Golden Bachelor Barry Myrden’s big Melbourne Cup Day

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The 61-year-old was among celebrities invited to the media company’s corporate marquee in the famous Flemington Birdcage on Tuesday to mix and mingle with Nine executives, clients and fans. While the TV stars and veterans including Ally Langdon, Karl Stefanovic, Sarah Abo, Jelena Dokic, Sylvia Jeffreys and Golden Bachelor host Sam Armytage kept themselves tidy, our spies report that as the day wore on Myrden’s famous reserve, for which he is known on The Golden Bachelor prompting this columnist to previously dub him “boring”, dissolved. After a few bevvies in the midday sun the Canadian-born engineer was feeling so comfortable and secure at the bosom of his extended Nine family he finally started to loosen up and relax. MORE: What the Golden Bachelor Sydney mansion actually looks like We hear Myrden soon found himself headed back to his hotel in the company of an attentive and professional Nine minder. While TV personalities and executives are known for letting their hair down and creating headlines in the early hours of the morning at Logies’ after parties – Seven’s Andrew O’Keefe, former Seven soap star Dieter Brummer, Nine Underbelly star Firass Dirani, ex Nine sporting commentator Grant Hackett, ex-Ten Neighbours star Dan O’Connor and Karl Stefanovic to name a few – it’s generally only amateurs who come undone in daylight hours at the Cup. Of course there was always going to come a time when The Golden Bachelor’s lustre was going to start wearing thin. With four episodes still to run, it did this week as reports surfaced that Myrden, who first appeared on A Current Affair 14 years ago when the program helped acquire and rebuild a home for he and his dying wife Audrey, has an eye for women younger than The Golden Bachelor’s 50-plus demographic. He’s also said to have not gone wanting for the attention of women – and girlfriends – since his wife’s death. Monday’s episode was the ninth most watched program of the night with just 725,000 viewers nationally, down on the program’s opening night premiere, and well behind Seven’s MKR 1,043,000-strong Monday night audience. CUMMINS TRADES UP IN BRONTE Australian cricket captain Pat Cummins has been steadily building an impressive property and investment portfolio while recovering from injury. The fast bowler, who has long owned a farm in the Southern Highlands, has in the past year snapped up another home in Bronte. Cummins and wife Becky have held on to the five bedroom Chesterfield Parade home they bought in 2021 for $9.3 million while waiting to settle on second Bronte home located a few blocks away in Yanko Ave. Settlement on the $16 million Yanko Ave property, which is situated on a bigger block and was bought in November 2024, was finalised in August. Cummins and wife Becky have bought a 145-year-old five-bedroom four-bathroom home ready for restoration. The settlement comes six months after the couple welcomed their second child, a daughter Edi, in February. They also have an older son Albie who turns four this month. The couple’s property portfolio also includes a three-bedroom in Moss Vale that Cummins purchased in 2017 for $905,000. According to sources, Cummins rakes in around $10 million a year from his Cricket Australia contract ($3 million), his Indian Premier League contract ($3.7 million) and various sponsorship endorsements. FAZAL NOT PUCCINI’S APPOINTMENT The ABC’s Head of Investigations and Current Affairs Jo Puccini may not have employed gang member turned reporter Mahmood Fazal at the ABC but she is certainly fond of him, sources informed this column this week. The intel comes after Four Corners executive producer Matthew Carney resigned from the ABC on Tuesday, two weeks after the public broadcaster launched an investigation into Fazal. Carney, as has been reported, had given Fazal the initial green light to appear on the podcast Word on the Street. After discovering the podcast was supported by advertising, specifically gambling ads for a crypto casino, the ABC withdrew its support. On Thursday the ABC clarified that Fazal was recruited “by the EP of (Background Briefing and Four Corners) after the usual required reference checks”. “The recruitment for Four Corners followed a standard and robust process, the job was advertised and there was an interview panel,” a spokeswoman clarified, responding to and correcting claims Puccini had brought the former sergeant-at-arms of outlaw bikie gang The Mongols into the news division fold. The Walkley Award winning Fazal has been stood down pending the outcome of the investigation after he became the subject of an incendiary video published by Outlaw Media’s Ryan Naumenko, with whom he co-hosted the podcast. ALL CONQUERING ITA RETURNS TO 54 PARK Ita Buttrose was given a fond welcome to ARE Media’s Park Street Sydney headquarters last week while doing the rounds promoting her latest book, Unapologetically Ita. Buttrose rose to fame working in the building, formerly where Sir Frank Packer and his son Kerry ran the ACP magazine publishing empire from the 1930s until 2006/2007 when Kerry’s son James sold the business to private equity group CVC for $5 billion. For two decades from 1971 the Park Street tower had been Buttrose’s dominion as founding editor of Cleo magazine and later editor and then publisher of The Australian Women’s Weekly. During her reign on the second floor she was known as a formidable editor who didn’t suffer fools and demanded the best of her staff. Some 45 years after quitting the company, Buttrose returned last week to be interviewed by her old magazine, The Weekly. Sources report that after giving the magazine’s reporter a one-on-one during which she reminisced about being a copy girl in the building in the fifties as well as some of her worst editorial decisions as editor of The Weekly – such as putting a featherless cockatoo on the cover in a funky orange knit in 1975 – Buttrose was asked if she might address an impromptu staff gathering. If seems that upon hearing the publishing icon was in the building young staff had expressed an eagerness to meet or catch a glimpse of their idol. Buttrose was only too happy to oblige and all were said to be deeply moved by her motivating and affectionate address. BROWN’S NEW APPOINTMENT Composer and musician Amanda Brown is the new president of the Australian Guild of Screen Composers. Brown, who won this scribe’s enduring respect for bringing lightness and lilt to Australian group The Go Betweens and is the partner of Simon Marney, succeeds Dale Cornelius. Multi-instrumentalist Brown, who plays violin, guitar, mandolin and oboe, has been composing music for stage and screen since 2000 and has credits on screen music credits include feature films Here Out West, Babyteeth and Son Of A Lion as well as drama series Deadloch, Prosper, RFDS, The Secrets She Keeps, One Night and On The Ropes.