Emily Seebohm opens up on relationship with Nova 106.9’s David ’Luttsy’ Lutteral
After a very public split with fellow swimmer Mitch Larkin, Emily Seebohm has found love with another famous face. And the duo say they’ve never been happier.
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FROM THE outside, Emily Seebohm and David “Luttsy” Lutteral couldn’t be more different. She’s a 27-year-old Olympic swimmer who loves discipline and early nights. He’s a laid-back Nova breakfast radio host, “big kid,” and 16 years her senior. But somehow, they say, theirs is a relationship that just works.
“I’m the happiest I’ve ever been,” beams Lutteral, 43, looking at Seebohm, as the pair sit down to talk to U on Sunday in their first interview as a couple. “Em has a calming influence on me … it’s just effortless.”
Seebohm smiles back, “It’s really nice and sweet to have someone who really cares and is willing to look after me.”
It’s been a tumultuous ride for Seebohm to get here: happy, content and ready to fall in love again after her very public split with fellow swimmer, Mitch Larkin, just over 12 months ago.
The former golden couple of swimming were together for almost three years and shared a million-dollar home in Hendra together, before Seebohm announced their break-up on social media, amid rumours Larkin was having an affair, which he has since vehemently denied.
The scandal rocked the Australian swim team shortly before the Pan Pacific Championships in Tokyo, where the two swimmers were competing.
In the days following the controversy, Seebohm said she “wanted nothing to do with him’’ and now, months on, admits she still can’t face Larkin.
“Unfortunately, I do (still see Larkin) … I don’t really have any way of getting around that because we’re both in the same industry but it’s a bit like look to the left and pretend he’s not there,” she tells U on Sunday.
Yet as much as the break-up took an emotional and physical toll on Seebohm, she says, what unfolded happened for a reason.
“I feel like I’m in a different spot in my life, it obviously taught me a lot and I came away worse off but better off because I met someone truly amazing,” she says, breaking out into her signature megawatt smile.
“Someone that I feel is very genuine with his feelings and very, I guess, mature and what I’m looking for, someone who will treat me right and who will look after me and will be there to support me, so, I guess I came off pretty well.”
When they met, Lutteral – who has been with Nova since 2005 – knew how fragile Seebohm was and says he was also still healing from a previous two-year relationship (which ended 12 months prior to meeting Seebohm). He knew they needed support from each other.
“I don’t want to sound like I jumped in like some sort of caped crusader,” he laughs.
“I’d come out of a relationship as well, I was probably in a fragile state until we met and in that sense, the timing for me was amazing.
“As most people know, if you let things from the past linger in your head, it can play tricks on you. For me, meeting Em wiped the slate clean and I thought, ‘What am I doing?’ Let’s move forward. “She was an absolute godsend in that regard for me … I’d like to think I was kind of the same.” Lutteral, who is a Brisbane Racing ambassador, and Seebohm “reconnected” in January at a Volkswagen event and quickly became good mates.
Despite Lutteral gushing with admiration for Seebohm on his breakfast show, Ash, Kip, Luttsy & Susie, about her charity work raising awareness for endometriosis, the pair insist they were “just friends” for most of the year.
“Everyone thought we were definitely dating because we were seeing each other almost every day,” he says.
“When Em was riding (her horses), I’d watch and hang out with her, we just really enjoyed each other’s company. It took a while to probably change into something else because we didn’t want to screw that up.”
Seebohm adds: “We didn’t want to ruin something that was really nice and something that I think helped both of us and made us both feel better.”
They made their relationship official in June and in August, Lutteral announced the news on air when Seebohm surprised him at the Nova studio after she’d arrived back in Australia following the FINA Swimming World Cup in Singapore.
It’s taken until now, however, for Seebohm to open up about the relationship, as she faced her own personal challenges.
Seebohm took a major blow to her swimming career in June when she failed to be selected for the Australian team. Her chances of becoming the first woman to win three straight 200m backstroke world titles vanished and her form was questioned.
But she admits the shock omission was the wake-up call she needed.
“I feel like it gave me a big kick in the butt; I need to work harder,” she admits.
“It was super disappointing when I didn’t make it but I don’t think I was shocked … it kind of gave me the courage that I needed to go OK, I need to change it up and do something different.”
