I had dinner with my three best friends from school this week. I lost touch with them for a couple of decades and then we reconnected but we haven’t seen each other for a few years. As ever, the ease of being with people who knew you when you were 14 is unrivalled.

Anyway. The first thing we noticed is how much we all look like our mothers.
Or how our mothers used to look when we were at school - the same age we are now. Holy shit. I told my mum this and she laughed. “Every woman wants to hear that she looks like her mother.”
Over dinner we caught up on family news and we were struck by how differently we grew up compared to our kids now.

As Gen X kids, we raised ourselves and always felt a level of responsibility for our parents, the Boomers, even when they were the same age we are now.

We grew up with a strong sense of our parents being people and the innate knowledge that we weren’t their only priority or even their top priority.
This is not a criticism of their parenting. You see, that’s the thing - they were the last generation for whom parent was just a noun not a verb.
Boomer parents would have had their parenting style described as free-range today but it didn’t have a name back then. It’s just what parenting was: not an active practice but a passive description of whether or not you had kids.
It was a fact not feelings. Not a process or a style. Not a scorecard or an identity. Being a parent didn’t seem to be the cause of much angst back then, not from where we were sitting which might have been in a parked car while our parents were inside at the pub. When they went out, they just dragged us along.
Gen X kids have strong memories of falling asleep under tables in restaurants or on random couches when our parents went to dinner parties. At the end of the night, we’d be carried, sleeping, into the car and it’s probably best not to think about the drive home during that time before random breath testing made everyone rethink their choices.
It was a time before mobile phones let alone tracking apps.
My mum and I were reminiscing the other day about one night when I was about 5 and my parents booked a new babysitter for my older brother and I so they could go for dinner with friends.
As you did back then, they left the phone number of the restaurant in case of emergency.
In the middle of dinner, the waiter came over to say there was a phonecall.
The babysitter. An emergency.
”Everyone’s OK but well, Mia was doing a dance performance behind the couch before she went to bed and she must have been standing on the heater and accidentally turned it on because after she went to bed, I smelled smoke and when I came into the loungerooom, the couch was on fire.”
Oh.
”But I managed to put it out and the kids helped me drag the couch outside and I think it’s OK now because it’s just smouldering.”
Goodness, my parents said. Thanks for letting us know. Great job. See you when we get home. And then they continued with dinner.
Before dessert arrived, the babysitter called back.
”The couch re-ignited and then the balcony caught fire so I had to call the fire brigade and they just arrived and put out the flames so you might want to come home. We’re sitting in the garden.”
So anyway.
Things were different back then.

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There’s something so……unclenching about being around people your own age, whatever that age is. There’s so much you don’t have to explain.
This was partly the motivation for me developing Unleashed, the new podcast I’m producing which finally launched this week and has been making women laugh until they wee a little bit.

If you’re wondering what all the fuss is about and why women are sharing this show in all their group chats - get ep 1 in your ears. Ep 2 drops on Tues. And ‘follow’ in your pod app by clicking the PLUS sign in the top right corner.

Some things I wore this week…….

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And if you want a bit of my voice in your ears, you can listen to the episode of Outloud I recorded with Holly and Jessie where they weighed in on the topic of emaciated women in Hollywood and how we can talk about it……..we all had a lot more to say!

Mia xxxxx

It was about a year ago and I think it was 3am but I can’t be sure.

I try not to look at the clock when I wake up in the middle of the night because the math of “how many hours of sleep can I get if I fall asleep right now“ makes me panic.

So instead, I kept my eyes firmly shut while my brain thrust itself immediately into gear and began to worry about everything from the state of the world to the state of my skin—both shit—and then I did the thing you aren’t meant to do.

I picked up my phone. Idiot.

I doom-scrolled the news. Not happy, Jan. Did you know women have a much higher propensity to be left with an “anxiety hangover” after consuming the news? It can feel like a physical weight on our chests.

Looking for something lighter, I flicked over to Instagram only to learn—quite aggressively—that wearing invisible socks is now a sign that I am a tragic, sad, old person.

I thought, for fuck’s sake. It’s not bad enough that every time women our age speak up for ourselves we’re disparaged as “Karens”—shout out to all the women actually named Karen; this weaponization of your name is a travesty and we are indignant on your behalf—now it’s my socks?

