Sally Ridge is an interior designer and former television presenter living in Grey Lynn, a middle class suburb of Auckland, New Zealand. Ridge was known in the past within New Zealand as a television presenter on shows dealing with interior decorating, including the TVNZ television series, Home Front[1] and Changing Rooms. She was also one of the 'celebrities', on the 2001 New Zealand series of Celebrity Treasure Island. Along with Anita Simpson, she runs 24 Simpson Ridge, an interior design company.[2] A 2011 Herald Story suggests that this company has now wound up, and a Google search reveals no website for this firm which operated, according to newspaper mentions, in 2003-2004
Ridge has also promoted herself as a painter[3] and fashion designer, having created some fashion items with Verge New Generation. [4]
Her serious involvement in arts is disputed however. A somewhat scathing comment in the social pages of 2008 remarked that it must be a slow week when the gossip pages of NZ's media start discussing Sally Ridge's fascination with arts and crafts. [5] Her painting, an early 1994 effort put up for auction at Webb's in early 2009, was passed in. [6]
Between 2007 and 2010 Sally Ridge led an apparently tumultous personal life, often via the media. However by 2011 her life appears to have settled down to writing a weekly crafts column for a woman's magazine, and making appearances at various events.
Ridge was formerly the wife of ex-international cricketer Adam Parore, with whom she has two children and of rugby union and rugby league international Matthew Ridge. They also have two children.
Shortly after the break-up with Ridge in July 2001, Sally appeared in a raunchy photo spread for Ralph magazine [7] She was said to be 29 years old at the time.
Ridge and Parore were in involved in a controversial house demolition when they wanted to demolish a 100 year old house and replace it with a new building.[8] In 2009 the couple were embroiled in a $1 million leaky homes lawsuit. The sale of her dream home for less than 2008 prices left another disappointment which was played out in public. [9]
The year 2010 was not good - and reflected the fallout of the post 2008 economy. A cencellation of an extensive tour of Europe with the Hotchins, and closure of Ridge's fashion retail stores James & August cemented an annus horribilis. [10]
In fact 2010 Sally Ridge earned an element of public and media scorn for her involvement with failed property developer Mark Hotchin[11], not only by holidaying with the Hotchin family in Hawaii after his company went into liquidation, but later, when it was revealed that she had a contract to decorate his expensive Paratai Drive mansion, itself a touchstone of scorn in the face of massive investor losses. [12] http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/celebrities/3845489/What-the-Kiwi-gossip-mags-say#comments />
But deeper criticism followed the closure of James & August, with as much as $1 million rumoured to be owed to suppliers. [13] [14]
In 2011 Ridge made the gossip pages of the weekend pages for a story [15] about her auctioning of a variety of second-hand goods via Trade-Me. These included little-used gym equipment, bicycles and fashion accessories. Ridge later denied the story; claiming that the TradeMe activity (which included the auctioning of two-hours of Sally's consultancy time - worth, the auction said: $500) was a result of her daughter's activities: not her own. She claimed to Amanda Midgely gossip columnist of the Sunday Star Times that she felt her "privacy had been invaded," an unusual admission for somebody who regularly sells her story to the media. [16] Earlier in 2010 the NZ Herald printed a story that revealed Sally's approach to managing media stories. [17]
In May 2011 she took part in a fashion show in Christchurch, also featuring model Nicky Watson, to raise money for the earthquake relief as part of the successful Rise Up Christchurch Telethon on Maori Television.[18]