Former Gold Logie nominee Amanda Keller has opened up about being snubbed from the coveted award category this year during a candid moment on air this morning.
The radio host and Living Room presenter, 60, became the centre of arguably the most controversial Gold Logie race in the ceremony’s history in 2019 – the last show to go ahead before two years of Covid-related cancellations – when HardQuiz host Tom Gleeson snagged the prize after a highly cynical campaign.
Nominations for the 62nd TV Week Logie Awards were revealed on Sunday, after Covid forced the awards into a two-year break.
Keller revealed to her radio co-host Brendan “Jonesy” Jones on WSFM’s Jonesy and Amanda show on Monday morning that she’d been given “a bit of a heads-up” that she wasn’t nominated this year, and that it had sparked “an interesting spread of emotions”.
Instead, the Gold Logie will be go to either Hamish Blake, Julia Morris, Karl Stefanovic, Melissa Leong, Ray Meagher, Sonia Kruger or incumbent Gleeson.
“So the last two Logies, I was up for the Gold,” Keller told Jones today.
“And it’s hard yakka having to spruik yourself. It’s such an accolade, I was so proud to be nominated … I took it very seriously. It’s an important part of Australian television history, to be nominated meant the world to me.”
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She went on to admit that the last Logies campaign had been “really hard”, due to the nature of the competition between herself and Gleeson.
“He had a comedy routine about it, the trope was, ‘this is meaningless, but I’m going to rort the system’, and he kind of sledged it along the way,” Keller explained.
“So normally, (nominees) just run their own race but I wasn’t capable of running my own race because that narrative was picked up by the press, and it became ‘Tom versus me’.”
Keller clarified that, for her, it wasn’t about winning, but that she’d found it difficult to navigate Gleeson’s spectacle.
“I didn’t have to win – the year before, Grant Denyer won, and I was thrilled, because I follow this Gloria Steinem quote, the idea that you’re ‘linked’, not ranked. Just to be there, and linked with the other nominees, what an accolade.
“But (last Logies), it felt like we were ranked and it was hard.”
In 2018, Denyer faced the unusual prospect of being nominated for a Gold Logie for his show Family Feud – which had just been axed. The strange circumstances prompted Gleeson to throw his support behind him, launching a #Denyer4Gold campaign – which quickly went viral – and even gatecrashed an interview on The Project to push the agenda.
Addressing the quirky 2018 Gold Logie race this morning, Keller admitted that – even though he’d won – Denyer’s feelings had been hurt.
“I know he (Gleeson) hurt Grant’s feelings the year before, by saying ‘I’ve won it for Grant, this year I’m going to escalate the joke and win it for me’,” she told Jones.
“He said, ‘the Logies are a joke, I’m going to rort the system and win it’. So what does he do this year? Because he is deserving of it, he has a great show, he rates very well, he’s a very popular personality.
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“But the trope around it was, ‘I don’t particularly want this, and sucko, I’ve still got it.’”
Live voting for all the Most Popular awards including the Gold Logie is open now for five weeks right through until the end of the red carpet telecast on June 19. Fans can now vote for their favourites from the short-listed nominees at tvweeklogiesvote.com.
The 62nd TV WEEK Logie Awards will be held on Sunday, June 19, at Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre.
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