A resurfaced interview has revealed Lachie Neale was brutally rejected by wife Jules when they first met around 15 years ago.
The former AFL golden couple, whose separation was confirmed last week, first met in a Perth nightclub when Lachie was 18 and Jules was 21.
At the time, Lachie was playing for the Fremantle Dockers, and it was his teammate Matthew Pavlich who introduced him to the now mother of his children.
“The first time I met Jules I was 18 and I asked Pav to introduce me to her,” Lachie recalled in a 2019 interview.
However, Lachie didn’t get the reaction he’d hoped for, and Jules brutally rejected his advances.
Revealing her savage response, Lachie told Perth Now: “He (Pav) came back and said, ‘She’s not interested in an 18-year-old Harry Styles lookin’ kid’.”
The pair went their separate ways but reconnected around six years later and began a whirlwind romance.
Lachie, now 32, popped the question in 2017 after just nine months of dating. They wed in a luxurious Perth ceremony the following year.
They now have two young children: Piper, four, and Freddie, one.
Lachie has previously revealed how Jules packed up her life in WA to support him when he was transferred to the Brisbane Lions in 2019.
Jules, 35, sold her successful hair salon and left behind her family and friends in order for Lachie to follow his dreams. She now works for the Mikki Auld salon in Brisbane.
The mum-of-two previously opened up about how tough she found the move across Australia, admitting it was a “big thing” to leave behind her life in Perth.
“It was a lot of work to build that business up and it was a big thing to leave behind,” she told The Courier Mail in 2020.
“It’s been a tough year away from family and friends. We left a lot to move here. It was a big decision for us and for me to leave the business I had. I’ve never lived away from my family.
“The success the team had this year and the Brownlow, it makes it all worth it, to see everything we sacrificed pay off and him achieving his goals. I’m in awe of him,” she added.
Just over five years later, their marriage has dramatically imploded.
AFL fans were stunned last month when Jules announced she had been “betrayed in the most unimaginable way” and publicly slammed her former best friend, Tess Crosley.
“Take these down you idiot, you’re embarrassing yourself,” she wrote under Crosley’s now-deleted photograph of her with the ex-couple at the Brisbane Lions’ AFL final celebrations.
Over on her Instagram Story, Jules denied reports she was “working through” issues with Lachie and said her focus was now on “trying to heal” and caring for her children.
“I want to make it very clear that I am not ‘working through’ anything. I have been betrayed in the most unimaginable way.
“All I can do now is try to heal and do what’s best for my children,” she said.
Last Friday, Lachie publicly confirmed their split and announced he was stepping down as the Lions’ co-captain.
“While I won’t go into specifics, I can say that I have let my family down and I apologise for my actions that have let down those that are closest to me. And for that I am deeply sorry,” he told a press conference.
When asked directly whether he had been unfaithful, Neale responded: “No, I can’t address those rumours.”