I realized I didn’t want another self-improvement hack. I didn’t want to hear more about menopause or “manifest” my way out of real-life problems. I just wanted a place to rest my ears where the news doesn’t exist for an hour.

A place for women over 40 to have a laugh without being judged by a 22-year-old who doesn’t know who Adam Ant is or why we all spent 1986 trying to source black rubber Madonna bracelets to stack up our arms. Do I want to have to explain Dolly Doctor or Milli Vanilli or A-Ha or Bananarama or Scott & Charlene’s wedding?

I do not.

And I reckon there are other women who also do not.

So, I put on my Producer Hat—literally, I bought one on the internet that says PRODUCER—and I built a distraction portal. It’s a new podcast called Unleashed. And it’s the antidote to everything.

Unleashed Is Not A “Menopause” Podcast

This isn’t a podcast about menopause or perimenopause. It’s not about pop culture or the news or the latest study about bone density. It’s not a moan-fest with a gentle, piano-music theme.

And it’s not an interview show. No guests. Just hosts.

And what bloody hosts they are.

The vibe of Unleashed is that specific dinner party where the wine is cold, the bread is warm, and within ten minutes, someone is telling a gob-smacking story about their sister-in-law—and someone else is noting that they may have weed a little bit in their pants because they were just laughing so hard.

This is the vibe - behold one of our first pre-production meetings:

@unleashed.show

Unleashed on Instagram: "FIVE DAYS TO GO… ⁣
The chaos continues…

The real magic of any group is the chemistry. As a producer, my job is not to be ON this show but to be in and around it. I’m the one in the headset, making the calls and occasionally butting in when the conversation gets so good I physically can’t keep my mouth shut.

My first job was to identify the six iconic, brilliant, and deeply rogue women I wanted on this show and then convince them to do it. To trust me.

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@unleashed.show

Unleashed on Instagram: "The first episode of UNLEASHED is out …

Most of them didn’t even know each other before I threw them in front of a microphone, but they instantly bonded over a shared history of Smash Hits magazines and a collective refusal to be “beige.” Together, they are quite frankly unhinged. In the most compelling way possible. You should see their real-life group chat—it was meant to be for logistics but it has completely gone off the rails.

Listen to Unleashed now

Meet the Unleashed Panel

Wrangling these six across three states and four time zones was like herding intellectual cats who all have very strong feelings about lighting. But we did it.

• Mary Coustas: The culturally iconic creator of ‘Effie.’ She’s been making us laugh since Acropolis Now. She’s a force of nature who says the things we’re all thinking but are too polite to scream.

• Grace Lam: Former Editor of Vogue China for a decade. She’s styled Kate Moss and Jude Law, but she’ll also tell you exactly why your outfit choice is a “mental health hazard.”

• Dr. Ginni Mansberg: You know her from Sunrise. She’s the doctor who tells it like it is and makes you feel like everything’s going to be OK.

• Cath Mahoney: A professional truth-bomber. After 20 years managing stars as a publicist, she realized she had her own stories to tell. She once moved across the world based entirely on a horoscope.

• Sally Hepworth: Yes, the global NYT Bestseller who has sold millions of books. She’s darkly funny, and stars like Amy Poehler have optioned her books to turn into movies and TV series. She also has a legendary “wig wall.”

• Bruna Papandrea: A Hollywood powerhouse. She’s the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning producer behind Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers, and The Dry. She commutes between LA and Sydney most months and she still books all her own flights.

No Judgement, Just Respite

Unleashed is for all of us who are at the age where we are lifting heavy things and dropping toxic people. It’s for the women who want to distract themselves and hang out with the smartest, funniest friends they haven’t met yet.

You don’t need to learn anything, fix anything, or remember anything.

You just need to get unhinged with us.

It’s helpful, it’s funny, and it’s the break from the cultural bin fire you didn’t know you were allowed to take.

Unclench your jaw. Clench your pelvic floor.

