Last night, Carrie Bickmore hosted her final show at The Project. This is her life away from the cameras.

Carrie Bickmore has graced our screens as a co-host on The Project for over ten years, and is a household name throughout Aussie homes.

She's been open and honest with her TV audience about the personal challenges she has faced, including the death of her first husband Greg Lange – the dad of her son, Ollie – to brain cancer. 

Bickmore has since found love again and given birth to two daughters with her partner, Chris, and regularly shares some very relatable parenting snaps on her socials. 

Last night, the nation watched as Bickmore said her final goodbye to The Project after 13 years at the desk. 

Watch: Carrie Bickmore thanks her family during her final show on The Project. Post continues below.

Bickmore, who announced she was stepping away in October, opened the show with a champagne in her hand and a promise that there wouldn't be too many tears.

"I’m so sad you’re going because I have loved sitting next to you for the last six years," said co-host Rachel Corbett. 

"You are so generous, so kind, such a good performer, so smart and people love you at home because you are the perfect mix of professionalism and realness and you have given so much of yourself to this show."

During the show, original panellist Dave Hughes came onto the desk to wish Bickmore well and reminisce on their shared time together. Rove, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Fifi Box, Julia Morris, Natalie Imbruglia and Jimmy Barnes also hopped on air to congratulate her. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Carrie Bickmore (@bickmorecarrie)

During one segment, Bickmore thanked the show and the viewers for supporting her in raising vital funds for brain cancer – a cause close to her heart due to her first husband’s death to the disease in 2010.

"We have now raised over $20 million and that would not have happened if it weren‘t for this place, if it weren’t for Greg and it weren’t for you watching at home – so thank you very, very much."

In her final address, Bickmore said it has been a "wild but wonderful ride", thanking all the producers and behind-the-scenes people who have helped her along the way.

The 41-year-old also shouted out her partner Chris, who she met through the show back when he was a producer.

"This show has given us so much. We wouldn't have our beautiful little poppets if it wasn't for The Project – Evie, Addy Bear and Ollie – you guys are my world. I hope you're proud of everything I've done over the years."

Speaking directly to the viewers, Bickmore said: "I hope I've kept many of you company over the years – it's been the greatest job in the world."

"Thank you."

As Bickmore heads off on her next adventure, here's a look at her life behind the cameras. 

Carrie Bickmore's first marriage. 

Bickmore met her first husband Greg Lange at university in Perth. The couple then decided to move to Melbourne in their early 20s, but then their world turned upside down when Lange was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2001.

She recalled on Anh's Brush With Fame: "They diagnosed him about a year after we moved to Melbourne. I was still 21 or 22 and he was about 25. He had a seizure at home and then one thing led to another. I didn't know anyone that had cancer, I didn't know anything about brain cancer, neither did he. It just completely threw everything we knew, everything we had planned, it threw everything on its head. It was the start of an incredibly hard journey."

In 2005, the pair married. Two years later, they welcomed their son Oliver Lange. Bickmore said the best thing that the couple chose to do together before his death was have Ollie.

On December 27, 2010, Lange died at just 34 years old. He had lived with the cancer for almost a decade.

In 2016, Bickmore said to the Australian Women's Weekly: "Over ten years, I watched him suffer multiple seizures a day, lose feeling down one side of his body, saw his three-year-old push him in his wheelchair because he couldn't walk anymore. It changes who you are, your ability to dream, to look forward… I spent so many years feeling no hope."

In May 2015, five years after Lange had passed away, Bickmore won the prestigious Gold Logie at the TV Week Logie awards, which she dedicated to Lange. In her acceptance speech, Bickmore ignited the charity Carrie's Beanies 4 Brain Cancer, to raise much-needed money and awareness for brain cancer research and support. Thus far, the charity has raised millions and millions of dollars.

Image: Channel 9. 

For Bickmore, her ultimate hope is to fund research that will end brain cancer, a future where no family like hers has to experience loss as a result of the disease.

"He [Lange] would have loved it, he would have absolutely loved it. It blew me away. I kind of just wish he could have seen all these messages from people to have realised how many people were going through a similar thing and we weren't alone," she said.

Ollie, now 15, reminds Bickmore of Lange every day.

"He's a gorgeous boy and he’s so much like [Lange] in so many ways. This sounds so weird but often I’ll see him in the shower, the back of his body, and his frame is just a miniature version of Greg. They’re very, very similar. Greg will forever be in my current life. Every time I look at my son, I'm seeing Greg."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Carrie Bickmore (@bickmorecarrie)

Carrie Bickmore's family life.

