12-05-2025
Seven star Angela Cox opens up about the 'double heartbreak' of losing her mother and letting go of her own motherhood dream
Channel Seven newsreader Angela Cox has opened up about losing her mother and the emotional journey of accepting she may never have children of her own.
The popular 7News Sydney anchor revealed in an emotional interview that her mother died just one day before Mother's Day, as Cox herself was quietly grieving the realisation that her "window to motherhood" had closed.
The Mackay-born journalist told Stellar she shared a final, heartbreaking evening with her mum before she died, following a four-year battle with eptomeningeal disease, a rare form of brain cancer.
Larelle had first been diagnosed with breast cancer 15 years earlier, which metastasised four times into brain tumours.
Cox said a strong feeling led her to abandon her usual post-bulletin routine and head straight to the palliative care home where her 71-year-old mother was staying.
"Normally I'd go home after work because she would sleep but that evening something didn't feel right. I sat with her, taking her vital signs," Cox said.
Accompanied by her twin sister Belinda, brother Jason, and brother-in-law Trent, who had been the primary caregivers for her mother during the last four years of her life, Cox spent the night at her bedside.
The next morning, she stepped out briefly to pick up coffees, and returned just in time.
Within two minutes of Angela's arrival, Larelle took her final breath.
"It's very much my mother that she would be dramatic and die the day before Mother's Day so we'll never ever forget that. She had a flair for the drama," she said, laughing through tears.
Amid the pain of losing her mother, Cox was also navigating her own private heartache: accepting that the "fairy-tale" she'd envisioned of "having the house, husband and two kids" wasn't going to work out "that way" for her.
"When the window to motherhood closed it was a difficult time of shifting how I saw myself and my life and having to embrace the positives."
While Cox admitted she felt like she "had a ton of bricks on my chest" after her mum's death, she found perspective in the loss.
"I refuse to be a person who becomes bitter, resentful, sad and joyless because I don't have what I thought I was going to have," she said.
Cox, who first made her mark on Spotlight in 2017, has had a glittering career with Channel Seven spanning more than two decades.
As the network's US correspondent, she covered everything from the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales, to the Olympics, and even stood in the Oval Office when President Obama met then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
In September 2024, she was named co-anchor of the 6pm 7News Sydney bulletin alongside veteran journalist Mark Ferguson, a major milestone in her career.
Outside of work, Cox said she's rediscovered joy through surfing, one of her mother's favourite pastimes, and is determined to live "the most adventurous, colourful life".
It's understood she's currently in a long-distance relationship with London-based real estate professional Philip Griffiths.
"I've experienced beautiful passionate love in my life and I want to keep having deep, meaningful connections until I die," she said.
