Phoebe Burgess has revealed she has not dated anyone since the breakdown of her marriage to former NRL player, Sam Burgess.
In a new interview with the Stellar podcast Something To Talk About, the mum of two opens up about ‘why she has not been on a date in seven years.
“My life isn’t overly app attractive. What photo would I pick? The kids and me at school drop-off? Me at an event? There’s not one photo,” she told Something To Talk About host Sarrah Le Marquand.
“I would judge any man who would click on my profile, put it that way. I would really ask questions.
“And then the bio: 37, divorced, everyone knows about it. Uh, two children. I don’t get weekends off – ever – so you’ll have to work around that. And I live at home.
“There’s nothing appealing in that.”
After her very public and well-chronicled divorce, the 35-year-old said her “safe place” is now with her children, daughter Poppy, nine, and son Billy, seven, who she shares with her ex-husband.
Listen to Phoebe Burgess on a new episode of Something To Talk About below:
Sam is now a coach in England, and has remarried and started a new family – he and his now-wife Lucy have welcomed two children, with a third on the way.
While Burgess admitted to frustrations at having to constantly navigate the headlines, “new life” was to be celebrated.
“It was irritating that our lives and names would be intrinsically woven together for all of eternity, it feels like sometimes,” she said.
“There’s all the ways that you feel you should handle or cope with things – and the way you do – and I think I walk that fine line.
“The only thing I lean back on is what it means to Pops and Bill. That’s my safe place.
“With anyone who is bringing new life into the world, you celebrate it.
“If we’re told about it or it comes up in the kids’ lives, the only thing you can do is be deeply happy for someone.”
Listen to Phoebe Burgess on a new episode of Something To Talk About below:
Asked about the marriage split between AFL player Lachie Neale and his wife Jules that has dominated the news cycle for the last several months, the content creator told Something To Talk About, “I think whenever something similar to what we went through happens to someone else, there’s this knee-jerk reaction to go, ‘Oh, I wonder what Phoebe thinks of that.’
“It’s something that so many women go through.
“But when it is scrutinised and laid out for the whole world to see, to enjoy, to be entertained by and to judge, that’s a different beast.”
She also saw similarities in Jules being asked whether she would get rid of her married surname – something Burgess gets asked to this day.
“Those decisions can often be quite rushed. In the immediate aftermath … that was something that people were really fixated on,” she said.
“I made a decision back to this day: that the children were going to go through enough fundamental, earth-shattering change, but they didn’t need to be one name while I was another.”
After a few years of keeping a low profile, Burgess is ready to step back into the spotlight with the launch of a new podcast co-hosted by Below Deck: Mediterranean star Hannah Ferrier.
“I’ve been so rigid in keeping some things in place because I was wanting to protect [the kids],” Burgess said.
“And it’s not control. It’s to make sure that what was important was set up and safe before going off and doing something new and exciting for myself.
“I think that’s good. Mummy’s off to work. It’s healthy for them.
“I think they need to see my tail lights every now and then.”
Listen to Phoebe Burgess on a new episode of the Stellar podcast, Something To Talk About, out now wherever you get your podcasts. Read the cover story with Phoebe in a new issue of Stellar, inside The Sunday Telegraph (NSW), Sunday Herald Sun (Victoria), The Sunday Mail (Queensland) and Sunday Mail (SA).
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