Unpacking The Jules Neale & Tess Crosley Post-Affair Podcast Drama

While many close to Jules and Lachie reportedly advised the couple that it was best to keep the news quiet, Jules told Petropoulos, “I felt like the people that were protecting him or what was good for him was no longer good for me.”

It’s a sentiment that speaks to a familiar dynamic in relationships where one person’s career is afforded primacy. Loving a professional athlete, or anyone whose career commands a certain level of public attention, can require a particular kind of selflessness, as their ambitions and achievements often come to occupy the centre of both lives.

From childhood, athletes are accustomed to being indulged for their talent. And much like celebrity, sporting prowess can inspire a kind of devotion that makes those at its centre feel almost untouchable.

“At that elite level of sport, you have to be kind of selfish in a way to…excel at that level,” Jules said.

“In our relationship footy came first…when you’re at that elite level everything has to come after that,” she said. Reflecting on his career being the priority, she noted, “I was fine with that…that success is our success, and I’m all for you being the best at what you do. So I’ll cover all of this, and you can just do that.”

There is, of course, a difference between supporting someone’s ambition and shouldering the entire burden of a relationship, a distinction that can become blurred in such dynamics. When the heavy lifting of compromise and sacrifice falls disproportionately on one person, you would only hope that the other might, at the very least, offer fidelity and respect.

It is a tension familiar to many women inadvertently relegated to the role of WAG, a label Jules herself described as carrying a “negative undertone”.

“In my experience, WAG’S are some of the most incredible women that I’ve ever met. They’re physios and architects and lawyers and incredible mothers. They’re doing all of that and supporting somebody in elite sport as well which comes with its own sacrifices and pressures.”

What Did Jules Neale Say On ‘Pretty Sure’ Podcast?

Jules met Lachie when he was a rookie at Fremantle. After his trade to the Brisbane Lions, she moved across the country with him, and the pair welcomed daughter Piper in 2021 and son Freddie in late 2024. But after Piper’s birth, Jules discovered that Lachie was cheating on her, meaning his alleged affair with Tess was not his first purported infidelity.

“I got one of those awful ‘hey girlie’ DMs with receipts. The worst day of my life, didn’t leave bed for four days. Before that I would have bet my life that he would have never done that to me ever. Then I was reassured that that was a one off thing, it would never happen again, biggest mistake of his life, yada yada yada. We already had my daughter together, so I decided to stay and try to work on it. I just felt like after that people can make mistakes.”

She continued, “And if it was a one off mistake, I don’t want to break up our family because of it, I’ve got too much at stake here for her. So, I did stay. It was really hard. If something like this happens to you in your relationship, if you get cheated on, betrayed in any way, leaving is so hard and scary but staying is hard as well.”

It is against this backdrop that the latest betrayal becomes all the more difficult to reconcile. Jules said that Lachie had “an ongoing 4 month affair” with her “best friend”. Reflecting on the scandal, Jules recalled revisiting months of seemingly innocuous interactions with both her ex-husband and ex-best friend, now viewed through the bleak clarity of hindsight.

“I was going back the last 4 months of interactions and conversations and being like ‘I’m such an idiot'”, she continued, “It’s gross, just awful.”

Professional athletes are often afforded a curious latitude by the public, a certain indulgence that many seem content to inhabit. There is a familiar, unspoken dance between male athletes and their female admirers: as a partner, you place your faith in someone to honour that trust, only to discover that it has been taken for granted.

Tess and her partner Ben Crosley married in 2017, but it is believed that they split earlier this year after she was caught up in the alleged affair with Lachie Neale. In January, Ben told reporters that Tess no longer lived at their marital home in Brisbane, and she was seen moving boxes in February.

Ben and Tess lived just minutes away from Lachie and Jules Neale, with the two couples frequently spending time together. For her part, Crosley is expected to release a podcast on Thursday.