Australians have fallen in love with Kiwi comedian Urzila Carlson in recent years as she appeared on The Masked Singer and Have You Been Paying Attention.
But when she’s not starring as a panellist or making us cry-laugh in her Netflix special Unqualified Loser, Urzila lives a quiet life with her partner and her two kids in New Zealand.
The 48-year-old, who was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, now lives in the suburb of Henderson in Auckland.
Urzila prefers to keep details of her family life strictly private, never posting photos of her partner or kids on social media and rarely discussing them in interviews.
In 2022 she did disclose a few more tidbits of info about her relationship on Mamamia’s podcast No Filter, revealing that she met her ex-wife Julie when she was 32 years old.
“I met her at a rugby game, where all good lesbians meet. We connected immediately,” Urzila said.
Urzila and Julie tied the knot in 2014, but it is believed they have since split.
The couple have one boy and one girl, who both were conceived via a sperm donor. “It was crunch time. So we actively looked into getting pregnant and luckily for us, it was instant,” she explained on the podcast.
“My approach has always been it needs to be manageable. If we’re travelling with the kids, Julie can look after one and I can look after the other. If there was a third one, it would be a bit tricky. And even now on the big planes, a row consists of four seats, not five. So we figured two is enough, and financially manageable.” Urzila said.
“I share nothing of my kids on social media, the same with my wife. That’s my line,” she added. “Plus Julie and my boy are very shy. If when he or my daughter grew up and saw something I had posted years earlier [they didn’t like], I can’t take that back.”
In an episode of Have You Been Paying Attention? in May 2024, Urzila revealed she was engaged sharing on the panel that “she immediately said yes,” however she has not publically disclosed any other details of her new relationship.
Urzila has always chosen to keep the identity of the couple’s sperm donor private, even refraining from disclosing any details in her memoir Rolling With The Punchlines.
“It really pisses me off when I get complete strangers coming up to me after a gig and asking where we got the sperm from,” she told The New Zealand Herald in 2016.
“It’s like asking a straight guy what style he used to knock up his wife, or a straight couple if they’re having fertility problems.
She added: “Aside from that I do love it when people come up and talk to me. It’s what makes my job so amazing. Heaps of them say, ‘Can I have a hug?’ I say, ‘Yes you can. I wish I could have a picnic at a park and hang out with all these people.”
Urzila was forced into quarantine for weeks in 2020, after a COVID-19 outbreak on the set of The Masked Singer shut down production.
As well as isolating in Melbourne, she then had to see out another 14-day quarantine period in Auckland before she could return home to her family.
She filmed the finale of The Masked Singer from her Auckland hotel room and appeared via video link.
While it wasn’t all smooth sailing, Urzila joked that she actually enjoyed hotel quarantine because she got some much-needed alone time.
“What a God damn nightmare it would be to be stuck in a hotel room with two kids,” she told the Daily Telegraph.
“I’d have been making a shiv on the first day,” she joked.
She revealed that being holed up in a hotel room all by herself had actually allowed her to indulge in some luxuries she hadn’t been able to enjoy for years.
“I love my own company. I’ve had a bubble bath every day since I’ve been here. Because I can,” she said.
“If I try and have a bath at home those kids try and get in with me and that’s not what a bath is about.
‘That just takes all the leisure time out of it. You know, now I’m sitting on the plug and they make you be on the tap side and the cold water tap that never ever drips normally, will drip on you.”
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