Sophie Delezio is one busy lady.
Not only is the 22-year-old in the midst of planning her dream wedding to fiancé Joseph Salerno and settling into their new home, but she’s also been working hard at her journalism career.
Now, she’s landed a major TV gig for her efforts!
WATCH NOW: Sophie Delezio and her fiancé Joseph buy an apartment together. Article continues after video.
New Idea can exclusively reveal the double car crash survivor has joined Channel Seven’s top-rating current affairs show, 7NEWS Spotlight, as a presenter.
Sophie has been quietly interviewing other extraordinary Aussies for the last few months ahead of her big debut.
“When you’ve experienced so much of life and so much hardship, you know what matters more than a lot of people and you know what you want,” Sophie said recently.
“Why not just take the beautiful moments and hold onto them?”
Sophie now gets the chance to share these “beautiful moments” created by other inspirational Australians in her new role.
We’re told Seven has been keeping news of Sophie’s appointment under wraps as she hones her skills on camera.
“I’m looking to go down a different path,” Sophie hinted when she announced her engagement to Joseph in April.
They met in Year 9 at Oxford Falls Grammar School but only started dating three years ago after Sophie chose a year in London to study.
Having spent so much of her young life in the eye of the media, Sophie decided that she wanted to turn the tables. She started her career as a columnist, interviewing inspirational people for Body+Soul magazine.
“I hope to be able to connect strangers to each story – to show the beauty behind the pain of these incredible people,” Sophie explained at the time.
A self-confessed “lifelong chatterbox”, Sophie went on to write columns about what resilience meant to people like 12-year-old Ukrainian refugee Yeva Skalietska, teacher Rosa Passaro, who had both her legs and both her arms amputated because of sepsis, and Australian doctor, lawyer, and disability advocate Dinesh Palipana, who became just the second person with quadriplegia in Australia to graduate medical school.
Earlier this year Sophie left Body+Soul to retrain as a TV journalist when she was offered the 7NEWS Spotlight gig. It’s expected her first story will air next year.
It will be a huge 12 months for Sophie, who plans to wed Joseph, 23, in front of 160 family members and friends at a vineyard in NSW’s Hunter Valley.
Among the guests will be many of the doctors who worked to save Sophie’s life when she suffered third-degree burns to 85 percent of her body and lost both feet, a number of fingers, and an ear when a car crashed into her daycare centre in 2003.
Three years later she was hit by a car and thrown 18 metres while being pushed across a pedestrian crossing.
Sophie says it was 2GB talkback radio host and former Today presenter Ben Fordham who inspired her to try her hand at journalism.
“She’s got a gift – a wonderful skill when it comes to communicating and being able to understand the difficulties that people go through,” Ben said.
“She’s such a special human being, with a warm, generous, and inquisitive soul.”
