There was a time during the ’90s that you’d have to have been living under a rock if you didn’t recognise Jo Beth Taylor.
The bubbly blonde starred in some of Australia’s biggest TV series of the time, including Funniest Home Videos, Hey Hey It’s Saturday and What’s Up Doc? before suddenly stepping out of the limelight altogether in 1997.
“There was Australia’s Funniest Home Video Show, then Daryl Somers asked me to be his Hey Hey It’s Saturday co-host. I wound up presenting What’s Up Doc? as well,” Taylor explained to New Idea ahead of her 50th birthday.
“Hey Hey was a blast to work on, and Daryl was so considerate. I got to sing regularly, interview legends like Robin Williams and Danny DeVito, and to hang with the likes of Tom Jones, KD Lang and Tony Bennett.”
But despite her major success as Australia’s busiest TV presenter, Taylor admitted she was “burnt out”.
On top of that, she had been dealing with personal issues that began to interfere with her work life.
“There were warning signs that I was headed for an emotional crash. I was burnt out, found myself crying for days on end and unable to leave the house,” she told the mag.
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“I was dealing with a stalker situation, plus there was that untrue but devastating rumour I’d done a sex tape.”
After moving to San Diego with a friend, Taylor took some much-needed time off, before briefly returning to TV for Starstruck in 2000, which was short-lived.
She then went on to star in the reality series Dancing with the Stars in 2010 and I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! in 2016, where she opened up about her reasons behind taking a hiatus from her blossoming career.
“There was a rumour that I’d done a porno and that really hurt me,” she confided to a campmate on the program.
“I felt condemned even though I’d done nothing wrong. There was nothing I could do. I just felt really attacked, even though I hadn’t done anything.”
Speaking to News Corp during her time on the Channel 10 show, Jo Beth was adamant that no such tape existed.
“There was no porn, I can guarantee,” she said,
“Someone had done one (a porno) and their really nice boyfriend at the time put it out there so there was one and then that started a whole lot of rumour and this whole list of celebrities came out.
“I was supposedly caught with someone at Crown Casino and it was supposedly shown on the screen — as if that happened, it’s so ridiculous,” she said.
You can read more about this topic over at the Film & TV Observer.
