Having a punt
The rAcinG cArnivAl is the First time this hAppy, enGAGed couple hAve worked toGether
If Georgie Tunny and Rob Mills don’t display some on-screen chemistry when they finally work together as part of Channel 10’s Spring Racing coverage over the coming week, then something will be seriously wrong.
The journalist and panellist for The Project has been dating the reality TV singer, turned musical theatre star, turned author for four years – and the pair announced their engagement on New Year’s Day. But despite having interviewed each other several times over the years both agree that this year’s assignment covering the festival and fashion side of the Flemington frivolities will be the first time they can truly call each other colleagues.
“It’ll be the first time, but I think we will be very good,” says Tunny. “I’m actually looking forward to it because I would like to say we have good chemistry. I hope it doesn’t come out and people say ‘Oh my god, do they actually like each other?’ But it should be fun.”
For his part, Mills admits to being a little nervous about sharing the screen with his fiancee.
“Georgie is a very good journalist,” he says. “So, I suppose this is me stepping into her zone of presenting and MCing and hosting stuff. But I’m happy to have a banter with all the punters, that’s what I’m looking forward to the most.”
After two years of Covid restrictions keeping the usual crowds away from the racetrack, both Tunny and Mills are looking forward to finally mingling with the celebs and general public as well as each other. Brisbane-born Tunny recalls listening to the race over the loudspeakers while still at school, but was restricted to the stables and mounting yards last year. Similarly Mills, whose first Flemington experience came as a preAustralian Idol 18 year old singing for “cash and beers” in the car park on Cup Day, is lamenting the loss of his private Covid studio from last year, but is keen to glam up and get out and about in the ritzy Birdcage.
“As someone who doesn’t work a nine to five, I have never really dressed in suits and I actually really like dressing up and it’s like everybody looks their best,” Mills says. “I think it’s a really lovely place to look their best – until the afternoon. Then you’ve got people carrying their shoes and whatnot … but hopefully gambling and drinking responsibly.”
With insanely busy schedules, even getting “Tunny” and “Robert”, as they call each other, on the phone at the same time is no mean feat. When it finally happens, Tunny is dialling in from Echuca, where she’s been covering floods for The Project, and Mills is in their Melbourne home, up early after one of his eight weekly shows playing Corny Collins in the musical Hairspray.
After stints on ABC News Breakfast and streaming news service Flash, Tunny joined The Project full time in August and has emerged as a potential replacement for the departing Carrie Bickmore as one of the talk show’s permanent hosts. Tunny downplays the speculation but pays tribute to the “glorious” Gold Logie winner, who she says has been one of her biggest mentors since she started making guest appearances four years ago.
“(Carrie) will check in on how you’re going and then be genuinely really interested,” Tunny says. “There is substance to her checking in on you, which I’ve always loved and she’s just been really this trailblazer for me, growing up watching her on The Project and listening to her on radio.”
And while Tunny has stepped up for many of The Project’s celebrity interviews, the Taylor Swift mega-fan is not sure how she’d go if given the chance to interview her idol for her justreleased album. “I don’t think it would be excellent television objectively because I don’t know what I would do if I met her,” she says with a laugh. “Would I cry? Would I pass out? Would I do both of those things? Probably. Would I be able to form words? I don’t know. I just ... I love her and I unabashedly love her.”
Mills says Tunny’s love for Swift is so great that her album release date last week was put in their calendar before the release date of his new book, Putting On a Show. Part memoir and part analysis of what it means to be an Australian man in 2022, Mills interviewed experts on topics ranging from drinking to depression, as well as opening up about some of his own mental health challenges and sharing some startling revelations about his hard partying days, particularly in the years that followed his finals appearance in the first season of Australian Idol nearly 20 years ago.
While he was resigned to the fact that rehashing his brief fling with Paris Hilton for the umpteenth time and revealing that he had a threesome with drag queen and fellow Idol alumnus Courtney Act would put him back in the
headlines, he reasoned that if he couldn’t be open and honest, how could he ask that of the men he was trying to reach with his book?
“I think that’s the point,” he says. “If I wasn’t honest, then how can I encourage blokes to do the same thing and to be open and honest with their friends? Leading by example is something that I’ve always done in any job that I’ve ever done. I’m probably not the big pep-talk, coach-type, alpha, but I am a lead-by-example type.”
Mills says the book was partly inspired by his recent milestone 40th birthday and the selfreflection and self-awareness that came with it.
“Tunny is very good at making sure that we celebrate the wins and that is something I’ve found very hard to do in the past,” he says.
“I talked about it through the book, whether it’s through parenting, nature or nurture, or just going on to the next gig, then the next gig. And she’s always ‘no, we have to celebrate this and sit in the moment’. I’m very, very lucky to have met someone to help teach me and change my perspective on that.”
Melbourne Cup Carnival, from Saturday on Channel 10. The Project, Sunday-Friday, 6.30pm, Channel 10. Putting On a Show is out now.