Derryn Hinch: “There are only 2 words I want on my tombstone” (and it’s not ‘That’s Life’)

Derryn Hinch & Tony Tardio. Image: Facebook

Derryn Hinch jokingly refers to the daily medication he takes as his ‘Elvis pills’ – to prove that Elvis hasn’t left the building.

At 82 – and despite mounting medical challenges – the famed radio broadcaster hasn’t lost his sense of humour.

Sixteen years on from his life-saving liver transplant, today, the former 3AW host is ‘sort of recovering’ from infected leg wounds – sustained in falls – which have stubbornly refused to heal.

This weekend just gone, Hinch decided it was time to be particularly blunt.

“I am 82 and not that well,” he posted to social media. “BUT. I am still moving. Pretty happy. Thinking. Going out. Catching up with friends. Maybe one more year or 10. Who knows? So enjoy.  Appreciate still being here. Just do it. Be positive.”

In a candid and wide-ranging chat with former 3AW news presenter Tony Tardio (main photo with Hinch), for Tardio Unleashed Hinch reveals he neither fears – nor is he fazed – by the prospect of death.

“I’ve had a hell of a life. I’ve had an aisle seat on the world for 80 years.”

And he’s already recorded the ending to his own funeral.

As his signature Frank Sinatra tune fills the room, Hinch himself will be heard to say “I’m Derryn Hinch. That’s Life. Goodbye.”

It might not be in the Kyle and Jackie O ballpark, but when Hinch was hired for a two-hander show alongside Keith Williams on Melbourne’s 3XY in the late 1970s, he was earning megabucks.

“They were paying stupid money,” he remembers. “I think I got paid 60-thousand dollars.”

But Hinch freely admits he’s never been good with money.

“I’ve earned a lot of it, and I’ve spent it all.”

Later moving to 3AW, Hinch famously spearheaded the ‘newspaper’ style of morning radio, bringing the front page, breaking news and letters to the editor to the airwaves, always kicking things off with a strong editorial which his colleague Darren James referred to as ‘the 8.30 pull-through.’

“Various journos have told me how it inspired them to get into media,” Hinch says. “One of them was Eddie McGuire.”

There was no love lost with some of Hinch’s high-profile radio contemporaries.

Of his relationship with Bert Newton, Hinch says “We were rivals. We didn’t get on,” though the frostiness between them would thaw over the years that followed.

John Laws? “We never got on,” Hinch says. “Never friends.”

For a man who’s been gaoled for his crusade against paedophiles, been at the forefront at some of the world’s biggest events and rubbed shoulders with the likes of Teddy Kennedy, Princess Diana and Sophia Loren, how does Hinch want to be remembered?

“There’s only two words I want on my tombstone,” says. “And it’s not That’s Life.”

“It’s He Tried.“