Australia’s original golden couple share their top secret for a happy marriage

Australia was captivated when small-screen heart-throb Cameron Daddo and wildly popular cover girl Alison Brahe got married. Now Daddo opens up about their three decades together.

She was the original Aussie cover girl whose perfect teeth and sun-kissed tresses graced countless editions of Dolly magazine. He was the small-screen heart-throb from one of our most celebrated entertainment dynasties.

So when Alison Brahe and Cameron Daddo embarked on a whirlwind romance in the early ’90s, it heralded the arrival of one of Aussie entertainment’s first bona fide golden
couples — the type that would be later replicated by the likes of Bec and Lleyton, Nicole and Keith and, more recently, Hamish and Zoe.

Cameron Daddo and wife Alison Brahe at the Logies in 1992. Picture: Instagram

But, amazingly, while the rest of the country was captivated with the photogenically blessed duo, the couple themselves remained oblivious, according to Daddo, who says they did not twig to their celebrity until decades later when they returned to Australia after almost three decades living in the US.

“Honestly, I think we were in a bit of a bubble in those early years,” says Daddo, who proposed to Brahe after just three months of dating, when she was just 21 and he was 24.

“Maybe we were a bit naive, but at the time I just remember falling madly in love and just going about our business and truly not being aware of the level of interest that, apparently, there was in us.

“And, of course, this was long before social media and things like that. And we packed up and moved overseas in 1992, so we became even more removed from the Australian entertainment industry.”

The couple spent almost three decades living in the US.

Daddo says that it wasn’t until the couple returned in 2017, now a family of five, having raised three kids during their years in the US, that they became aware of “what we left behind”.

“Coming back and talking to people about those years … it was really the first time I started getting a sense of where we actually were in 1992,” he says, joking that the couple would have been “Insta-mega-famous” by today’s standards.

“Sometimes I think that, absolutely. Had we come along 20 years later we could have made a fortune and wouldn’t be in the housing market looking to buy a home where we are now.”

However, the couple have forged something of a new name for themselves since returning home.

Daddo, Brahe and their three children. Picture: Instagram

They now helm the popular relationship podcast Separate Bathrooms, on which they discuss the “warts and all” aspects of marriage — a refreshing change from the airbrushed versions seen on TV and social media.

The title, Daddo says, is a riff on a topic rarely discussed publicly.

“It came about when we were looking to build a house, one of the first things Alison said to me was ‘Well we have to have separate bathrooms. I’m sorry’,” laughs Daddo.

“We’re all about honesty. Because I think if you can be open about the struggles then anyone else going through the same thing can relate to it and instantly realise ‘Hey, I’m not alone in this’.”

Season two launches on the Nova Podcast Network this week.