Amanda Keller breaks down over simple question about her husband
Amanda Keller couldn't hold back her tears during a recent episode of ABC's heartwarming new series, The Assembly, where high-profile figures are interviewed by a classroom of journalists-in-training, who are all autistic and can ask whatever they want.
One student, Savannah, asked her the simple question: “Do you love your husband?”
The Jonesy and Amanda radio host teared up as she told the student her question was "beautiful", before opening up about her husband, Harley Oliver.
“I think I’m going to cry, because my husband is going through some stuff at the moment,” Keller told her.
“My husband has Parkinson’s disease, and we've been married 34 years, and life is changing around us.
“He’s so good with it, in a way that I’m not, actually. We’re learning to find ourselves in the midst of changing circumstances, and part of me thinks – it’s easy for me to say, he’s the one going through it – but part of me thinks it’s a real privilege to be with someone long enough that you go through these changes with them.”
She wrapped up her answer saying: “So yes, I love him very much, even though we’ve got some stuff going on.”
Another student, Evie, then asked her what prompted the pair to go public with Oliver's diagnosis and she admitted that she'd had to think "long and hard” about sharing the news for a few reasons.
“One is that I work on breakfast radio, and a big part of that is sharing your life – and even though it wasn’t my story to tell, it affected me too, and our lives,” she told the class.
“ … Another reason I wanted to was that I wanted to open the window into why people look at us strangely when we’re out," she continued.
“I wanted to free us up by saying, ‘Here's what’s going on.’ I think that’s why I did it.”
However she admitted that opening up about their personal struggle has been "hard" at times but she is "glad" she did it.
Keller first revealed the heartbreaking news about her husband's Parkinson's diagnosis in an episode of her Double A Chattery podcast last October.
As the interview session wrapped up, she told the students that it had been a high point of her career.
“What a life highlight this has been,” she told the class.
“Thank you, I’ve loved it.”
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