Sacked radio host Lawrence Mooney has opened up about the demons that drive his showbiz career as he launches a $1million breach of contract claim against Triple M.
Mooney has spoken about the adrenalin rush of doing stand-up comedy as well as the ‘the void that exists inside me’ and the crushing disappointment of performing a failed live show.
The 56-year-old father-of-two references drug use, binge drinking and depression in a new podcast hosted by actor, writer and documentary producer Adam Zwar.
‘Well, you never want the buzz to end,’ Mooney says of chasing the high after a successful performance.
‘So you take a couple of lines and start drinking martinis… and that is a fool’s errand because, no mate, that applause is over.
Sacked radio host Lawrence Mooney has opened up about the demons that drive his showbiz career as he launches a $1million breach of contract claim against Triple M. He is pictured centre with Moonman in the Morning co-hosts Jess Eva and Chris Page
The 56-year-old father-of-two references drug use, binge drinking and depression in a new podcast hosted by actor, writer and documentary producer Adam Zwar. Mooney is pictured with his wife Lou
‘The best thing you can do is, you know, go and get in an ice bath like you’ve come off the court and nourish yourself. Not poison yourself to stay awake.’
Mooney is demanding more than $1million over his unceremonious departure from Triple M, which is owned by Southern Cross Austereo (SCA).
He has taken SCA to the New South Wales Supreme Court where lawyer John Laxon said last week he feared the radio network might ‘smear’ his client.
Mooney was abruptly dumped from Triple M with little explanation on November 12, less than halfway through a two-year contract.
He is suing Southern Cross Austereo for $1,083,333.29 plus GST and potential incentives he could have earned if he continued hosting Moonman in the Morning.
His interview on Ten Questions with Adam Zwar was recorded on January 25, more than two months after he was sacked and a week before his case was first mentioned in court.
Sacked radio host Lawrence Mooney is demanding more than $1million over his unceremonious departure from his Triple M breakfast program
Mooney recalls performing stand-up routines at football functions where strippers waited on tables and the audience might be drunk before lunch.
He would become consumed by gloomy thoughts even before he got to the club.
‘I’d become really quite sad,’ he says. ‘I’d become morose.
‘I’d start to reflect on the failure of my first marriage, the fact that my daughter grew up having breakfast with another man and not me, I’d think about my mum living on her own.
‘I’d go into the most morose corners of my life and it was actually my psyche preparing me to go on stage and really hit it out of the park.
‘I was driving myself into this darkness so when I got there it’s like, right, I’m not leaving here like that, I’m going to kill this.’
Mooney says he would go on stage and ‘smash it’, then come out the other side. His wife Lou would tell him he drove himself into the depths of depression, ‘in order to not f*** up the gig’.
‘You don’t want to live with another dark thought so you’re not going to do this wrong,’ Mooney tells Zwar.
Mooney describes an unspecified radio program director giving him ten positive pieces of feedback followed by one negative observation about a three-hour live show. ‘And that’s the one that sticks with you for the week,’ he tells Adam Zwar
‘And when you come out the other side all you want to do is just see all of the women naked, take all of the drugs, get blind and stay awake for a thousand hours.’
Mooney describes an unspecified radio program director giving him ten positive pieces of feedback followed by one negative ‘helpful’ observation about a three-hour live show.
‘And that’s the one that sticks with you for the week,’ he tells Zwar.
‘You mull it over in your head, it becomes a mantra that you say to yourself in the toilet, in the car. It’s the first thought you have when you wake up and it’s the thing that eats away at you.
‘I want to say to people that if they’re going to give anyone feedback, think very, very carefully.
‘It would always be dressed up as “I’m a massive fan”, or “I love what you do”, and so, here it comes: Beep, beep, beep. Back up the truck and tip the manure on me.’
Mooney speaks frankly about the anxiety of a career in showbusiness and his fear of failure.
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Mooney recalls how when performing stand-up routines at football clubs he would be consumed by negative thoughts on his way to the venue. ‘I’d become really quite sad,’ he says. ‘I’d become morose’
‘In this business particularly you’ve got to embrace your limitations,’ he says. ‘Because there’s nothing romantic about failure. It’s just failure. Abject and deeply hurtful.
‘I don’t know who said it but all men lead a life of quiet desperation.
‘There’s always this kind of desperate edge to you, thinking am I doing enough? What’s going to happen next? What if nothing happens.
‘Next, you spook yourself and all of sudden you’re jumping at shadows.’
Mooney says performers also need an element of anxiety in order to do their job.
‘And you need that anxiety to push you forward too,’ he says.
‘Because if I was as sage as the Dalai Lama and really started to get into a complete sense of enlightenment the first thing I’d do is walk away from f***ing showbiz because I wouldn’t need it.
‘I wouldn’t need it to fill the void that exists inside me.’
Mooney’s interview on Ten Questions with Adam Zwar was recorded on January 25, more than two months after he was sacked and a week before his case was first mentioned in court
Mooney also refers to a Twitter spat sparked by an unfavourable review of one of his stand-up shows by a newspaper journalist six years ago.
‘I entered into a dialogue and then it became a thing and then there was a pile-on.
‘If you’re at the centre of a Twitter pile-on it kind of takes your breath away at how vicious and bloody-minded people can be.
‘But even if they’re saying the most heinous thing about you, the little megalomaniacal fiend inside is still happy that you’re being piled on.
‘Cause it’s like they’re calling me a f***ing piece of s**t but at least they’re talking about me.’
Radio insiders have certainly been talking about Mooney since he was taken off air last year.
Lawrence Mooney (pictured right) reportedly had a major falling out with co-host Jess Eva (pictured left) before he was sacked by Triple M
His legal challenge was mentioned in the NSW Supreme Court on February 3 when Mr Laxon described the case as a ‘very straight forward breach of contract claim’.
Both sides had agreed to enter mediation but Mr Laxon said Southern Cross Austereo had been slow to produce its defence, which was filed the following day.
‘We are somewhat in the dark because we don’t have their defence,’ Mr Laxon said.
‘In anticipation of what that defence might be and the allegations that might be forthcoming from the defendant [in the absence of] any evidence to back up those allegations then what we might be left with is smear.’
The comedian started with Triple M in 2019 hosting the Moonman in the Morning program with co-presenters Gus Worland, Jess Eva and Chris Page.
Worland left the program, which had replaced The Grill Team, in November that year.
Lawrence Mooney’s (pictured) case against his former employer began in the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday
Mooney’s exit came two weeks after he suddenly vanished from the airwaves amid rumours of a major falling out with co-host Eva.
‘SCA thanks Mooney for his contribution to the Triple M Network over the past five years,’ SCA said in a brief statement on November 15.
More than two months later he is demanding his former employer pay him a year’s salary in damages, according to a statement of claim seen by Daily Mail Australia.
Court documents claim Mooney had a two-year contract to run from January 1, 2021, to December 31, 2022, and his pay was a base fee of $1million plus GST per annum, which is $83,333 plus GST a month.
Mooney was also eligible to bonus fees of up to $540,000 plus GST annually if the show reached certain audience share targets.
It is understood SCA has filed its defence to Mooney’s claim.
Source: Daily Mail
