‘She fought until the end’: Jett Kenny reveals the heartbreaking final hours of sister Jaimi’s life
The note of distress in his mum Lisa Curry’s voice betrayed her and Jett Kenny knew and even guiltily hoped it was about his sister, Jaimi.
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Jett Kenny remembers every detail about that day down to his worn white sneakers and the sound of his mother’s voice on the phone.
He was clambering onto his scooter after a gloomy, rainy Sunday shift working as a lifeguard on the Sunshine Coast when his phone buzzed.
He answered, but still trying to protect him in that moment, Lisa Curry told her youngest child to call her back when he was home safely.
But the note of distress Jett heard in her voice betrayed her and he knew and even guiltily hoped, it was about his sister. It was about Jaimi.
“I could tell something was wrong,” Jett 26, says, speaking candidly for the first time, a year on.
“And in my head, I was like I hope – I didn’t hope this for any reason – if it’s going to be a family issue, I hope it’s Jaimi and it’s not (my other sister) Morgan or (her son) Flynn or anyone else, because I was like, our family doesn’t need to deal with more in a way.”
As he arrived home on September 13 last year, his father, former ironman, Grant Kenny, was preparing to leave for the Sunshine Coast University Hospital where Jaimi Lee Kenny, the eldest of his three children at 33, was on life support.
At the hospital with his family by his side, Jett said goodbye to his big sister.
“We ended up all at the hospital and that was the last time I saw her,” Jett recalls. “She fought all the way until the end.
“They took her off life support and eight hours I think she was off life support for until she finally passed away; the doctors thought it was going to be about a minute or two, so she was a fighter, that’s for sure.
“She originally got told she may not make it to 30, and she got to 33 so she battled on with it for a long time and it was much longer than that beforehand.”
It was late Monday that his parents sent out a joint statement announcing Jaimi had “lost her battle with a long-term illness and passed away peacefully in hospital” that morning.
The public was not aware of Jaimi’s lengthy struggle with mental health and the news triggered months of sympathetic outpourings from a nation that shared collectively in the family’s grief.
Jett, who juggles surf lifesaving with modelling and TV work, is speaking to Qweekend in Brisbane, where he is staying for few days to walk in his third Brisbane Fashion Festival (BFF). He points out he’s wearing the same casual shoes he threw on hastily that bleak, rainy day that will forever be etched in his memory.
He remembers all the little details. He rode his scooter in the drizzly rain to Mooloolaba Beach for his lifesaving shift. He recalls being annoyed when arriving that he was turned around to park elsewhere with the carpark blocked off for an ironman event.
His co-worker, having gotten engaged the day before, had taken the Sunday off so, dripping wet, and tired he set up for a solitary morning on the beach.
The day improved and he was thankful that, even through a global pandemic, his job as a lifeguard had remained the same as it had been for the past eight years. That was until at the end of his shift when he heard the concern in his mum’s voice.
He says the most difficult moments since then has been to see his parents grapple with the unspeakable grief of losing a child.
“I’ll remember that day and the events around it because it is momentous. No one wants to lose anyone, especially a sibling who is only a few years older,” Jett continues.
“That was obviously a tough time on our family, more so my parents than anything.
“That’s the hardest part,” he emphasises. “You see your parents, and that’s sort of the only thing that really gets me upset is seeing mum and dad so upset, because no one wants to see their parents upset in a way.”
“I remember the first time I proper cried about it was when mum was so upset. I was just like, ‘goddammit’,” he sighs.
“But after that it was just a matter of trying to be strong for them, I guess.”
In the years before Jaimi was born, in June 1987, Curry and Kenny were considered one of Australia’s most famous couples.
She had won three gold medals in swimming at the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games and he was regarded as the best surf lifesaver of all time, winning the junior and senior Ironman titles in 1980 at 16.
The country watched the Sunshine Coast couple’s three similarly sun-kissed children – Jaimi, Morgan and Jett, each four years apart – grow up and excel themselves.
