Maia Dunphy has been very open about life, including her career, family, and the breakdown of her marriage, but recently, the presenter spoke about her career.
Beginning her TV career in 2001, with Double Z, she worked with bad boys Podge and Rodge until 2014 and wrote and produced many award-winning television shows for RTÉ, Channel 4, TV3 and ITV.
In recent years, after a difficult marriage breakup, the mum of one has admitted to stepping back from work to look after her son.
Sitting down with the Irish Times, Maia spoke about regrets and how she has a memory like no other, and while she may forgive, she says she never forgets.
Looking back, she said, 'Working in TV and media for the last 25 years now, there's a bit of a hierarchy. And there would be people who would be very well known who were incredibly rude to me, early in my career, when I didn't really matter to them, when I wasn't somebody important.'
In later years, Maia said she has often bumped into them again, and because she has been a success, they now deem her more worthy to speak to. However, never forgetting a face or an incident, she will quickly remember how nice or awful they were to her.
In 2020, Maia split from her husband, Johnny Vegas, with whom she shares her only child, Tom.
While she keeps this part of her life private, when the news broke, Maia admitted that their breakup was 'difficult and heartbreaking and a source of daily sadness for me...It's something I am deliberately nebulous about because I don't want it to define Tom or me...'
After parting ways, she decided that family was more important than career, but that she may have been slightly naive about returning, not realising how difficult it can be to find your place in an ever-moving and progressing industry.
With Tom being the most important man in her life, Maia highlights that with age not only do you lose collagen and oestrogen (she laughs), but that 'having fun' is not as easy as it used to be.
As she approaches the big 5-0 she highlights how 'growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional. I think nobody likes a wacky 50-year-old... But I have been fighting quite hard over the last while to try to get my sense of fun back.'
