{"id":924165,"date":"2026-10-11T11:16:33","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T11:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/924165\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T11:16:33","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T11:16:33","slug":"tully-smyth-opens-up-about-raising-a-daughter-after-losing-mother-to-early-onset-dementia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/924165\/","title":{"rendered":"Tully Smyth opens up about raising a daughter after losing mother to early onset dementia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tully Smyth<\/a>\u2019s voice cracks a little as she apologises from the other end of the phone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t possibly really understand it until you\u2019re in it,\u201d she says, attempting to articulate how her life has changed over the past 15 weeks<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Tully<\/p>\n

Tully Smyth: Bugaboo ambassador, podcast host, writer, TV star and now mother. \u00a0Instagram\/tee_smyth<\/p>\n

The Australian reality star and writer, who shot to fame in Big Brother at its height of success and appeared again most recently in Australia\u2019s first Celebrity Traitors, welcomed her first child in June<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She also just launched a podcast While We Have You, with Traitors co-stars Alex Nation and Kirby Bently, and signed on as ambassador of a brand beloved by parents around the world, Bugaboo<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her days are spent cradling Elke, the little girl she dreamed of for decades, and her nights are for work. It\u2019s a juggling act akin to wrestling a crocodile: Immersing yourself fully into motherhood, while desperately making sure your career doesn\u2019t slip away.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI often don\u2019t sit down to start my workday until 1pm, when she\u2019s [asleep], and then I\u2019m furiously trying to catch up on emails,\u201d she tells nine.com.au<\/a>. \u201cI eat late at night [and] I hop on my emails.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Tully<\/p>\n

Tully and Ned fell pregnant with Elke after meeting on a dating app. \u00a0Instagram\/tee_smyth<\/p>\n

It\u2019s then she poses the question many new mothers ask themselves: \u201cWhen do I get to rest? When do I get to stop and take a breath?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really, really hard,\u201d Smyth concedes. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then I think, \u2018Oh gosh, I\u2019m the worst mum in the world for dragging her to Sydney for a shoot\u2019, when really what I\u2019m trying to do is hustle and make money for her future so she can go to the best school in the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy opinions and thoughts on it change every day, but again I think as long as I\u2019m getting up and doing my very best, it\u2019s all that counts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 38-year-old says she just wants to be a good role model for her daughter, to show her ambition and drive and that you can be a mother and have a career that fulfils you.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mum was working full-time,\u201d she recalls of her mum, who she describes as an \u201coriginal girl boss\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a joke that she brought a fax machine to the hospital when she had me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Smyth lost her mother in 2019<\/a>, 17 years after a cruel early onset dementia diagnosis. She describes her memories of her mum as \u201cthrough the eyes of a child\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Kay<\/p>\n

Tully\u2019s mother Kay was diagnosed with early onset dementia when she was just 15. \u00a0Supplied<\/p>\n

Now she\u2019s a mother herself, she\u2019s weaving some of those memories into her and Elke\u2019s lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mum\u2019s love of reading and her encouragement of me to love reading is why I ended up a writer,\u201d she tells nine.com.au. \u201cAnd Elke\u2019s only toy on her pram is a book that says My First Book.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

She says as she\u2019s talking to Elke it feels like she\u2019s watching home videos.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy voice\u2026 I sound like my mum.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Smyth is navigating the early days of motherhood with what she describes as her \u201cDIY village\u201d as her family all live in Sydney. Her partner Ned is a shining light during those inevitable harder days.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNed went back to work two weeks after she was born, so suddenly you\u2019re left to your own devices and your post-natal anxiety is just sort of yelling at you constantly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I was talking very meanly to myself in my head a lot. Nothing was good enough. Nothing was right.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019re yin and yang. He\u2019s very rational,\u201d she says. \u201cWe work so well together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Tully describes her and Ned as yin and yang.\u00a0tee_smyth<\/p>\n

Despite those harder days, Smyth says, \u201cit\u2019s all I\u2019ve ever wanted\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Case in point: she underwent two rounds of egg freezing in her mid-30s as she dreamed of having multiple children, but hadn\u2019t yet met the man who would become the father of her children.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Smyth and Ned conceived Elke naturally after meeting on a dating app and falling head over heels, something she describes as \u201cunbelievably lucky\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"Tully<\/p>\n

Having a child is a dream come true for Tully. \u00a0Instagram\/tee_smyth<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve kept every single needle because I wanted to show Elke one day how much I wanted to be a mum,\u201d she admits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that anyone who goes through egg freezing or IVF, that\u2019s cool to be able to tell your kids one day, \u2018I wanted you so badly\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never loved something so much in my entire life,\u201d she tells nine.com.au.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery day gets better and better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tully Smyth\u2019s voice cracks a little as she apologises from the other end of the phone.\u00a0 \u201cYou can\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":924166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134],"class_list":["post-924165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=924165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/924166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=924165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=924165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=924165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}