Bree Tomasel has become a familiar voice and face to New Zealanders via her hosting duties on ZM's Bree & Clint show and TVNZ2's Celebrity Treasure Island.
During her chat on Paula Bennett's Ask Me Anything podcast, the fun-loving Australian export described herself as "a hundred per cent" a workaholic.
"I think I get it from my dad, country Queensland farmer. If you want something bad enough, I think you have to work your ass off to get it. Nothing's changed. I still put in the time and work my butt off because I love it and I really want it. And you have to really want it.
"It was always something I'd say to my family; 'I'd love to make people laugh and I'd love to do radio,' and I was always really obsessed with radio.
"When I was at uni, I studied a dual bachelor in PR and journalism, and it was the last year of uni where I was like, 'All this stuff is so boring'. I don't wanna do PR for someone. Journalism interested me a bit more, but then I got into the student radio at uni."
Bree Tomasel shows off her 'gleeking' party trick.
From there a mentor arranged for Tomasel to do an internship at Brisbane's Nova FM.
"They just could never get rid of me. I was a bad germ and I wasn't going anywhere. I did every job under the sun at that radio station. I worked seven days a week for years.
Tomasel worked on the station's street promo team, did night cleaning, learnt video editing, and eventually got into some radio producing.
"But the dream for me was always to be on-air. Which I never used to say out loud because I was always scared to say it out loud."
Tomasel was mostly unpaid for her work in radio, until she managed to get some on-air weekend work before landing a breakfast show on Australia's central coast, not far from Sydney.
Now in Aotearoa, Tomasel and her family are separated by the Tasman. That distance was made more real when New Zealand's borders were closed during the height of the pandemic.
"I think Covid in the last three years has made me really realise maybe what I want or shift[ed] my priorities, because my parents aren't getting any younger. They're in their 60s now. And my dad's just had a fake hip put in. He's got two fake knees, a fake hip. He had an epidural in his back, typical Aussie farmer.
"I would definitely love to move back at some point. I dunno when that'll be, or if it'll happen. Maybe I'll bring my mum over here, she'll come live in New Zealand with me for a year maybe. But it's definitely something where I'm gonna have to make some decisions and I don't wanna have any regrets.
Tomasel told Bennett that she absolutely adores her mother, who is able to stay connected through following her career.
"My mum's so fantastic. She is so supportive. She'll listen to our radio show and she'll text me during the show 'cause she listens to it live most of the time. Oh, massive celebrity Treasure Island fan. Whereas for me, it's a little bit harder because I obviously can't do that with her."
On the podcast, Tomasel also explained how watching rapper Macklemore and Mary Lambert perform their pro-equal marriage anthem, Same Love, at an NRL Grand final made a big impact on her. At the time Australia was in the middle of a campaign around a voluntary postal survey on marriage equality.
"It was a really hard thing to go through because it gave a platform for one side to talk about why it's so important to give these people the same rights as everyone else, but then it also gave the other side a platform to talk about why they shouldn't.
"It was a really difficult thing, being a queer person myself, very hard to go through. All I could think about was all these young kids who were obviously having to listen to certain conversations or hear things and, and go through something that was in my mind, such an easy decision.
"And [Macklemore] doing that, it sent a massive message. One of the biggest things that I remember is that when he performed that song at the NRL 2017 Grand Final, it went back to number one in Australia. I'm getting goosebumps now thinking about it. It was kind of like, 'Oh, there is support out there.'"
Listen to the full podcast for more from Paula and Bree. They get into Bree's party trick, health issues, and love life.
• Ask Me Anything is a NZ Herald podcast, hosted by Paula Bennett. New episodes are out every Sunday.
