Just before Jett Kenny headed overseas to begin the crazy travel challenge that is The Amazing Race Australia, his mum, Lisa Curry, made an unexpected and rather wonderful suggestion.

Perhaps Jett and his girlfriend might like to take some of his late sister Jaimi’s ashes with him so that she, too, might experience a little more of the world?

“Jaimi was with us the whole time,” says Kenny, 29, whose debut on the show marks four years to the month since he lost his big sister after complications following a long battle with mental illness and alcoholism.

“It was Mum’s idea which was pretty cool because whenever she goes travelling she takes some of Jaimi’s ashes and spreads them around the world. Having her in our backpacks meant she went to a few more places she’s never been before.”

Although Kenny and his girlfriend, businesswoman and popular influencer Lily Brown, intended scattering the ashes, they ended up keeping them in their backpacks so she could stay with them throughout the experience.

“It was like she was our guardian angel,” says Brown, 26.

Cuddled up on the sand dunes of Point Cartwright beach on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, Kenny and Brown are remarkably open about all aspects of their lives including their relationship, baby plans and the curious mix of grief and pragmatism that comes from losing a much-loved sibling. In fact, the only thing they can’t talk about in detail is the one subject we’re officially here to discuss – their starring roles in The Amazing Race Australia: Celebrity Edition.

Competing against the likes of Olympian Ian Thorpe and his childhood mate Christian Miranda, country singers Brooke McClymont and Adam Eckersley, TV host Pete Helliar and his wife Bridget and father-and-son AFL players Billy and Oscar Brownless, you’d think such a newly formed couple might have a lot to lose but, if anything, it appears to have strengthened their relationship.

As they finish each other’s sentences and good-naturedly point out respective idiosyncrasies, it quickly becomes apparent why they’re such great TV talent. Of course, ironman and influencer Kenny has already won over audiences with his appearances in Gladiators, SAS Australia and Dancing With The Stars but Brown’s cheek and ease suggest she’ll be equally compelling. Indeed, anyone thinking the genetically competitive and ocean-honed Kenny might have been the driving force, think again.

As Brown admits, it was she who became tetchy when she thought her boyfriend was dragging his heels.

Says Kenny: “Without giving too much away we were in the middle of a park in Buenos Aires and there was one point where Lily turned around and she’s like ‘hurry up’. I was ‘woah, woah woah’.”

Brown cringes at the memory: “I had to apologise back at the hotel that night. I really surprised myself with how competitive I was,” she says. “As soon as we got off the start line my brain just changed and I was like, ‘We have to win.’”

This is not the first time Kenny has been in the running for the Network 10 show, hosted by Beau Ryan. He and a mate, James Porter, were keen last year but didn’t make the cut.

This time around he’s in the mix with producers clearly seeing the appeal – and drawcard – of his animated girlfriend. So how does Porter feel at being turfed?

“Look, he was a bit upset that he didn’t get the call up but, yeah, no, he’s fine,” Kenny says. “He’s just got married recently and they went on their honeymoon so he has his own things to worry about.”

Lest anyone deduce it’s a case of babes before bros, Brown is clearly an inspired inclusion. With 331,000 Instagram followers (Kenny has a rapidly growing 71k) the couple come with a ready-made fan base. That said, influencers can generate a fair degree of scepticism. People either want to be like them or to find fault with them because however successful they may be, some refuse to see “content creation” as a real job.

Fair enough, but sharing their lives via their social media channels means these two don’t baulk at some of the more probing subjects that other, more conventional “celebrities” shy away from.

Babies, for instance. We’re not even discussing their family plans – after all they’ve only been together less than two years – but they jump right in, revealing that they’ve talked about having children since they became a couple in December 2022.

Says Kenny: “(Kids) have been on the agenda for almost two years but there’s no real rush or plans to have them. Ideally, we’d like to get a house first and that would be the first step towards growing our family.”

Adds Brown: “As Jett said, I don’t think we’re in any rush …”

Interjects Kenny: “I don’t think we’re far off.”

Intriguing. So which is it? Kenny explains: “We’re not far off but not far off can also be two or three years. I don’t know. We don’t really plan too much for these sorts of things.”

What is clear is that family means the world to both of them. In fact, as Brown points out, it was her mum Nat who first suggested to her daughter that Kenny might make an ideal boyfriend.

Nat, who makes regular appearances on Brown’s social media, was watching SAS Australia back in 2021 and was impressed by the young contestant who later threw in his armband after suffering a huge physical toll.

Brown, who created the sleepwear brand Chille and hosts Red Hot The Pod, says: “Mum’s exact words to me were, ‘You should follow this guy. He’s so hot and he loves his mum.’

“She fully played Cupid.”

Kenny, who previously dated his Dancing With The Stars partner Lily Cornish, takes up the story: “Lily started following me on Instagram. I saw her little profile picture pop up and I was like, ‘Hot redhead, yep, sweet’ and followed her back two days later. I didn’t want to seem too keen.”

The pair soon started messaging. “He was very charming and very witty,” recalls go-getter Brown who explains she confected a “work trip” to the Sunshine Coast just so they could meet.

“I was like, ‘The client has booked me accommodation, I’ve got this huge shoot on the beach and maybe I can meet you after but maybe not because I’m super busy,’” Brown says, laughing.