2015 was a special year for Bickmore for another reason. That year she also gave birth to her daughter Evie, with partner Chris Walker.

Bickmore had met Walker a few years prior, while he was a then-producer on The Project. Speaking about how they first bonded, Bickmore told TV Week: "He, like many people, understands loss and suffered his own loss in life and I think he just has a huge amount of compassion and he will always be incredibly supportive of me and for our family."

And after experiencing a traumatic birth with Ollie, Bickmore previously said she didn't necessarily think having more kids was in her future. But when Evie came along, everything felt right.

She told Anh Do: "I see Ollie and her together and it literally makes my heart sing. For him, that he might not have gotten to have a brother or sister and they're like two peas in a pod. 'Cos he's so much older than her, he's just so protective. She's going to have that for life, that big brother," 

Then in 2018, Bickmore and Walker welcomed another baby girl, Adelaide, called Addie for short.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Carrie Bickmore (@bickmorecarrie)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Carrie Bickmore (@bickmorecarrie)

But like for so many mums, the weeks and months that followed giving birth were difficult for Bickmore. She wrote for Stellar Magazine that her "third stint at motherhood" had been "one of the most challenging periods of my life".

Sharing the everyday highs and lows of parenting via Instagram, one of Bickmore's posts that people connected with most was an 'Instagram versus reality' image, with fans thanking Bickmore for her "realness".

She captioned another post:

"One Month Old Today."
- Sleep [thumbs down].
- Boobtime [thumbs up].
- Googling 'what is reflux at 3am?' [thumbs up].
- Cuddles [thumbs up].
- Arguments [thumbs up].
- Conflicting advice given [thumbs up].
- Struggle with existing 3 year old [thumbs up].
- Feeling overwhelmed [thumbs up].
- Feeling like it’s all going to be ok [thumbs up].

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Carrie Bickmore (@bickmorecarrie)

And then COVID came along.

Speaking to Mamamia about what lockdown was like for her family – especially given the fact they live in Melbourne – Bickmore said it had been exhausting, to say the least.

"I'm usually woken by my two-year-old around 5:30am. My morning routine has been a little different this year due to lockdown, but the mornings are still a bit manic in our house. To be honest, there isn't a lot of time to unwind. Usually at the end of the day once the kids are in bed Chris and I will pop on a show on TV, but I am lucky if I am still awake by the end of the episode! It's very annoying for Chris because I spend the next episode asking what I have missed. It's been a tiring few years" she told Mamamia.

Earlier this year, Bickmore took a three-month break from The Project to take a much needed holiday with her family and spend a few months abroad.

"Chris and I and the kids are heading off on a family adventure together. We figure it's never going to be the perfect time to go and it's something we really want to do before my son starts his final years at school, so we're doing term two in the UK. So I will be off for a couple of months," she announced on The Project at the time. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Carrie Bickmore (@bickmorecarrie)

She went on to explain that this has been "something we have dreamed of for a while now", adding that after years on The Project desk, she's in need of a bit of "long-service leave".

Bickmore also said she had taken inspiration from fellow panellist Kate Langbroek, who went to Italy with her own family for two years.

"We [my family and I] had some big conversations after living through the world's longest lockdown. One of the things that my son Ollie said was how much he was going to miss the family time when we were coming out of lockdown, which kind of surprised us because we had a lot of family time!"

Elaborating on Instagram, Bickmore said: "One of the unexpected silver linings to come out of living through Melbourne's lockdowns was the extended family time and we feel like this is our last chance to do something like this together before Ollie hits the pointy end of his schooling and no longer wants to hang out with us."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Carrie Bickmore (@bickmorecarrie)

Of course, Bickmore did return to the newsdesk, but after a handful of months back on the show, she announced her official permanent departure in October. 

READ: Carrie Bickmore announces she is leaving The Project for good.

"I think with any big decision there'll be doubt. I'm leaving at a time which I'm so happy to be here, which is so confusing!" she said at the time.

"The easy decision obviously would be to stay because I love it here, I absolutely love it here. But I want to find out who I am without the show," she continued. "This show is so much in my DNA, and I don't know who I am without it."

That's a journey that Bickmore is now heading off on – one without her regular night shift on The Project desk. 

"I look forward to being at home, being able to help Chris out a bit more – but I'm not leaving TV," she said.  

This article was originally published on October 12, 2022, and was updated on December 1, 2022.

Feature Image: Channel 10/Instagram @bickmorecarrie.