TZI PORAH’S FAMILY FEUD TURNS TOXIC!
NEW COMMENTS HAVE RIPPED OPEN OLD WOUNDS FOR THE STAR AND HER MUM
Tziporah Malkah says she barely recognises the woman her mother has become in the years since they stopped speaking, which saw her go from successful international model and actress to broke and homeless.
“We’re estranged, unfortunately,” Tziporah, 47, reveals in an exclusive interview with New Idea. News of the falling out comes as Tziporah’s mum, former NSW Liberal minister Pru Goward’s column in the Australian Financial Review was slammed for villainising the country’s working class. In the piece, Pru described the “poor” as being “not very nice”, lacking discipline, and even compared “poor” people to fictional animals while wondering how they could be “harnessed” for better use. “She refuses to speak with me or see me at all. My stepfather, who is 90, has just been transferred to an old folks’ home [and], has asked my mother if we can spend some time together as a family,” explains Tziporah, who hints her strained relationship with Pru could make his wish very difficult.
“I don’t have a relationship with my mother.”
Life became even harder for Tziporah when her mum wrote the “deeply disturbing” newspaper column attacking the “most vulnerable people in the community” – which now includes her proud working-class daughter.
Tziporah, one of Pru’s three daughters, earns a basic wage as a traffic controller. She says she doesn’t think her mother intentionally targeted her, but admits she qualifies as a “prole” [Proletariat] under Pru’s definition. This includes having a cognitive learning disability, a “traumatic childhood”, mental health issues and poverty.
“I’m probably a prole, though to be honest I don’t even really know what that means. I’m a poor person, absolutely,” Tziporah reveals. “I would like things to get a bit easier for me, because it is a struggle every day. There’s not much left at the end of the
‘MY MOTHER REFUSES TO SPEAK TO ME OR SEE ME ... I DON’T HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH HER’
week once I pay all the bills.”
Her rich and powerful mother also said in the column that social workers “despair of their appalling housework” and “neglect their children”, which inspired widespread condemnation from community groups.
“I won’t say anything about my mother’s politics, but I would like to separate myself from her comments,” Tziporah tells New Idea. “Really the only reason I’m speaking out is I thought they were very out of touch.
“A lot of it is a load of rubbish. Some things in
principle I may agree with, but we have vastly different approaches. I believe she’s become a bit out of touch. I never heard her speak like that when I was growing up.”
Growing up, Tziporah lived in a ritzy part of Adelaide before moving to Canberra, where her family lived in the lavish embassy precinct while her “glamorous” mum became celebrated as a star reporter on the ABC’S Nationwide and the 7.30 Report.
She says her mother was strict with her as child if she misbehaved and eventually Tziporah, born as Kate Fischer, moved out when she was just 15 before becoming a successful model.
“She’s very stern. She was also very impatient. She would lose her temper if I didn’t eat, or I started whinging or got upset,” says Tziporah, who insists disagreements would often lead to her mum getting mad.
“She would tell you that she was going to send you away to a home for naughty girls, and that you wouldn’t see any of your pretty dresses again and that you would never see your grandparents or friends again...”
Tziporah says she’s given up trying to heal the toxic rift, but still shares a close bond with her stepfather – former prime ministerial press secretary, David Barnett. She also stays in touch with her London-based dad, academic, Alastair Fischer.
“I think a lot of mothers are jealous of their beautiful daughters,” she shrugs.