The ruse worked. Kenny turned up with two bottles of bubbles and they went out to dinner but it would be another 18 months before the pair finally got together.

“During that time I was in a few weird situationships,” Brown says.

“But we were always good friends so we kept in touch. I’d FaceTime him and we’d chat for hours.”

“She loves a FaceTime, our Lily,” Kenny says.

“She’d FaceTime to tell me she was going to the shops or she’d FaceTime while she was having a conversation with someone else.”

Clearly it didn’t put him off. “I ended up asking her out and it went from there.”

The couple’s relationship was rumbled when fans noticed the pair had separately posted pictures to their Instagram featuring the same sofa in the background.

For Brown, who is close to her parents Nat and Brett and brother Cooper, it was Kenny’s attitude to family that captivated her.

“He’s so gentle and caring and loving,” she says. “The thing I found so attractive in Jett is just how much he loves his parents, how close he is with his family and how great he is with his little nephews (his sister Morgan has three sons, Flynn, six, Taj, three, and Kit, two). Every time he’s on the phone with his mum or dad he’ll say ‘love you’ at the end without fail.”

Having lived on the Gold Coast, Brown has now relocated to the Sunshine Coast to be with Kenny, moving in with him and his dad so they can save to buy their own home. Apparently, the senior Kenny, who won a bronze medal in kayaking in the 1984 Olympics, is delighted with their new housemate.

“Dad loves it because Lily is such an amazing cook,” Kenny says.

“When it was just Dad and I we’d do a lot of chicken and salad …”

“Or Guzman on Uber Eats,” interjects Brown.

“Yeah, it was pretty plain,” continues Kenny. “I think it’d be pretty lonely there by himself but I think he loves it because he doesn’t have to worry about cooking anymore. Now he comes out of his office after working all day or he’s come back from a 23-hour flight from Europe and Lily has got some chicken with garlic and mustard seeds and … I don’t know how to explain it but it’s better than what Dad and I were eating.”

Kenny has never known a life where his parents were not in the spotlight.

Commanding both pool and ocean, Lisa Curry and Grant Kenny were as golden as the medals they rapidly accrued and for a long time they personified what it meant to be Australian.

But fairy tales are just that. Years on from their sporting success – Curry won seven gold, two silver and a bronze across three Commonwealth Games – they are still beloved, less for what they’ve achieved and more for what they’ve endured. The couple split in 2009 but have remained close and were united when their eldest daughter died, aged 33, in 2020.

While Curry has told her story through her memoir, Lisa, it’s rarer to get a child’s perspective on their parents’ split but Kenny is forthcoming and insightful.

“We’re very fortunate that our family is still so close because I know a lot of families whose parents have split and the kids either detest or resent one of their parents,” he reflects.

“We’re so lucky Mum and Dad worked through whatever they were going through at the time and, yes, they split up but now we can do Christmases together. Mum’s remarried and our whole family just fits in together which is so nice. It says a lot about them that they were able to work through things and, honestly, I’m so grateful. It hasn’t changed anything, they’re still my parents whether they’re together or not and they’ve always tried to do the best for me and my sisters.”

Kenny has huge admiration for the way his parents raised him.

“It’s not the easiest thing to grow up in a family that’s in the spotlight,” he says.

“I remember as an 11-year-old being on the front page of the newspaper but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I have a lot of respect for Mum and Dad because there was never any pressure from them for myself or my sisters to accomplish anything. They just wanted us to be fit, happy, well-mannered kids, and hopefully we’ve done them justice.”

As he approaches his 30th birthday in November, Kenny is clearly focused on creating his own family with Brown who, he says, reminds him of his late sister.

“Lily cooks better but, like Jaimi, she’s very loving and caring and puts a lot of people before herself which is hard to do when you’re running businesses.”

While Kenny now views death as “inevitable” he also believes his family’s suffering is no different to those who lose a daughter or sibling but don’t have the Curry/Kenny profile. “There are people who are going through the same things that my family went through.”

What is now coming into sharper focus, is the ongoing loss.

“[Losing Jaimi] was an eye opener that death is a part of life but there are days when I sit there and remember I had an older sister. It’s sad that she’ll never get to hang out with Lily and she’ll never meet our kids,’’ he says.

Mostly, he regrets that Jaimi won’t have the children she yearned for.

“She always wanted to be a mother,” he says.

“She always wanted to have kids. I know for a fact that when Lily and I have kids and we want to go out for dinner and need a babysitter she would have been the first one there.”

Likewise, as his thoughts turn to parenthood he appreciates more what his parents have lost.

“No parent should ever have to experience losing one of their children. Everyone is different in how they deal with it but Mum has started a big conversation about grief,’’ he says.

What’s clear is that loss has left Kenny with a huge appetite for living – whether that’s battling shoulder surgery to get back ocean paddling (he was momentarily irked to be beaten by his 61-year-old dad) or travelling to Japan with Lily’s family later this month or being chivvied along by his girlfriend in The Amazing Race.

He reveals his gag reflex didn’t let them down too much – even when confronted with eating a cow’s tongue – but he won’t reveal whether Brown’s questionable directional skills cost them victory.

“They got us from A to B,” he says, smiling at Brown.

“It may not have been the most direct route but we got there in the end.”

The Amazing Race Australia: Celebrity Edition screens on 10 and 10 Play on September 9.