Unleashed launched today, Tues Feb 3rd and it will be dropping every Tuesday.
TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK AND TELL YOUR FRIENDS TO LISTEN

Listen to Unleashed now

@unleashed.show

Unleashed on Instagram: "Actual footage of us trying to juggle …

I feel like I’ve been shot into 2026 out of a cannon.
Not necessarily in a bad way but holy moly.
I was in the office until 10pm this week and I haven’t done that for a long time.
Fortunately, there are snacks in the Mamamia kitchen and so I ate Tiny Teddies, a banana, 3 cups of tea and some raisin toast for dinner.
That’s basically a food pyramid, right there.
WHO SAYS I CAN’T COOK.

So last week, after quite a few months off everything, I came back to Outloud for subscriber episodes - the first one back was highly emotional.
In the last newsletter I sent, soon after Bondi, I explained to you the real reason I had to step away but there were quite a few details I left out. I finally spoke about them with Holly and Jessie on that first show back this year and it was intense because there were things we’ve not said to one another before.
Ultimately, it was freeing and a relief. You can listen here.
I’ve mentioned it a few times and my co-hosts explained it before my return but in case you missed it, for all the same reasons I stepped away from the microphone last year, I decided I would only come back for subscribers every Tuesday and Thursday.
And you really turned up.
I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the understanding and the support you’ve shown me.

THEN.
This week, celebrity news went berko and I hustled into the studio to record 2 emergency pod eps.
One about Brooklyn Beckham going nuclear and 24hs later, another one about Taylor Swift giving a friendship masterclass on how to be direct with a friend.

Plus a third episode about Jessie’s twin pregnancy update and my holiday reccos.

Suffice to say, I have had many opportunities this week to wear lots of different things and that always makes me happy. I’ve been doing quite a bit of flat-pack building as I often do in January when I try to organise my life from the outside in.
This means I now have a new clothes rack in my office which I’ve loaded up with things I’ve brought in from home so I can get changed during the day if I want to (I always want to).
I really enjoy causing confusion when my colleagues see me in a different outfit to the one they saw me in earlier in the day.

Here are a few things I wore this week:

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And I will leave you with a sneak peak into the thing that has been consuming me and is responsible for my late nights.
Love love,

xxxxxx

@miafreedman

Mia Freedman on Instagram: "I HAVE SOME NEWS: for the last year…

Well hey.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve been in your inbox, I know.
If you follow me on social, you won’t have seen me there these past months either.
And you won’t have heard my voice because this year I also I stepped away from Outloud and from podcasting and writing altogether.

Like so many Jewish people, after years of relentless antisemitism, I have withdrawn from public life
From fear. And from exhaustion.
But if you’re reading this, it means you’re someone who has opted in to hear from me and I will never take that for granted. You may even have been one of the lovely people who has reached out after the horrific Bondi attack on my community a week ago.
Your kind words and thoughts have meant more to me - and to every Jewish person - than you can ever know.
The truth is, I’ve started writing to you here dozens of times this week to explain why I’ve retreated and what it’s been like to be Jewish in Australia the past few years.
But the words won’t come. The pain is too deep. The grief too raw. The fear still enormous as the shock begins to wear off.

There’s anger too, at those who dehumanised us and abused and threatened us so relentlessly for so long. Many of them doing so for fame and followers in the name of ‘social justice’.
And anger towards those who dismissed our fears.
The thing is though, I feel like you can’t really understand me unless you have this piece of the story. Because what’s been happening to the Jewish community for years, culminating so tragically in the murder of 15 people at Bondi last weekend, is woven into all of our lives, all of our stories, all of our identities.
And I think the trauma of that - layered on top of the generational trauma we all carry from the holocaust - always will be.
I’ve realised that if I’m ever going to return to writing and podcasting and sharing anything at all with you……… knowing this part of my story is foundational. It’s the story of so many Jewish Australians.
So, forgive me if you’ve already seen or heard it but here in this more private space, I wanted to re-share what we said on our special episode of Outloud the day after the attack ……

…….and what I posted on Instagram a few days ago:

I keep trying to write. To try to explain what’s it’s been like for Jewish people.
How we’ve watched some people use this platform and others to build followers and fame while fanning the flames of hatred and fear. How it has felt to see Nazis marching in the street. Protesters carrying signs calling for our destruction.

How these people have twisted our faith into a slur to deny our humanity.
How it has felt to see so many faces we know - friends, former co-workers, peers, people we admired - in the mob, liking and sharing these sentiments that demonise and dehumanise us.