In a bold move so close to the Tokyo Olympics next year, Seebohm dumped her coach of three years, David Lush, and signed on with Michael Bohl, the former coach of Olympic medallist Stephanie Rice, on the Gold Coast.
“I needed something different and I didn’t want to finish next year and think ‘maybe I should’ve made one more change and (wait to) see what could happen’,” says Seebohm, who will compete in International Swimming League events in London in November and Las Vegas in December.
“If it does go the way I like, or if it doesn’t go the way I like, at least I’ve made a decision knowing I did everything I possibly could.”
At the same time Seebohm was making big moves in the pool, she was also weighing up life away from the water with Lutteral, who has become her loudest cheerleader.
“At the end of the day for me, I don’t know anything about swimming and I don’t pretend to give her any sort of advice other than support and that’s all you can give, like the rest of her family,” he says. “It’s such an exciting thing to see an elite athlete at that level strive for greatness, it blows my mind what she does and the dedication, I don’t think people quite understand what it takes to reach that top level of Olympics and swimming …
I find it completely phenomenal.”
Seebohm now trains at Griffith University on the Gold Coast and splits her time – as does Lutteral – between the coast and her Brisbane home. As she rattles off their hectic weekly schedule (including Wednesday night dinners with each other’s parents), it’s exhausting.
But Lutteral, who lives in an apartment near Seebohm’s Hendra home, says he’s willing to do whatever it takes to be with her.
“Em has a really intense schedule with her training, normally it would be something you’d need to work hard to compromise on or find the space to be together, but I actually find it completely effortless,” he says.
“I want to do everything she’s doing and it’s a cool journey she’s on.” And for Lutteral, that means indulging in Seebohm’s love for horses, going to watch her ride at the Northern Suburbs Pony Club or walking her one-year-old dalmatian, Pongo.
a part owner of a racehorse he named One Shy Ruby. Picture: Mark Cranitch
“If you said I’d be going to Pony Club, and enjoying it, a year ago, I wouldn’t have believed you,” he laughs. “I’m probably doing things now that a year ago I would’ve thought, ‘Why would I be doing that?’ but it’s cool, I like it.”
The pair do have common ground at the races; Seebohm a horse-lover and rider and Lutteral,
a part owner of a racehorse he named One Shy Ruby. “I’ve been coming to the races with dad since I was a kid, at Doomben and Eagle Farm,” says Lutteral. Both he and Seebohm grew up on Brisbane’s northside – Lutteral in Aspley and Boondall with parents John and Toni and older brother Brad and half-sister Karen; and Seebohm with her parents and brothers Tom, Jack and Will.
“Now I co-own a horse with Chris Anderson, the trainer, a guy I went to school with and Chris Lynn the cricketer, Anthony Seibold, the Brisbane Broncos coach and a bunch of other friends from school,” he says.
With Lutteral a breakfast radio host and Seebohm an early riser for swimming training, it made sense for them to be together.
“He has really fitted into my lifestyle really easily and it (swimming) isn’t as easy as what everyone thinks so it’s nice to have him as someone who understands and is really capable of working around me a lot,” she says, with the couple spending each night together commuting between homes on the Gold Coast, where Seebohm lives with a friend, and Brisbane.
“I know there will be a point where I’m going to be the one working around him but he does it without even complaining or making a noise about it. I know he gets tired because I see him coming down to the coast and we fall asleep by 7pm but he never says anything or complains about it.”
Lutteral is quick to add, “Even though it sounds ridiculous, I find it incredibly calming … I’m less hectic than I’ve ever been.”
He also says, he’s the healthiest he’s ever been, the perks of dating an elite athlete, he jokes.
“I definitely drink less beer,” he laughs. “And less nights out,” smiles Seebohm. “I don’t want to be that person that’s a bad influence, I want to be a positive influence,” says Lutteral. “People have said to me, ‘Gee, you seem the happiest I’ve ever seen you’, and I am, which is really cool for me … I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.”
It might be because she puts up with his larrikin personality or because he suffers through episodes of Love Island with her (“I try to watch it before he comes down to the coast,” Seebohm jokes.) Or, despite their 16-year age gap, they still find a way to make it work.
“You still act like a child,” she laughs at the same time Lutteral says, “I find you really mature”. They share a loving laugh before Lutteral smiles, “I think we meet in the middle then”.
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