Julia Morris was handed an unexpected prize on Friday night: an $810 bedding package from Linen House. The comedian and television host had just learned that Channel Ten had axed I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! after 12 years, and she turned the moment into a joke in front of guests at a Melbourne charity gala.
When her name was called in the draw at the Table for Change Gala, Morris said, “I lost my job today.” She then added, “Now, does anyone want to buy some linen?” The line landed in a room full of donors and guests at Marvel Stadium, but it also underscored how quickly the end of the long-running show arrived for one of Australian television’s best-known presenters.
Morris first co-hosted I’m A Celebrity with Dr Chris Brown, then fronted the program with Robert Irwin for the past two years. The show had become a familiar part of Channel Ten’s schedule, and Morris had been the face of it for the full 12 years before the network moved to rest it on Friday night. In TV circles, that was being treated as an axing.
The same evening, the focus at the Table for Change Gala was on a very different cause. The event was presented by Maddie Riewoldt’s Vision, the charity set up by the Riewoldt family in 2015 in honour of Maddie Riewoldt, who died that year from complications of aplastic anaemia. The organisation funds research into bone marrow failure syndromes and supports families and patients undergoing treatment.
The gala also drew a list of familiar names from business, sport and entertainment, including Ann Peacock, Tottie Goldsmith, Chantel Thornton, Srecko Lorbek, Danny Wallis, Melissa Jreissati, Monique Milenkovic, Chris Moss, Andrea Moss, Helen Nolan, Will Alstergren, Dee Dee Dunleavy, Kate Langbroek, Michelle Gallaher and Amy Coote. The Riewoldt family was there too, with Nick Riewoldt, Alex Riewoldt, Joe Riewoldt and Fiona Riewoldt all attending.
One of the evening’s biggest donations came from Heloise Pratt, who gave $50,000 to Maddie Riewoldt’s Vision on behalf of the Pratt Foundation. The contribution helped turn the gala into more than a social event. It became a reminder that the charity’s work is still drawing support from Melbourne’s philanthropic circles even as one of the city’s better-known entertainers was joking about an abrupt change in her own work life.
That contrast is what made Morris’s line cut through the room. Channel Ten said the show was being “rested,” but the timing, after 12 years on air and with Morris only recently sharing hosting duties with Irwin, left little doubt about what had happened. For Morris, the joke was quick and sharp. For the network, the decision marked the end of a franchise that had been part of its lineup for more than a decade.
What happens next is clear enough: Morris is out as host of I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!, and the show’s future is now tied to Ten’s decision to keep it off air rather than to any immediate return. For the night’s winner, though, the consolation prize was a sheet set and a line that made a roomful of people laugh while the bigger news was still sinking in.
