6666 marieclaire.com.auI
t turns out that Carrie Bickmore
is not so easy to spot. When I try
to find her at our meeting place- a photographic studio in
Melbourne – I scan the crowd,
trying to see who is taking up
the most space; who lies at the epicentre
of a fluttering entourage. I see the
back of a blonde head in a hairdresser’s
chair, but everyone is acting so calmly
on the perimeter that I assume it can’t
possibly be her. But that wide smile is
the giveaway. She spies me and calls out,
“Come over! Let’s just catch up first!”
We’ve met once before, and I have
the same impression again. This girl is
utterly, engagingly normal. I can see it
when she does a half bunny-hop to her
position in front of the camera, because
her zippered dress gives her little leg
room. I can see it when she gives her
shoulders a few shakes, moving to the
Rolling Stones song she’s requested
(“You Can’t Always Get What You
Want”). They’re not the moves of a cool-
girl Rihanna type. They’re the moves of
someone who could easily cross the
threshold from good dancer to ’80s dork
when the clock strikes 5am on the dance
floor. (She admits she’s been there, done
that, at most Logies parties she’s attend-
ed.) “I’m not good at this, I don’t like
‘still’ stuf. I just like to move. I’m not
from a modelling background or an
actress, so I still feel uncomfortable in
my own skin, a little bit.” What goes
through her mind on red carpets? “Don’t
trip, don’t trip, don’t trip.”
In spite of this discomfort – or
perhaps because of it – the 37-year-old
co-host of TV’s The Project and radio’s
Carrie & Tommy has become one of
Australia’s most beloved public figures.
She famously won the Gold Logie for
Most Popular Personality on Australian
Television in 2015, and is the face for
French beauty brand Garnier in
Australia and a UNICEF
ambassador. The Instagram
account What Carrie Wore
has 18,500 followers. “We
really do not see such an
instant reaction from cus-
tomers quite like when we
see Carrie in something,” says a rep
from Keepsake and C/MEO Collective,
which she regularly wears.
And she uses that selling superpow-
er for good. Case in point: the charity
she founded, Carrie’s Beanies 4 Brain
Cancer, has so far raised $4.5 million
for brain cancer research. Most Austra-
lians know what that cause means to
her. After studying journalism at CurtinUniversity, she met Greg Lange at radio
station 92.9FM in Perth. They married
when she was 25, and had their son
Oliver in 2007. However, in 2001, Lange
had been diagnosed with brain cancer.
He succumbed to the illness in 2010
when he was just 34 and Bickmore was- Brain cancer is a disease that histor-
ically attracted relatively little research
funding, and wasn’t a talked-about
topic, but Carrie is aiming to change
both of those things.
“One of the greatest days for me wa s
when I went to the Walter and Eliza
Hall Institute [of Medical Research]
where one of our grants had
gone, and met one of the key
scientists working on this
incredible research in brain
cancer,” Carrie says. “She
made it clear that there was
finally a feeling of optimism
in the area, because of the [grant]
money and the awareness that was
being generated there. Our little foun-
dation is not going to change anything
overnight ... and it’s not going to bring
back so many lives that have been lost to
brain cancer. But if it means that future
families don’t have go on what is the
most horrendous journey ever, it is a
really nice feeling.”
“Grief comes
and goes, it
ebbs and
flows”INTERVIEW