Ryan Bridge looking ahead to wedding bells and a new show in 2024
The broadcaster tells Amberleigh Jack that he is nervous but excited about his new current affairs show for Three, and stoked about his winter wedding in Northland.
Former AM presenter and broadcaster Ryan Bridge can’t quite remember if he won the bid for class president when he was an 8-year-old. But he’s pretty sure he did. Regardless, the former AM host, now 36, flashes a friendly smile as he recalls that high-stakes primary school race, complete with an “election and stuff”, and the curiosity it sparked in him.
We’re sitting in an underground meeting room (which still has concrete remnants from when it was a car park), somewhere in the depths of Warner Bros Discovery near Auckland’s CBD. Bridge is a charming conversationalist, with a perfectly-styled head of hair, and an easy smile.
After years as a political reporter, radio host and TV presenter, he’s often the one asking – rather than answering – the questions. His biggest fear, he tells me, always used to be “stuffing up” that part of the job.
“I was always asking myself, ‘Am I asking the right question or not?’ I don’t want to be someone [people say], ‘That guy always asks a shit question’. That always stresses me out,” he says.
I take my own moment to glance down at the notepad I’ve barely bothered to look at since we started chatting, wondering – for just a moment – if the stylishly-dressed broadcaster opposite me is judging my own line of questioning. I’ve yet to notice any side-eye glances, and we’re even sharing a few laughs, though. So if he is, I appreciate the effort to hide it.
Bridge speaks animatedly with his hands as he remembers becoming “enamoured” by the idea of political journalism when he was younger, doing early work experience at what was then called TV3. He went on to study politics and cut his 22-year-old teeth as a political reporter in the press gallery.
For the past two years he’s solidified himself as the face Three viewers wake up to every morning, but still, “any time I go to Wellington, I try to go watch Question Time, because that’s what I used to do when I was at uni”, he laughs. “Like a little freak sitting up there in the gallery.”
It was midway through 2021, when
Bridge was hosting the drive show of Magic Talk (formerly RadioLive) that he was offered the role of permanent AM host, following Duncan Garner’s departure.
He began the role weeks before Auckland was put into extended Covid-19 lockdown and looks back on his tenure as a “lot of fun”, and some “stupid things”, but also of being there covering New Zealanders’ stories through the major moments. Cyclone Gabrielle immediately comes to his mind.
He also admits he’s had a few “impostor syndrome” moments. “Yeah... yeah... definitely,” he starts, before saying the best cure for any insecurities was time.
On Friday, he signed off from what he says was more than 1700 hours on AM for the final time. He’s leaving the show “a lot better now than I was when I started when it comes to stress, anxiety and sweating.”
He’s not going far though – just a different set and the other end of the day. In 2024, Bridge will host his own current affairs show, set to replace the now-defunct The Project, which held the 7pm timeslot for almost seven years.
Despite a feeling of “hairs [standing up] on the back of my head” when talking about farewelling his AM viewers and co-hosts, the idea of leaving has been easier with, “having a new project to be thinking about and planning. It keeps you busy”.
He’s also in the depths of wedding planning, and has a list of jobs to take care of before Christmas, including finding a DJ and photographer for his Northland wedding, set for midway through 2024.
Bridge’s engagement to his partner (who Bridge recently publicly named as “Fergy, with a y”) was announced in June, and the chosen Northland spot was picked during one of many visits to the area.
They decided to choose a winter date, so people will have something to look forward to, and the couple won’t be “sweating in our suits”, he laughs.
I ask about pre-wedding stress and the broadcaster simply gives a wide smile and looks genuinely happy in return. He’s just excited, he insists, moving his arms about as he talks about the upcoming nuptials.
He’s not the type of wedding planner to sweat the small stuff. His fiancé, he says, is the one with the clear “vision of what the
“My partner wants to make tablecloths for the tables ... Him and his mum. It’s really cool but also sounds time-consuming, like, ‘that’s on you’.”
Ryan Bridge
name tags will look like”.
“I’m like, ‘just number them off’, you know?”
“My partner wants to make tablecloths for the tables ... Him and his mum. It’s really cool but also sounds time-consuming, like, ‘that’s on you’,” he laughs. “I just want all the family there. It’s going to be great.”
It was during the closing moments of his AM signoff that Bridge revealed Fergy’s name to New Zealand, but before 2019, he’d never spoken publicly about being gay.
“I never addressed it,” he says. “It wasn’t like I was back in the closest or anything. When conversations came up, I suppose I was sort of editing myself a little bit. But then it all sort of came out in the wash.”
That coming “out in the wash” happened on air when former AM co-host Mark Richardson accidentally outed Bridge on air.
“Thank God it did [come out],” he now says. “People know me a bit better now, than then.”
He seems genuinely happy to be “known”, too. He struggles to come up with a place or situation he doesn’t like being greeted by Kiwis who recognise him.
Except maybe for one awkward encounter at a Westfield mall toilet, when Bridge emerged from the stall at the same time as the person in the stall next to him – Winston Peters.
While washing their hands, Peters gave Bridge “shit” about a prior interview.
“[He said] ’you got this wrong’, or whatever, [while we’re] washing our hands.”
Hands clean and jabs given, Bridge nabbed the opportunity to grab a selfie with Peters before they parted ways.
As Bridge and I also prepare to part ways, there’s enough time for a quick shout-out to Bridge and Fergy’s beagle, Fanny, who “runs the house”.
“She’s just the joy of our lives,” Bridge gushes about the dog the couple adopted after meeting the dog’s father randomly at the local shops during lockdown.
“I know that sounds sad because we should have something else going on,” he laughs.
“But she’s in charge, we love her.”