Even the couple’s separation in 2009 didn’t follow a darkened route high-profile divorces often do. The pair remained close, Curry moved on and remarried entertainer Mark Tabone in 2018, and they never missed a Christmas Day together. Most of the family still lives on the Sunshine Coast within 8km of each other, Curry just thirty minutes away in the hinterland.
The Curry-Kennys seemed untouchable.
It came as an earth shattering thud when the pair announced on September 14 last year that Jaimi had died from an illness.
Despite Curry later revealing her daughter had been diagnosed with a “chemical imbalance” when she was a teenager and had “many years of ups and downs”, the family chose not to share details about Jaimi’s story.
But for Jett that final night together as a family was the end of a long battle he knew he couldn’t fully understand, and could only hope he never did.
But importantly it was one he knew his sister fought, right until the end.
“You wish she was still here but she’s not. We were fortunate enough that we knew it was coming, it was a matter of when,” he says.
“They (my parents) sit there and they think about what could have been done differently but I felt like mum put it well, she said ‘Jaimi was fighting demons in her head for so long, it was going one way or the other and unfortunately the demons won’.
“There is a realisation to it of what it was.
“Mental health is such a big one because you will never know what someone is going through until you’re in that situation. You don’t wish it upon anyone and you hope you never experience it.
“Unfortunately for my nephews, Flynn and Taj, they are going to grow up not knowing their aunt, which is upsetting as well.
“It’s a part of life. It happens every day and our family is no different.”
Jett had been dealing with his own crossroads before Jaimi’s death sent a shockwave of grief into their lives.
Born in Buderim, he was a natural sportsman and a promising nipper. He progressed to beach patrols, became a trained lifeguard after school and, soon after, an ironman like his father.
He’s been competing at the Australian Surf Life Saving Championships since 2009 when he began in the under 15 competition and has contested a number of finals as he transitioned to the open events, also serving as captain of Queensland’s surf lifesaving team.
His career highlight was in 2018 when he and fellow lifesavers Jamo Porter and Cooper Williams won the Summer of Surf Taplin series.
“We then went on to win the lifesaver relay at national titles with the addition of our female boat crew and a runner,” he says.
Jaimi, too, was a competitive swimmer in her teenage years and while Morgan took to dancing, performing for the Moulin Rouge in Paris at the age of 20.
But the Kenny surname has always been in bold for the blonde-haired, blue-eyed siblings and when his proud mother sent Jett’s photos to a Brisbane agency they signed him on the spot in 2016.
A modelling career took off at light speed with Jett a nerve-riddled passenger, and countless TV offers began rolling in as his working life split in two.
“Growing up I’ve always been the son of Grant Kenny and Lisa Curry; I was never Jett, I was always Jett Kenny,” he says.
“Even through school, which was weird for me, and my sisters were the same.
“I remember standing in front of a camera for the first time (for City Beach) and just sweating thinking ‘what am I doing?’.”
As he shot campaigns for fashion brands Billabong and Hallensteins, he remembers saying “I’ll never do catwalk”.
By 2018 he was walking in Sydney for David Jones’ star-studded Spring Summer Launch thinking “catwalk is the best thing ever” and has taken part in BFF ever since, with only slightly more comfort.
“It’s not something I’d usually do. I don’t dress up in nice clothes; I’m not super into fashion,” Jett says, pointing to the $30 pair of Lowes jeans he’s wearing. “I’m certainly not the most stylish person out there.”
He first appeared on Australian Ninja Warrior in 2018 and later The Real Full Monty and Dancing With The Stars in 2019, where he placed fourth.
Offers for dating shows popped up, as did questions about acting, but has refused both: “I’m petrified of standing in front of a camera or trying to rehearse a script”. He also fielded offers from other reality shows including I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Here! and the first season of SAS Australia.
“I remember after I finished Dancing a guy approached me on the beach,” Jett recalls of a day at work. “He said ‘Are you filming something?’ and I said ‘no I’m a lifeguard’ and he said ‘oh what? I thought you just did TV’.
“Every show I’ve done I always get referred to as an ironman and I’m like, people need to stop referring to me as an ironman because I don’t do it anymore, I’m busy doing this stuff.”
“When people ask me what I do with my life, I just say I’m a lifeguard.”
