Several years ago Ally Langdon was at the Australian Open tennis in Melbourne when an older couple approached her.
“They came up to me and said, ‘You wouldn’t remember us, but you walked up our driveway with a carton of beer on your shoulder,’” Ally tells TV WEEK.
In fact, Ally did remember the couple. She had visited them when she was reporting in the aftermath of the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009.
“I just popped in and we had a beer and a chat with them,” she says.
“I remember what their house looked like. Their house was still standing and they were looking after so many people from the community.”
The couple have stayed in Ally’s memory, just like many other people she has interviewed. “They all stay with you, in different ways.”
Ally, 46, who’s been hosting A Current Affair for three years and working in journalism for 25 years, has recently been reminiscing about some of the big stories of her career, including the Black Saturday bushfires, for Nine’s Events That Changed Australia.
“There is a sense of guilt, I think, when you cover stories like that,” she says.
“Because you go in and you meet people at their lowest, and there are incredibly intense times. And you feel guilty that, after a week, you jump on a plane, you go home and your family’s OK, your house is OK.”
After so long in the industry, stories still have an impact on Ally – and she thinks that’s the way it should be.
“I think the day that stories don’t have that same impact is the day I realise that maybe I’m done and I should move on.”
Ally’s emotional interview with cancer researcher and cancer patient Professor Richard Scolyer saw her nominated for a TV WEEK Logie for Best News Coverage or Public Affairs Report – but it also led to Richard becoming her “dear friend”.
“That’s the privilege of this job – the extraordinary people you get to meet and the stories you’re trusted to tell.”
Ally and the shows she works on were nominated for a total of five awards at the 2025 Logies, with Ally in the running for her first Gold Logie, as well as the Ray Martin Award for Most Popular News or Public Affairs Presenter.
“The uncomfortable part of an individual Logie nomination is the fact that none of this job is an individual effort,” she admits. “Which is why I was really excited to see the show nominated and our interview with Richard Scolyer nominated.”
Ally was feeling a bit concerned about how the night might pan out and, on the way to the ceremony, she had a quick word to husband Michael Willesee Jr.
“I remember saying to him: ‘I just need to get one. It doesn’t matter which one, but I just feel like, if you’re nominated for five and you go home with none, everyone’s going to be giving that ‘we feel really sorry for you’ look.’”
Ally got that Logie she was hoping for, when Nine Network took out Best Sports Coverage for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
She remembers: “I got back to the table and I went, ‘I am so fine now!’ And then it was really special to get the Silver Logie, the Ray Martin inaugural.”
On top of everything else she does, Ally – who is mother to Mack, turning nine, and Scout, six – also hosts the show Parental Guidance. She says she loves seeing how everyone else parents.
“I always say to my husband that I come home after filming Parental Guidance and I am the best parent… for about a month,” she laughs. “And then all my old bad habits sneak back in again.
“I’m so inconsistent! I just change the rules all the time, whereas my husband is consistent. I’m a fun mum, and then I’m just a nark. But I’m aware of it, and I’m working on it.
“It’s definitely a work in progress!”