I want to explain how we have been doxxed. How our children have been doxxed. Shouted at and spat on in the street. The constant threats and abuse - not for something we have said or done but because we are Jewish.
I want to explain what is like to be shunned by so many of the groups and industries you have always considered yourself part of.
How we have shrunk away, even from each other, too fearful to even mention the word antisemitism lest we become a bigger target.

All the while we have been told again and again that our fears are unfounded and insignificant and superficial. That we are “using” the Holocaust to manipulate sympathy. As if every Jewish person in Australia does not have relatives who were lost in that Holocaust.

I do not speak for my entire community. I could never because like any group of people, we are not a monolith. We do not share every belief or experience.

But some we do.

And anti-semitism is one of them.

Most Australians are tolerant, however. We must hang onto this and I am trying.

To every single person who has reached out to a Jewish person in their life, thank you. Being Jewish has felt incredibly scary and lonely these past years.

Today it is even more scary but perhaps a little less lonely. Wishing peace and healing to everyone during this dark time.

💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔

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Sending all my love and healing to everyone who needs it and my gratitude to everyone who has reached out, for their kindness. It has helped us all more than we can explain.
I hope to be back in your eyes and ears next year. Please stay safe and have a wonderful Christmas / holiday. Wishing for peace.
Mia xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

So I’ve taken a sabbatical from my main day job as a co-host on Outloud and you can hear me explain why in the episode below…..

Naturally, the first thing I did after my leave began last week was to redesign the logo for this newsletter instead of actually writing it. Well it wasn’t the first thing. That was taking my dog to the vet for her vaccinations and then taking her back the next day to have a tooth removed under anaesthetic after the checkup revealed a cracked tooth that probably happened a couple of months ago when she tried to rip the back leg off my other dog who had to have surgery to put her hip back in its socket.
There isn’t enough pet insurance in the world for what these two idiots have cost me this year alone.

Anyway so the next thing I did was redesign my logo because bored.

Also because procrastination? Yes. Avoidance? Sure. Easier to muck about in Canva instead of writing the thing, whatever that thing may be.

It’s not that surprising. I’ve never wanted to be smaller, more private, less public. I’m bruised. I’m tired. I’m jacked off with the bullshit written about me, my family and our business in the media. I love to communicate and make content for you but I loathe becoming the story for people who aren’t you. It’s distracting and frustrating and boring.

Wait, what’s that sound? It’s the world’s tiniest violin playing just for me, can you hear it?

There’s a lot I’ve learned about creative burnout over the past few years. Like how doing the same thing again and again and again and again can cause a specific type of exhaustion. And how you can start to lose confidence in your ability to do something you used to be really good at. Tick and tick.

As I said on the Outloud ep above, it’s not that I’m taking leave because I need or want to. I’ve needed and wanted to a million times since starting Mamamia 18 years ago. When you’re a co-founder and co-owner of a business, your needs and wants have to sit down and shut up. You push past, you push through, you push on.

So I’m having a break from the pod now because I can. Outloud is flying. Jessie and Holly are on fire. We have two outstanding guest-hosts in Amelia Lester and Em Vernem to step in during my absence and epic producer bosses in Ruth Devine and Em Gazilas. The show has never sounded or performed better. Thank you to everyone who has reached out with kind words of support since I shared the news of my time out. It’s made me quite teary.

I’m reading the Gwyneth book

I’ve been in a reading rut for months. Nothing can hold my fractured attention. Leave a suggestion in the comments for reccos if you have one. I need help.

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Two books that have punched through this annoying malaise are Sally Hepworth’s new novel Mad Mabel which I inhaled last weekend ( you can pre-order here and I’ll be sharing more about it when it comes out in late Sept) and the new Gwyneth biography by Amy Odell who wrote the Anna Wintour biography a few years ago which I loved.

It took hold early - her high school yearbook stated Gwyneth’s “biggest fear” was “obesity” - and what Gwyneth truly pioneered was the marketing of a small body in the guise of ‘wellness’. This is the bedrock of so much of the wellness industry and make no mistake, it’s an industry that absolutely dwarfs the pharmaceutical industry.

This is ironic, of course, because in the wellness narrative, ‘Big Pharma’ is trying to fleece us while ‘wellness’ is the good guy trying to fight back. Except in reality, the David and Goliath metaphor is reversed, at least in economic terms.
The global pharmaceutical market size is estimated to be approximately US$1.77 trillion in 2025. The wellness industry is in the range of US$6.87 to US$7.4 trillion.

