Sally Ridge
Encyclopedia
Sally Ridge is an interior designer and former television presenter living in Grey Lynn
Grey Lynn
Grey Lynn is an inner residential suburb of Auckland City, New Zealand, located three kilometres to the west of the city centre. Originally a separate borough, Grey Lynn amalgamated with Auckland City in 1914....

, a middle class suburb of Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...

, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

.
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
Home Front (TV series)
Home Front is a lifestyle television series airing on TVNZ's channel Television One in New Zealand. It combines "home makeover" ideas, home maintenance and DIY tips, and guided tours around the homes of well-known New Zealanders...

and Changing Rooms
Changing Rooms
Changing room may refer to:*changeroom, a room or enclosure in a clothing store where customers may try on clothes before purchasing them*Changing Rooms, a BBC television series*The Changing Room, a stage play by David Storey...

. She was also one of the 'celebrities', on the 2001 New Zealand series of Celebrity Treasure Island
Treasure Island (show)
Treasure Island is a popular reality television game show produced in New Zealand by Eyeworks Touchdown as well as in Ireland and Australia. In the show, contestants are isolated on a remote Fijian island and compete for a cash prize...

. Along with Anita Simpson, she runs 24 Simpson Ridge, an interior design
Interior design
Interior design describes a group of various yet related projects that involve turning an interior space into an effective setting for the range of human activities are to take place there. An interior designer is someone who conducts such projects...

 company. 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 and fashion designer, having created some fashion items with Verge New Generation.
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. Her painting, an early 1994 effort put up for auction at Webb's in early 2009, was passed in.

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.

Personal life

Ridge was formerly the wife of ex-international cricketer Adam Parore
Adam Parore
Adam Craig Parore is a former wicket-keeper and batsman for the New Zealand cricket team. He played 78 Test cricket matches for New Zealand and 179 One Day International cricket matches...

, with whom she has two children and of rugby union and rugby league international Matthew Ridge
Matthew Ridge
Matthew John Ridge is a New Zealand television presenter as well as a former All Black, and rugby league captain for the Manly Sea Eagles, New Zealand Warriors and Kiwis....

. 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 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. 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.

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.

In fact 2010 Sally Ridge earned an element of public and media scorn for her involvement with failed property developer Mark Hotchin, 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. 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.

In 2011 Ridge made the gossip pages of the weekend pages for a story 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. Earlier in 2010 the NZ Herald printed a story that revealed Sally's approach to managing media stories.

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.
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