The trouble with Helen Razer
Summary of ABC TV program on 8:30pm, Thursday, 12th November.
Part of the "Australian Stories" series.
Summary by Chay Neal.

Firstly, this is not an official summary or review. I watched the story about Helen on ABC and thought I would type up some of the details mentioned for everybodies benefit. I cannot guarantee that everything in here is 100% accurate, but I did my best!

Helen Razer, broadcaster & author, is an intelligent and well recognised triple j person. Helen Razer is not actually her real name, she changed it so that it was not so boring and to avoid her parents getting death threats.

Helen did the 3 hours of power on triple j for a while and then moved on to do the breakfast show for five years with Mikey Robins. After that she went on to do the Ladies Lounge in the afternoons (now known as the Departure Lounge).

She had a very hard time at school and never enjoyed it. She had a really hard time.

Helen also had an eye problem which made it very difficult for her. Her eye problem couldn't simply be fixed by wearing glasses or something. It meant that she could not clearly see anything far away, she had to be very close to something to see it.

Heaps of mail was sent to Helen Razer as she was a national star. Some of these mail would have been fan mail but some of it was horrible mail such as glasses of urine, death threats, dead roses, and other horrible things.

In August 1997, Helen was stalked. The stalker, Ari, left voice mail messages for her, rang triple j constantly. Nobody except Helen thought this was that big a deal.

On February 5th, 1998, a boy came into the studio and waited for Helen. He then approached Helen and said crazy things to her. He told her that they 'were married in another dimension or another life time or something. And if only she could see..' . Adam Spencer soon came in and pulled the boy out of the room.

Eventually the stalker was arrested. But he was soon back. Helen was still very distressed about the whole thing. Somebody at work told Helen that "she couldn't handle a little thing". After this she broke down and never went back to triple j. She said she couldn't go back to the ABC studios without feeling ill.

She went to see a psychiatrist because she was finding it hard to do anything in her life.

Helen has now also died her hair dark brown to change her appearance.

Above: Helen - the old look. (taken from the triple j web site)

I for one, really hope that Helen does get over things and come back to triple j. As Mikey said, she is very tallented and it would be a real loss to broadcasting if she never came back.

I hope this also answers everybodies questions about what happened to Helen Razer. Send any comments, or report any mistakes in the information above to me at chayn@ozemail.com.au.

There is also an interesting interview with Helen at http://www.shootthemessenger.com.au/u_apr_98/life/l_hrazer.htm.

And there is a site at http://hyperstrumpet.abc.net.au that you might want to look at, with some interesting input from Ms Razer herself.