Radio host Robin Bailey has opened up about her affair prior to the suicide of her late husband in a raw new interview.
The KIIS FM Brisbane radio host made the personal admission ahead of the release of her new memoir, Flamingoes Aren’t Born Pink, describing the “dire consequences” her decision had on her family.
Bailey, 57, was widowed in 2014 when her husband of 15 years, Tony Smart, took his own life following a battle with depression. The couple shared three sons: Fin, Lewin and Piper.
Speaking to QWeekend ahead of the release of her book, she explained that the pair had separated but were “still living in the house together” when she engaged in the affair.
“I’m not making excuses, I’m just explaining … I think everyone should question what their own moral compass is on that,” she said.
“Because a lot of people have affairs, not everyone’s ends like mine does, but the feelings are the same. The betrayal, the anger.
“In my space it had dire consequences and I think people will harshly judge me and I think there are a lot of people that will probably see me very differently and that’s their right. But it is the truth.”
Bailey also admitted she wasn’t sure she’d ever actually publish the details of her extramarital relationship, but had written it down as she “just needed to make sense of it”.
“I needed to not blame anyone else, to take my responsibility in it,” she said.
“ … The hardness for me was not sugar-coating it, not denying my involvement in it, being truly honest in my decision-making because we are all everything. Like, we’re good, we’re evil, we are bad. We make good choices, we make terrible choices. And my choice had a diabolical consequence for the three most important people in my life.”
The popular radio veteran was struck by tragedy again just five years after Smart’s death.
Eleven months after marrying her “soulmate”, Bailey’s second husband, radio executive Sean Pickwell, passed away following a battle with cancer.
“What can I say, my big beautiful panda has gone,” Bailey wrote in a Facebook post in 2019.
“He died as he lived, his way, at home with us holding him early this morning.
“In this moment there are no words or feelings that can truly express the love and gratitude I have for my husband Sean Pickwell. He came into our lives and healed us. He loved me so hard and taught me so much and now whatever life throws at us we will be stronger, wiser and more fierce because of him.
“He was my absolute soulmate,” Bailey continued. “The true love of my life and whatever I do from now on he will be in my heart and in my corner cheering me on.”
Flamingoes Aren’t Born Pink by Robin Bailey is out on March 31.