'Pretty hairy': Monique Wright talks about the time she was taken hostage

Veteran Seven journalist Monique Wright has opened up about a traumatic hostage experience she suffered when was working in inner Mongolia.

Wright exclusively told The Nightly this week that during an interview, which was being filmed by her camera crew, the situation escalated.

“They didn’t like the line of questioning. We were taken hostage for a couple of days, but we did manage to get out. That was pretty hairy.

“It did take a bit of processing afterwards, and it was quite unbelievable, we didn’t really realise what had happened until we came home."

Demonstrating enormous resilience, she added, “When I was on the road, life was really busy, so you would move on to the next thing pretty quickly.”

 

 

 

 

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Monique Wright's 30 years with Seven

Wright celebrates 30 years as a reporter with Seven this year, having more recently been a host on Weekend Sunrise since 2014.

Reflecting upon her three extraordinary decades, where she's presented Australians with everything from breaking news to human interest projects, the journalist said to The Nightly:

"There is a group of us that have been here for a very long time — Nat Barr, Kylie Gillies, Chris Reason. There are a group of us that all went through our cadetships together.

“I haven’t always done the same job the whole time and there’s no reason to leave because I still love it."

Wright is a respected journalist, but apart from her work, her success is in part due to her ability to relate to people, especially Australians.

For example, in 2023, Wright shared with co-hosts Natalie Barr and David Koch that she had inspected multiple properties to rent without success.

“We’ve recently been looking, and we’ve looked at 30 properties,” she said on air.

“It is appalling. It is so appalling.

“You see it. People are desperate. We’ve been desperate,” Wright candidly said.