16 hours ago
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There are two glasses of white wine sitting between Jules Neale and podcast host Adelle Petropoulos.
This would initially suggest that we're about to get the kind of gloriously loose tell-all usually reserved for a girls' lunch after the second bottle of sauvignon blanc.
Excellent, I thought. Truth serum. What's that old saying? Sunlight and white wine are the best disinfectants.
- The Debrief with Savanna Young is now available on the Daily Mail's YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts, with new episodes dropping weekly.
Sadly, the booze was nothing but a prop. Ten minutes in, neither woman has taken a sip and the only thing being spilled is an exhaustive list of their favourite restaurants.
Welcome to Pretty Sure, the podcast that managed to secure a sit-down with one of the most talked-about women in Australia... only to wait an agonising 34 minutes to ask her about the thing everyone tuned in to hear.
For anyone living under a rock, Jules split from Brisbane Lions star Lachie Neale last year after he had an affair with her former best friend Tess Crosley.
The sauvignon blanc was naught but a prop during Jules Neale' podcast interview with Adelle Petropoulos, which would have been a lot more interesting if Adelle let her guest get a word in
(In a coincidence for the ages, Tess spoke to Daily Mail podcast The Debrief with Savanna Young the very same week the Pretty Sure pod dropped. It's a much better chat - check it out if you haven't already.)
The scandal had it all: a premiership-winning AFL star, a wife whose heartbreak was matched only by her beauty, an ex-Mormon mistress with a bombshell figure, and a betrayal so brutal it made the rest of us look at our group chats a little differently.
Jules has largely kept quiet since then, minus a few leaks to the media here and there. So when she finally sat down for a podcast spill, I grabbed the popcorn and prepared for revelations.
Instead, we began with... flirting.
'I'm trying to flirt with you,' Adelle told Jules early on. Fair enough. Jules has had a tough run with men. Perhaps this was simply Adelle submitting an application from the other side?
As an aside, both women have those lovely, shiny Botox foreheads, which reminded me that I must book a top-up...
Then came restaurant chat. So much restaurant chat.
We heard about posh places in Melbourne, what they ordered, and the apparent erotic power of the French language.
A miserable-looking Lachie Neale fronted the press at Brighton Homes Arena on January 2. He would step down as Lions co-captain after wife Jules exposed his affair with her best friend
Jules and the 'other woman' Tess are pictured at the height of the scandal. Eight months on, both women broke their silence in podcast interviews, with Tess speaking to The Debrief
'My nipples got really stiff,' Adelle announced while discussing hearing someone speak French. 'Someone says "oui" in front of me and I drop my pants.'
Jules revealed that her favourite meal in Perth is a chicken cutlet. Wow.
By the five-minute mark, we had moved on to their favourite restaurants in Brisbane. At seven minutes, Adelle unleashed another forensic question: what is your favourite coffee spot in either state?
Two minutes later, we discovered Jules doesn't really like coffee.
Never mind. Adelle had a story about stressing over where she would get coffee during a trip to Queenstown.
By now, the untouched wine glasses had become a rather apt metaphor for Jules herself: placed invitingly in front of us, but barely allowed to fulfil their intended purpose.
At nine minutes and 40 seconds, Jules made the first attempt to steer the conversation towards her ex. She spoke about enjoying her return to Perth because it allowed her to rediscover who she had been before... him.
Finally, I thought, here we go.
Nope. Adelle swiftly moved us on to Jules's self-care rituals. Anger intensifies.
For the curious, they involve getting up, putting on makeup and doing her hair. Jules mentioned skincare, prompting Adelle to declare: 'I'm actually getting a little turned on, Jules. An LED mask? Ooh, yum!'
By 11 minutes, we were hearing about how much they enjoy supermarket shopping. There was talk of the Coles beauty aisle, face creams and the seismic revelation that Jules enjoys Turkish delight.
At 14 minutes, the conversation moved to motherhood. Jules spoke movingly about struggling to conceive and how much she adores her children. As someone who is child-free by choice, I admit this was the point where my mind wandered back to those untouched glasses of wine. By 17 minutes, still not one sip.
I wasn't the only viewer starting to lose the will to live. The YouTube comments were brutal.
'This was a painful watch. Jules deserved a better platform to tell her story,' one wrote.
Another said: 'The host spoke over her too much. Really annoying listening.'
A third added: 'The jokes and getting-turned-on comments were gross. The performative glass of wine. Interviewer was looking at her screen while guest answers, talking over her and poor choice of questions.'
Fair call, listener. Fair call.
At 20 minutes, we paused for a lengthy discussion about the eyelash serum that sponsored the show. Because of course. Apparently, the serum transfers to your lower lashes when you blink. Quick, write that down.
Eventually, we learned about Jules's childhood on a New Zealand dairy farm and her family's move to Australia. We heard about living in various Australian cities. Brisbane, according to Jules, feels like a 'big country town'.
At 24 minutes, Jules dropped another opening by mentioning that she and Lachie got married in Perth before moving to Brisbane immediately afterwards.
Adelle ignored it and asked about her support system. For God's sake, woman. Let her speak.
Within weeks of this photo of the Neales and Crosleys being taken after the AFL Grand Final in November, both marriages had imploded due to Lachie and Tess's affair
This image of Jules and Tess biting Lachie's premiership medal aged like milk weeks later
At the 25-minute mark, we arrived at her marriage. Jules revealed that her relationship with Lachie had moved quickly. They dated, moved in together and married within a relatively short period.
Adelle responded by reminding everyone that she doesn't follow the AFL. This would not be the last time.