It’s hard to turn down a stint on television, but he did so in 2019 when he realised his athletic ambitions were unwillingly falling by the wayside to his other life, which was rapidly gaining pace.
He turned down SAS because the filming dates clashed with the surf lifesaving national titles and dating shows, too, were thrown to the scrap pile.
Jett wants a family at some stage and while he says it hasn’t worked out with any of the relationships he’s invested in over the last four years, “they have to happen organically”.
“Before family you have to at least get a girlfriend,” he laughs.
“It’s a matter of finding the right person. If you go looking for a relationship they are typically going to be the ones that don’t work.”
“Dating shows are a funny one because all the people who go on there typically wouldn’t have any trouble finding someone to date.
“It’s a matter of what I want to align myself with. I try to keep myself honest with what I want to do.”
At home on the Sunshine Coast last year Jett found himself contemplating his future. He continues to balance training and lifeguard work with the occasional modelling job, he was recently auctioned off for $2,500 at a charity function – the lowest amount of the day, he clarifies modestly.
“In my head I feel like I’m not really accomplishing anything, which is hard to say because I’m doing a lot of stuff that a lot of people don’t,” he says.
“I’m a lifeguard but I don’t want to be a lifeguard for the rest of my life. I sit there and try and think about things I’d like to do and want to do but if I knew what it was I’d be doing it.”
“I’m getting old now so if I want to finally do something in the sport I need to do it soon.”
Jett has grown up in the spotlight and remembers the photographers camped across the river on Christmas Day after his parents split in 2009 – and most years after that.
He was training the day his parents released the joint statement about Jaimi’s death and the reaction was overwhelming, but not unexpected.
He picked up his phone after the training session and saw a text message from a journalist, he simply thought, “OK, it’s obviously come out”.
“Someone I was training with had left and then came back because they were sitting in their car and heard about it,” Jett recalls of how quickly the news spread.
But the collective shock saw public interest in the family grow stronger than it had before.
Stories about Jaimi circulated daily alongside conversations about mental health, photos from her funeral were plastered across news sites and any posts from the family’s social media accounts turned into headlines.
“It was weird how much public interest there is, and I guess I forget about that because I don’t consider myself famous in any sort of way, or my family,” Jett says, bewildered again by the 20,000 Instagram followers he gained at the time.
“Yes, what mum and dad did back in their time was incredible but to me they are just my parents … my family is just my family, we’re not anyone special.”
“There are obviously people out there who are going to relate and I’ve met people who’ve been through a similar situation, they come up and just say ‘sorry about what happened’.”
He says while media photos were taken at her funeral, held the Saturday after she died, Jett doesn’t remember seeing photographers.
“Everyone was very respectful. I understand there is some interest in it and they are doing their job so you can’t be angry.”
The only time Jett lashed out at the public intrusion was last month, when he named and shamed an internet troll who had accused his mother of wanting “attention” because she posted comments on her son’s page.
“I woke up that morning with an, excuse my French, f--k it attitude,” he smiles.
“I get it about me all the time … but it was more so because it was about my parents. And the same thing happened a few years ago when I was on Dancing, a girl came out and said … ‘you’re not even famous you just come from two f--kwit parents’. I screenshot it and put it on my Instagram story, covered the name and they blocked me instantly, of course.”
“Say that about me, but as soon as it comes to family, there’s no need.”
When asked if losing Jaimi brought the Curry-Kenny family closer, Jett nods an “I guess so”.
“Our family is very close anyway,” Jett says. “It’s funny when you talk to people who have difficult family relationships. I can’t fathom that. My family is so loving and I’m very fortunate in that way.”
Morgan and her husband Ryan Gruell welcomed their second son, Taj, on November 5 – a brother to Flynn, 3 – and their family found a welcome new focus as they navigated the difficult first holiday season.
With a second offer from SAS Australia on the table, Jett took it, and despite filming again clashing with the Australian Surf Life Saving Championships.
In April he left the Sunshine Coast for the brutal special forces training course in the Blue Mountains in NSW, where for the first time, he could trade in being Jett Kenny and be nothing more than number seven.
