and down and it's always up and down.

At the moment, I'm, you know, having a great time.

Who knows what will happen next week, but you know, at the moment, I'm really happy where I am.

And what a wonderful place to be.

That's right. Thank you so much for the therapy session.

I'll be back next week if you can book me in for three.

Anytime.

I've got my Medicare card on me, but you know,

thank you so much for having me on your podcast. I really appreciate it.

And you're lovely. You really are. You're such a nice person.

Oh, thank you though for coming along and opening yourself up in a way that I haven't heard before.

And I don't think our listeners have heard. And you're really a remarkable man.

Oh, that's so lovely of you. Thank you.

Jackie O's ex-husband is a lovely man.

It was amazing to talk with Phil. That was the first time I'd met him face to face.

I obviously listened to him so much in my earlier years.

So it really was a treat to be able to talk with him.

And he was so open about what he's going through.

And for that, I thank him from the bottom of my heart.

He was motivated to talk with us because he doesn't want anyone else to feel alone

if they're going through a similar situation to what he is going through.

So he's done it from a good place. And Phil, you are an amazing man.

Thank you so much for sharing in the way you did.

And of course, if you or a loved one are looking for support, there is MS Australia.

And Phil says that that is a fantastic organisation that has helped him enormously.

So please do not go through this on your own.

That is why Phil wanted to open up the way he did.

And for more big conversations like this, follow the Jess Rowe Big Talk Show podcast.

And while you're there, I'd love for you to leave a big five star sparkling review

or share it with a friend.

And if you love this episode with Phil, I think you're going to like my chat with Ben Lee.

The only secret I can ever impart to anybody about what makes a marriage long lasting,

I think the willingness of the two people to make it work is all that's needed.

Because marriages fall apart or relationships fall apart

when at least one person stops wanting it to work.

And if you want it to work, you will find a way to make it work.

And please let me know as well who you would like to hear on the Big Talk Show.

Send me a message via Insta.

I do love to hear from you, my lovely listeners.

The Jess Rowe Big Talk Show was presented by me, Jess Rowe.

Executive producer, Nick McClure.

Audio producer, Nikki Sitch.

Supervising producer, Sam Kavanagh.

Until next time, remember to live big.

Life is just too crazy and glorious to waste time on the stuff that doesn't matter.