Jules was 21 when she met Lachie, who was 18, at a nightclub. They married when she was 28 and he was 25. She sold her hair salon before moving to Brisbane, expecting to fall pregnant quickly. When that didn't happen, she worked in another salon for three years while they tried to conceive.
At 30 minutes, Adelle finally asked something interesting: after everything Jules sacrificed to support an elite athlete, did she believe Lachie would have done the same for her?
'No,' Jules replied.
'At that level of elite sport, you have to kind of be selfish in a way, to put in the time and the effort to excel at that level.'
It was a revealing answer about the uneven machinery behind many high-profile sporting marriages. One person's career becomes the family business, while the other rearranges her life around training schedules, interstate moves and the relentless needs of the club.
Then Adelle asked whether the team helps WAGs excel in their own businesses.
Why would they?
At 33 minutes and 50 seconds, we reached the scandal. At last. Get the popcorn.
Jules admitted that she was probably the person who leaked the story, although not in the traditional sense. After discovering the betrayal, she claimed that people within the club's circle urged her to keep everything 'hush-hush'. The proposed public line was that the couple were 'working through a marital issue.'
Jules refused to play along. She posted on Instagram that she wasn't 'working through' anything and had been betrayed 'in the most unimaginable way'.
She explained that whatever protected Lachie no longer protected her because they were no longer a team.
Now that is the sentence the whole interview should have been built around.
Jules also revealed that she discovered the affair through another Lions WAG, who passed the information to one of her closest friends. That poor woman was then left to make the phone call nobody wants to receive.
She said the betrayal made her question everyone around her. Did the other players know? Were their wives and girlfriends aware? Was she the last person in the room to learn what had been happening in her own marriage?
Thankfully, she believes only a small number of people were aware.
As Jules began explaining why professional footballers may have more opportunities to cheat, Adelle interrupted with something her therapist once told her. This, of course, required a lengthy explanation of Adelle's own experience with infidelity.
Jules revealed that she discovered Lachie's affair with Tess (pictured) through another Lions WAG, who passed the information to one of her closest friends
I momentarily forgot this was supposed to be Jules's interview. Perhaps she was merely another studio prop, much like the sauvignon blanc.
When the focus eventually returned to Jules, she disclosed that this was not the first time Lachie had cheated. Years earlier, she had received one of those stomach-dropping 'Hey, girly' messages containing receipts.
Before receiving it, Jules said she would have bet her life that he would never betray her. She stayed after being assured it had been a one-off mistake that would never happen again.
She had a young daughter and didn't want to dismantle her family over something she believed they could repair.
Her description of that choice was one of the strongest moments in the interview. Leaving after betrayal is terrifying, she said, but staying is hard too. Once someone has detonated the trust in your relationship, there is no painless option available.
When she discovered the more recent betrayal, however, her decision was immediate.
This time, Jules later learned, it was a four-month affair with her best friend Tess. Initially, she had been told it was only a kiss. She packed up her children and returned to Perth before discovering the full extent of what had allegedly happened.
She rejected rumours that she and Lachie had been swingers or in an open relationship, quite reasonably pointing out that she probably wouldn't have uprooted her entire life over a kiss if that were the arrangement.
Jules also addressed the peculiar outrage over her decision to keep the surname Neale. Her reasoning was perfectly understandable: it is the same surname her children have, and sharing that name with the two most important people in her life matters more than the opinions of strangers.
At the 54-minute mark, Adelle belatedly acknowledged her tendency to hijack proceedings, saying, 'I'm sorry to bring it back to me, but…'
She then brought it back to herself.
This particular story involved her break-up with a chef. Jules dryly pointed out that it wasn't quite the same because 'at least he doesn't have a name.' Brutal. Fair.
There were some genuinely worthwhile revelations buried near the end. The club offered Jules therapy, which she accepted, and she has also been trying hypnotherapy to help bring her brain out of fight-or-flight mode.
She said she would love to visit a rage room, although Perth apparently doesn't have one. Adelle promptly steered the conversation towards how she isn't really a 'ragey' person.
How insightful.
Jules also revealed that she wasn't warned that Lachie had a new girlfriend. She found out about the relationship through the media, along with everybody else.
Asked what advice she would give someone considering dating a professional athlete, Jules didn't hesitate.
'Don't do it.'
Lachie has moved on with a new girlfriend, Emma Field. They are seen kissing in the post-match room after Brisbane's victory over Collingwood at the MCG on August 21
Her more universal advice was even better: women should maintain their own bank account and build a stash of 'f*** you money' or 'runaway money'. After what she has experienced, she said she will never share all her finances with a man again.
Thank God for Jules. That may be the most valuable piece of information delivered in the entire hour.
For the final question, Adelle asked what advice Jules would give women who know infidelity is occurring in their relationships.
Jules had barely begun explaining that every woman's circumstances are different when Adelle cut in to deliver her own verdict on cheating.
And that is how the episode ended: with the host answering the question she had asked her star guest.
After an hour of flirting, supermarket chatter and frequent detours into Adelle's romantic history, I finished the episode knowing plenty about the host's feelings towards French accents.
The woman who had endured the actual public scandal was still fighting to finish a sentence.
Still, whenever Jules managed to wrestle the microphone back, she was measured, candid and surprisingly generous. She didn't present herself as a woman who had marched fearlessly out of her marriage at the first sign of trouble. She admitted she had stayed before. She had believed the promises and tried to save her family.
This time, she chose herself.
And if you can endure the discussion of Turkish delights and stiff nipples long enough to hear her say it, Jules's real message is worth listening to: keep your own money, trust what someone's choices are showing you, and never confuse protecting a man's reputation with protecting your peace.
Final tally of wine sips consumed: zero.