“Yes it’s a tragedy but life has to go on,” Jett says. “In a way it was kind of good to go out and do something else.”
Jett felt out of place when he stepped out of the car to film the second season of the Channel 7 reality show and met the 17 other celebrities in the cast.
Apart from playing Call of Duty for many hours a day – “not that they tie into one another,” he laughs – he didn’t have any experience with the Special Forces, nor the same level of athletic success as recruits such as NRL star Sam Burgess and tennis veterans Alicia Molik and Mark Philippoussis.
“For me I just feel like I’m a normal person and these people are actual celebrities,” he says. “I’m just this lifeguard from the Sunshine Coast, I’m Grant and Lisa’s son – put them in there, not me.”
But they, like him, were stripped of their successes and given a number for the duration of filming as they were drilled by elite ex-soldiers, led by Ant Middleton.
“The physical and mental side appealed to me,” Jett says.
“I went in there with a plan to move my physical and mental walls forward and take that out of the show and apply it to my training and real life and I think I did that.”
Jett’s usual breakfast is Milo cereal on an indulgent day or a banana protein smoothie followed by four scrambled eggs, avocado and toast on a more mindful one.
“We had a hard-boiled egg and oats for breakfast every day,” Jett grunts, recoiling slightly at the memory.
He found himself sitting in the back of the car in the first few days thinking, “I might go home, I can’t be bothered” as his mind again drifted to his other life in surf lifesaving,
“I was thinking about nationals going on at the same time, thinking I wish I was home racing, I knew what races would be on at those specific times,” he says.
“But I’m glad I did it. I think I found a point where I was really struggling and I know if I was just at home training, I would’ve been like no … but I couldn’t do that.”
He never relented on the oats, though, resorting to one egg white for breakfast. Don’t get him started on seafood for dinner.
“I would’ve preferred a rations pack, just not oats; seafood and oats, nope,” Jett laughs, adding he lost 8kg during filming.
When asked of his favourite memories of Jaimi, Jett’s face beams into a smile and he shares a story only a brother would about a day home sick watching SpongeBob SquarePants.
“They said something and she just started laughing, I was like ‘what?’ like it was the funniest thing ever, I had never heard her laugh so hard in my life,” he smiles gently.
“That was kind of an inside joke between us after that.”
“When mum and dad separated she naturally thought she had to be mum, which she didn’t,” he continues.
“I think she just wanted to be because that’s all she ever wanted to be was a mum – always wanted just to have a little family of her own.”
Jaimi taught him to cook, or tried to, and together with Morgan they dressed up their younger brother and painted him in makeup.
“I’m pretty sure there’s a few photos laying around of me in dresses and what not. I wouldn’t change it for the world,” Jett says, pausing before he adds, “a brother would’ve been nice.”
“She taught me things that I guess I wouldn’t have learnt without her. I’m fortunate in a way that I have two older sisters and you learn a lot of things, one about women … unstable ground sometimes.
“But you’re obviously going to have those memories and photos up around the walls. There’s a photo of her and I above my PlayStation so whenever I’m gaming it’s just there.
“She will be missed.”
This week the Curry-Kenny family will mark a year since she died.
He says they will likely host a small family dinner, as they did for her birthday in June, because “It’s still a celebration of someone’s life in a way”.
“It won’t be easy for mum and dad because it will be a year,” he says.
“I think the second year will be easier in a way because you don’t have all those firsts – the first Christmas, the first Mother’s Day, first birthdays, all the sort of stuff. I guess it will get easier with time, as everything does.”
For Jett, now back on the coast where his family calls home, he’s beginning to feel more content about his future.
The closeness of his family, he says, “helps me to move forward with things”.
“I guess they are part of who I am today and I like who I am,” he says. “I’m very critical and hard on myself about most things, but I like that about myself and I guess everything that’s happened in the past has led to being where I am.”
“As for the future, I’m constantly thinking about things I want to do but for the time being I’m just taking the opportunities that do arise and diving into those things head first.”
Because the thing about the Curry-Kennys is they are fighters, in the spotlight or otherwise, right until the end.
SAS Australia premieres Monday, September 13 on Channel 7
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