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Today’sToday’ entertainment guru Brooke Boney tells Lisa Woolford about her role’s life-changing opportunities

WHILE coronavirus hasn’t been kind to many of us – with w all of that comfo comfort eating leadin leading to iso-gain – Today’s Tod Brooke Boney is glowing. Sh She calls it the COV COVID glow-up, rathe rather than blowup. She Sh actually did the latter la earlier this y year.

Aft After spending a few months in LA indulg indulging in all of the fas fast food delights the City of Angels has on offer, and travelling around the th States in her role as the N Nine breakfast show’s entertai entertainment reporter, the 31-year 31-year-old admits she “packed on a few pounds.” poun

“I was like ‘ OK, I’ve got to do something about this’,” Bo Boney laughs. So she did, working out with a personal trainer twice a w week, while stuffing her diet with fruit frui and veggies throughout the day.

“Nothing drastic – jus just not being too silly, and going for w walks,” she shares. “I love walks. Th They just clear your head.”

She also loves being on the

Today show, having tak taken over from the network’s lon long-serving showbiz editor Richard Wilkins

(now co-hosting Weekend Today) in January last year.

She confesses she d didn’t quite realise how big of a de deal that was and is grateful she wa was so naive stepping into his very big shoes.

“[It meant] I was ab able to approach it in my own way, with my own perspective and bring something a little bit different fr from the way Dickie was doing stu stuff,” Boney says. “Is it daunting thi thinking about his legacy? Absolute Absolutely. I also think I didn’t realise how much my life would change.”

Boney has become an inspirational role model for young viewers, especially young Aboriginal women.

Growing up in a NSW Hunter Valley coal-mining town, the proud Gamilaroi Gomeroi woman always had her eye on bettering her future.

At that time though, it was dreams of marrying a miner, she reveals, “because they made lots of money.”

“We were quite poor – I grew up in housing commissions. Seeing how much my mum had to struggle with six kids on her own, I wanted to work really hard to make sure I wasn’t poor ever again,”

Boney says.

It was only later that she entertained thoughts of going to university. And despite not quite completing Year 12,

Boney did make it there, studying a Bachelor of Arts in Communications at Sydney’s University of Technology.

One of the greatest joys in her highprofile role is that she’s able to inspire young indigenous girls, she says: “I hope they turn on the TV and hear me speaking and think to themselves ‘Maybe I could be a journalist or an actor or be on the TV. Maybe I can go to uni.’”

“I think that inspiring someone to change their circumstances and reach their potential is one of the most amazing things anyone can do for anyone else. If there are kids watching and they have cousins with the surname of Boney or the same colour skin, and they feel like they belong in this country a little bit more because of that, then that’s my job done.”

Boney adds: “I go into work in a good mood every day – to get to talk to people, joke around and have fun in my job.

That is just such a privilege when you come from the background I have come from where your whole life people thought you were dumb. Just another black kid who was not going to amount to anything.

“Talking about things I’m passionate about or just to have a laugh with Ally and Karl – it’s a real privilege and none of that is lost on me.”

She pauses: “Look there are times in the morning where my alarm goes off and I sigh, but it’s a real privilege.”

TODAY

WEEKDAYS, 5.30AM, NINE