From vitamins to detox programs, alternative therapies to meditation apps, it seems like everyone is trying to flog something related to wellness. Because they are. But GOOP - the lifestyle brand Gwyneth founded in 2008 - was one of the first to take it mainstream and monetise the shit out of it. Sometimes, quite literally;
GOOP sells a coffee enema kit.

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To give Gwyneth the benefit of the doubt, what becomes clear in the book is that her pivot from acting to selling wellness didn’t necessarily begin as a cynical way to exploit women’s ingrained desire to be thinner . The death of her father Bruce Paltrow from throat cancer in 2002 when she was 30 triggered a deep obsession with her own health and that of her immediate family. As portrayed in Odell’s biography, it’s clear that Gwyneth quickly spiralled into a form of Orthorexia - where the idea of eliminating 'toxins’ and eating ‘clean’ (both totally spurious claims as every science-based expert will tell you) became all-consuming for her personally.
The pivot to selling this idea was an inevitable one. Us normies have always wanted to buy a little piece of celebrity lifestyle in the belief that the lipstick or jeans or diet used by [insert name of famous woman here] will make us look like her.
Is GOOP selling a lifestyle or Gwyneth’s uncommonly small body?
After her father’s death, Odell writes that Gwyneth fell quickly under the influence of all sorts of dodgy ‘health’ gurus who confirmed her belief that she had all sorts of health problems - including an ‘intolerance’ for pretty much every food you can name. It launched her on a path of increasingly extreme ‘detoxes’ where she would sometimes drink nothing but raw goat’s milk for eight days.
I have nothing but compassion for anyone with health anxiety and disordered eating. The conflict comes when you have a massive platform and enormous influence and you start spreading unproven and non-scientific claims under the guise of ‘asking questions’ and then monetise the answers in the form of products you sell.
That’s essentially the GOOP model that has now been adopted by influencers everywhere. She certainly called it early.
Anyway, I’m finding all the GOOP stuff - including the business behind-the-scenes details - to be even more interesting than the relationship anecdotes (like the fact she told a friend Brad Pitt was ‘dumb as a brick’ and Ben Affleck was ‘technically brilliant’ at sex). Memo to founders: as you try to scale your business, you are almost never the best person to be CEO.
And yet again, I am thankful I understood that early on and never ever aspired to being the CEO of Mamamia. I would have sucked.

You can buy the Gwyneth book here if you’re interested.

3 things I’ve been wearing

1. I bought these cargo pants from Cotton On (there’s also a higher rise version) . They’re quite light and will work into warm weather for sure. I don’t own anything this olive colour, the khaki I like is usually more faded. But I’m quite enjoying it in high rotation, contrasting the utilitarian with pieces that are more feminine or structured. Olive goes with a surprising number of other colours. Is it a neutral? Not quite but let’s call it neutral-adjacent.

2. Even though baby, it’s cold outside, I fixated on a couple of Pinterest photos of white lace skirts with chunky white dad trainers. I remembered this skirt I bought from somewhere last year and pulled out an old pair of Golden Goose chunky trainers which I re-laced with white ribbons. Nothing here is new so I can’t link it but I really loved this outfit. And yes, that’s what my hair looks like air-dried.

3. As usual, trackies remain a wardrobe MVP, both for casual obv but also fancy which is more fun because it looks a bit wrong which I always love. These burgundy ones are a bit exxy but if you’re looking for a cheaper version I found these which look v similar. And the coral ones come in a couple other colours too.

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And 1 look I really couldn’t land

I didn’t wear any of these outfits IRL, I was just playing after seeing some great outfits on Pinterest that featured t-shirts over shirts. I tried a few different combos but couldn’t nail it. Maybe the shirts I tried were too long? Not sold on the concept.

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Attention, anyone with a size 6 foot

miafreedman

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We’re over here on ebay raising money for Rize Up by selling some pre-loved items from my wardrobe. Apologies in advance for having such a stupidly small foot. Please join the queue behind my daughter to swear at me because she can’t even borrow my shoes and that is profoundly unfair. I know. But there are other things too! Come check it out, store closes in a couple days.

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