{"id":377546,"date":"2025-12-29T05:40:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T05:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/377546\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T05:40:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T05:40:15","slug":"wayne-carey-tore-a-club-apart-with-his-own-infidelity-scandal-now-footys-most-controversial-man-says-lachie-neale-is-getting-off-lightly-over-his-marriage-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/377546\/","title":{"rendered":"Wayne Carey tore a club apart with his own infidelity scandal. Now footy’s\u00a0most controversial man says Lachie Neale is getting off lightly over his marriage crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wayne Carey still lives with the stigma of his infamous affair with a married teammate over two decades ago, and now he has offered up his opinion on the latest marriage scandal rocking the AFL.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The former North Melbourne captain recently spoke on the You Can’t Be Serious<\/a> podcast, hosted by AFL controversy magnet Sam Newman.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Newman could not resist bringing up the allegations of marriage infidelity that Brisbane Lions star Lachie Neale is currently wrestling with<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Carey rocked the\u00a0AFL<\/a> world with his 2002 affair with Kelli Stevens, the wife of his North Melbourne teammate and best friend, Anthony Stevens, while Carey was married to his then-wife, Sally McMahon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The scandal triggered Carey’s exit from the team, public condemnation, the collapse of his marriage to Sally, and a lasting rift with Stevens that resurfaced in a heated confrontation years later<\/a>, despite Carey saying he had apologised.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That explosive \u2013 and very public \u2013 marriage breakdown has drawn parallels with Brisbane Lions<\/a> star Lachie Neale, who is experiencing his own relationship crisis in a very public forum.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Former <\/p>\n

Former AFL star Wayne Carey (right) gave his take on the biggest marriage drama in Aussie footy when he appeared on Sam Newman’s You Can’t Be Serious podcast<\/p>\n

\"Carey <\/p>\n

Carey spoke about the current allegations of marriage infidelity facing Brisbane Lions star Lachie Neale (pictured with his wife Jules)<\/p>\n

\"Carey <\/p>\n

Carey was at the centre of footy’s greatest marriage scandal after his affair with teammate Anthony Stevens’s wife Kelli (Carey and Stevens are pictured)<\/p>\n

Neale and his wife Jules reportedly spent the festive period in separate states as their marriage breakdown continues to play out publicly.<\/p>\n

The situation escalated in December after Jules said she had been ‘betrayed in the most unimaginable way’ in a social media post<\/a>,\u00a0later calling out a third party, Tess Crosley, who became entangled in the fallout, though there has been no suggestion of wrongdoing on her part.<\/p>\n

Jules has since returned to Western Australia<\/a> to be with family, while Neale is understood to be spending time in South Australia<\/a>, with neither party issuing a formal public statement.<\/p>\n

Newman brought up the allegations made against Neale, and accused the Australian media of treating him differently to Carey.<\/p>\n

‘You would be front and square, or I would be, but it seems to just drift on with no real controversy,’ Newman claimed.<\/p>\n

‘They treat people with kid gloves if they want to, don’t they?’<\/p>\n

‘I look at people’s comments about someone’s personal life, I will say this and I’ve said this a million times, generally people that have the strongest opinion about what someone else does in their personal, private life are doing way worse in their own,’ Carey replied.<\/p>\n

‘So for all those people that sit on their ivory tower, Sam, they are generally doing a lot, lot worse than those they are judging.<\/p>\n

\"Carey <\/p>\n

Carey was married to his first wife\u00a0Sally McMahon at the time of the affair that tore North Melbourne apart<\/p>\n

\"Stevens, <\/p>\n

Stevens, pictured with then-wife Kelli, was best friends with Carey but now there is a deep divide between the pair<\/p>\n

‘You know what, what Lachie Neale does in his life with his family, with whoever else, friends, whatever, whose business is that but theirs?’<\/p>\n

Newman pressed Carey further, saying, ‘You know very well that if you are in the public eye, it’s everyone’s business.’<\/p>\n

‘It shouldn’t be, but it is,’ Carey replied.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘The sad part about anything that has been in the news \u2013 and this is what I have empathy for \u2013 I feel for children that get dragged into it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘You would prefer those things, like everyone else’s life [when] they go through issues, that they don’t have to be dragged through the media circus that we live in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Unfortunately, Lachie’s kids have to be dragged through this, which is terribly sad.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘That is something that he will wrestle with over the coming months.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘It’s their business. Not mine. And\u00a0I would be a hypocrite if I was to sit here and be judgmental, wouldn’t I?’<\/p>\n

\"Sam <\/p>\n

Sam Newman suggested that Neale’s marriage issues are not receiving the same attention that Carey got back in 2002 (Neale is pictured with Tess Crosley, left, and wife Jules, right)<\/p>\n

\"Carey <\/p>\n

Carey attacked those criticising Lachie and Jules (pictured together), saying their private lives must be a lot worse than what the footy star and his wife are going through<\/p>\n

Carey has moved on from his past dramas and is now a father of four, after welcoming his second child with girlfriend Jessica Paulke in January<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He also has two daughters from previous relationships: Ella with ex-wife Sally McMahon, and Charlotte with former fianc\u00e9e Stephanie Edwards.<\/p>\n

Jules Neale has unfollowed her husband on Instagram and removed images of the couple together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She made their marriage issues public recently when she posted a message reading: \u2018I want to make it very clear that I am not “working through” anything.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘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. Thank you for the love and support.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

Neale still follows his wife and has retained their images on social media, including a picture of the two of them celebrating the Brisbane Lions back-to-back premiership win earlier this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Neale won the Brownlow Medal for the first time in 2020, he revealed the sacrifices that Jules had made<\/a> to accommodate his highly-publicised move from Fremantle to the Lions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018My wife Jules, she\u2019s an amazing human being,\u2019 Neale said at the time.<\/p>\n

\u2018Not many people probably know but she owned a salon in Perth before we decided to move to Brisbane. She had to sell that to come over here and follow my dreams.<\/p>\n

\u2018She was doing very well for herself over there but she always puts me ahead of herself when she shouldn\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n

\u2018She\u2019s the most selfless person I know and my biggest support, so thank you very much Jules, I love you.\u2019<\/p>\n

When he won the medal again in 2023, he again paid tribute to his wife, calling Jules his ‘rock’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wayne Carey still lives with the stigma of his infamous affair with a married teammate over two decades…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,3237,100,588,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-377546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-brisbane-lions","14":"tag-dailymail","15":"tag-sport","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}