Love, Loss & Gratitude

Amanda Gillies is in a happy place – but there has been personal heartbreak along the way. The breakfast TV host talks openly to Emma Clifton about the highs and lows of the past year and why finding gratitude is so empowering.

- Emma Clifton

At 10 am on your average weekday morning, Amanda Gillies has already been up for seven straight hours – and live on television for three of them. As a co-presenter on Newshub’s early morning program The AM Show, the 42-year-old gets a lot more morning than the rest of us do, and yet there is not a trace of grouchiness around her as she sits down for our chat. Both in her professional life and her personal life, this is not a woman who does grouchiness, full stop. Even if there is still no love lost between her and her 3.15am alarm – “it’s a hate-hate relationship” – Amanda is in a very happy place. But, as these things so often go, the path to the happy place has not been a smooth one. “It’s fair to say the last eight months have been topsy-turvy,” Amanda says. “There’s been a lot going on both professionally and personally. Heartbreak, but also stuff that has been just brilliant.”

We’ll start with the professional. Back in 2017, Amanda was named one of the hosts of The AM Show and she is the first to admit it was not the easiest mental transition to go from being a reporter to a presenter. Being a reporter means long hours in the field, with a backdrop that’s consistently changing; always out with the public, for the public. Being a presenter means the same location every day, with the people coming to you – not you going to them. For someone who had, by then, spent 20 years chasing stories, it was a gear-shift.

I spent the first, probably year, of that job feeling like an imposter,” Amanda says frankly. “Because I got the job so last-minute, and I’d never presented before. I was so new, and the boys were so established in what they were doing. I kind of thought: ‘Should I be here?’ I felt like it wasn’t mine.”