Her car video, part of a series of funny and tell-it-like-it-is internet chats by Morris, many after her marriage to Dan Thomas ended in 2021, was spur of the moment. She is similarly poised now.
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“At the photo shoot, I was asking, ‘What are we doing with this story? Is it about the Phoenix from the flames?’ ” she says. “I am living a completely new solo life raising my children. So that’s different. HRT [hormone replacement therapy] has made things very different for me this year.
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“Now, I’m like, did I go through that with absolutely no help? Then all the neurodiverse stuff starting to unfold in my own house that’s made me go, well, wait, is that me too?
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“Do I have some neurodiverse things going on? 100 per cent. I just didn’t know.”
Recently, Morris says, she was told attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is an excuse, then she read it is an explanation. “Any of my personality traits that I would blame on myself over the years … if [only] I had just known it was that,” she says.
“I feel we are coming to a new awakening, as humanity, of understanding how we are made up and how we’re driven. It’s good fun to work that out at 56.”
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Robert Irwin and Julia Morris at the Logie Awards in August.Credit: Getty Images
Nine years ago, overworked, enduring mood swings and an inner turmoil she could not explain, Morris began seeing a psychologist. Amid several mind and life changes, she started pulling back her work schedule.
In the past four years, her focus has been working closer to home (save for the annual eight-week African jungle visit) and her daughters.
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But Morris still packs it in. Since 2023, she has appeared on Ten’s Taskmaster Australia, Have You Been Paying Attention? and Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly, as narrator. She’s competed on Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont-Spelling Bee in New Zealand, judged Thank God You’re Here, toured her live show, 75 Years in the Business, been nominated for a Gold Logie for three years running and continued co-hosting I’m A Celebrity … with new co-host Robert Irwin after Chris Brown left in 2023.
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She and Irwin, friends before the show, knew they shared a similar sense of humour. “Sometimes, my insanity can be a stream of consciousness of the stuff that Robert doesn’t necessarily want to say, ” Morris says, laughing. “We knew what we were bringing to the screen, and it was just a matter of time before everybody else got onto it.”
She was, however, amazed at variously inane and sexist responses to the pairing. “The number of questions I had to answer before Robert started about, ‘I hope you don’t flirt with him’ or ‘I hope you don’t make these suggestive comments’,” she says.
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“I’m just too bored to get insulted. Guess what? I know how to behave in front of someone who’s 21 because I’ve got children the same age. I did not luck out with chemistry, as some said. I’m doing my job.”
She is also itching to be back in the jungle. “Every year, for months, every crew member is so desperate to get back to South Africa,” she says. “We’re texting each other, we’re discussing what we’re going to pack. I think it’s because it’s working overseas and because there’s a real camaraderie in living, eating, breathing it.
“Every single person is away from their families. Every single person is not necessarily eating the food that they are used to. There are so many things that your entire system has to get used to. There’s also nothing like it. We touch down in South Africa up near Kruger National Park, and we go, ‘Are we docking in paradise?’ ”
Clues for which celebrities are joining the show’s 11th season – presented in online 1950s-inspired teaser videos – include a “headline-grabbing Olympian” who “loves freestyle” (Raygun?), an Australian female stand-up with a “surprise hit TV show”, an English TikTokker, a real-life hero, football stars and TV, radio, movie and reality-TV stars.
Morris is excited to watch their travails and successes but equally keen to return home to new horizons. She jokes about the 60 Minutes-like vibe of this story’s cover photo. “As soon as I stood there, I said, ‘This just in’,” she says, but points to its quality of “letting the light in”.
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“Because that’s what’s been happening for me for the last 12 months,” Morris says. “I’ve let a lot more light into my life. There’s been a lot of emotional sadness. Losing my dad, my marriage ending. It’s literally time for new beginnings, searching for the light, finding the moth within.”
She pauses. “It’s not difficult being serious. I really am two very strong halves. The fun side and absolutely banking everything that’s required of me as a mum and as a woman in the spotlight. It’s not all jokes.”
I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! begins on January 19 at 7pm on 10 and 10 Play.
