Former MasterChef Australia star Julie Goodwin has revealed that she was on the verge of taking her own life at the height of her fame.
The famous foodie, 54, made the revelation in a frank chat with Ant Middleton on his podcast Head Game.
She revealed that following her winning turn on MasterChef in 2009, taking on too many work commitments had sent her to ‘the bottom of the well.’
‘The only way I could shut off my brain late at night, was to drink wine, so I was doing too much of that,’ she admitted.
‘So, I was self medicating, and that’s a terrible, terrible way to sleep, because you wake up with your heart hammering, and it just all becomes this massive, you know, self fulfilling prophecy.’
Julie then revealed that she had made the decision to end her life and was in the process of ‘executing a plan’ when two strangers changed the trajectory of her life.
Former MasterChef Australia star Julie Goodwin has revealed that she was on the verge of taking her own life at the height of her fame
‘I went right down to the bottom of the well, and I had made a decision that everybody, everybody, my colleagues, my children, my husband, my family, everybody would be better off if I just racked off and let them all be,’ Julie said.
Julie, who also recounted her struggles with mental health in her 2024 memoir Your Time Starts Now, added that the kindness of two strangers had changed her mind.
‘And that was the decision that I made, and that was the action I was taking, and I was stumbled upon by a couple of strangers who recognised that I was a person that needed some company.’
‘I was executing a plan.’
Julie continued: ‘I was nearly dead when I found out that I needed help, I was sitting on the edge of Brisbane Water [on the NSW Central Coast], and I was ready.
‘I was just I was just trying to figure out what to do with my shoes. I didn’t know what to do with my shoes, and I was trying to figure that out.
‘They passed me by. And they turned around and came back and said: “You look like you need some company”. And so they just sat with me for a couple of hours and talked to me,’ she said.
She revealed on Ant Middleton’s podcast Head Game, that following her winning turn on MasterChef in 2009, taking on too many work commitments had sent her to ‘the bottom of the well’.
‘I went right down to the bottom of the well, and I had made a decision that everybody, everybody, my colleagues, my children, my husband, my family, everybody would be better off if I just racked off and let them all be,’ Julie said
Julie went on to recount how that simple act of kindness eventually saw her seek professional help.
‘Eventually I said: “I’m going to be all right now I’m going to call my husband.” And when I told him what had happened, he took me straight to the hospital,’ she said.
‘Then I became a client of the mental health system, and that’s what I remained for quite a long time. I was in and out of hospital five times.
Following her winning stint on MasterChef, Julie parlayed that success into a career that saw her open a cooking school, host a breakfast radio show on the Central Coast, as well as publishing numerous cookbooks.
Julie revealed on the podcast that she had struggled to strike a balance between increasing work commitments and family life with husband Michael and their three sons Joe, 28, Tom, 27, and Paddy, 25.
‘That family element, all of a sudden, you know, they come, and let’s call a spade a spade, they come second best, don’t they?’ she said.
‘A lot of people don’t realise that is that you are actually, you know, the sacrifices that you make, right or wrong, in order to have this successful life can be at the detriment sometimes.’
She continued: ‘I look back at my calendar, like my Outlook calendar from that time and how the days were broken down into these tiny little chunks of all the different deadlines and the recipes and the columns and the appearances and the interviews and the travel and all those things, there was no category for self care.
Julie, who also recounted her struggles with mental health in her 2024 memoir Your Time Starts Now, added that the kindness of two strangers had changed her mind
‘They passed me by. And they turned around and came back and said, “You look like you need some company”. And so they just sat with me for a couple of hours and talked to me,’ she said. Julie is pictured with husband Michael
‘There was no category for downtime. Family barely featured in that calendar. It was get from here to there. Do this, do that.’
Julie added that her busy work schedule had left virtually no time for family at all.
‘At the end of those days, or those weeks when I’d been away, and certainly further down the track, when I opened a cooking school and I was on breakfast radio, all at the same time, what I had left at the end of the day when I went home to my family was nothing, nothing whatsoever.
‘They got the least of me. They got the worst of me,’ Julie said.
Julie reprised her MasterChef appearance in 2012 for the MasterChef All Stars series before appearing on Ten’s I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of here! ion 2015.
More recently, Julie appeared on the 2024 season of channel Seven hit Dancing with the Stars.
If you or anyone you know needs support, you can contact Lifeline on 131 114, or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636
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