Cody Simpson on how swimming and partner Emma saved him from ‘falling in’
He was just a teen hanging with Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber, intoxicated by what he calls the “drug” that is fame. Many have “fallen in”, but he was one of the lucky ones who got out.
Entertainment
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In a small, dimly lit studio on the Gold Coast, Cody Simpson is speaking softly into a microphone, his voice rising and falling like the tide.
Headset on, he takes a breath, leans in and says: “Picture the deep marine blue of the endless ocean, the soft sea-green of the tips of the waves. The shining bright blue where they crash, and the white foam left on the shore when they retreat.”
Simpson’s tone is pitch perfect for this project – recording four episodes of Audible’s popular Sleep Sound podcast series. Designed to help people drift into slumber, it features immersive soundscapes by well known stars, such as actors Sienna Miller and Jamie Dornan. Simpson is part of an Australian series of the podcast, along with Natalie Imbruglia and Pallavi Sharda. His episodes – Sleep Sound with Cody Simpson – feature guided swim meditations set in Aussie beaches, lakes and waterfalls.
Simpson is clearly at ease during the recording – laughing with the sound engineers, offering to do retakes (“I think we should do that last line again, I might have rushed it”) – and little wonder. The Audible gig combines the 26-year-old’s twin loves – the studio and the water – and for the past decade or so, he’s been dipping his toes into both.
After bursting onto the pop charts as a tousle-haired teenager from the Gold Coast, Simpson moved to Los Angeles for his music career in 2010, aged just 13. He went on to record best-selling albums, collaborate with Justin Bieber and Ziggy Marley, and star in the Broadway production of Anastacia in 2018-19.
A regular on Hollywood A-lists, he dated supermodels and superstars, such as music royalty Miley Cyrus, amassed more than 10 million social media followers, and then, in 2020, he walked away. Or more correctly, swam away, swapping his rock star sunglasses for a pair of swimming goggles, returning to his Gold Coast home, and announcing his tilt for a place at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The move surprised many, but not those who remembered his junior swimming career. When Simpson left Australia at 13, he was the-then national 12 and 13 year age champion in the 100m butterfly.
Even so, his announcement came as quite the shock in swimming circles; akin to someone dive bombing into the water, and soaking everyone standing open-mouthed on the pool deck.
But, despite some initial cynicism, Simpson made the Australian Dolphins team for the Commonwealth Games, took out gold and silver as part of the 4x100m freestyle and medley teams, and most recently won two national titles in the 100m butterfly and 100m freestyle at the Australian Short Course Swimming Championships.
While his place at the 2024 Olympics is by no means assured, only a fool would discount him. As the Dolphin’s well known SuperCoach, Michael Bohl, says, Simpson has well and truly earned his place at the table.
But for now, Simpson is here, inthis quiet studio, intoning: “Breathe with the waves as they roll onto the sand, then retreat. One breath in. One breath out. One breath in. One breath out” into the microphone.
The vibe in the room is calm and serene, matching, Simpson says, exactly where his life is now. Reflecting on the past few years, he says his return to the pool has given him “so much more than I could have imagined”.
“I’ve changed 1000 per cent. I’ve changed and grown and evolved in ways I didn’t think possible in the last three years,” he says.
“In my emotional maturity and stability, in my general health and my mental health and well being. I feel fortunate because before, when I was overseas, the thought of swimming again – which remained at the back of my mind – always stopped me from falling too deeply into a lifestyle that isn’t too good for me, and which is very prevalent in Hollywood, especially if you’re young and successful and everything is thrown at you.
“For a second there, I was on the edge. You know, you’re in your late teens, and you have this level of success, and that means you can have everything you want, and anything you want, and it’s intoxicating.
“But it’s not healthy, and I’ve seen what can happen. Some people never get away from it.
“They never get away because you’ve had these crazy rushes of dopamine and success is such a drug it can really warp your perspective of reality if you experience it too young.
“I could have fallen in, but swimming was always there and my family was always there, and I think it was a huge reason why I never went under the way some other less fortunate people do.”
Simpson also credits his partner, 11 time Olympic champion, Emma McKeon, 29, with his sense of stability and happiness. The swimming super couple went public with their romance in June last year, and have reportedly bought a home together on the Gold Coast.
“Emma is a huge part of my life, and has been such a positive influence on me in terms of keeping me grounded since we met,” Simpson smiles widely.
“She is a really calming presence, she has really helped me, and she just impresses me so much, she is such a wonderful person.”
Simpson says he is particularly struck by his partner’s humility, especially following her tour de force performance at the Tokyo Olympics which saw her smash several all- time records.
“It was wild, and she just inspires me because, you know, I said to her (after Tokyo) a lot of other people who have done what you’ve done would act very differently about this,” he says. “Her humility is so impressive, and it makes me want to be more like that – to be more like her.”
Simpson says having a partner who truly understands what it takes to be an elite athlete has been “enormously helpful”.
“There’s a level of understanding where there are things in swimming sometimes that are beyond explanation is great,” he says.
“We both come from strong, family foundations and swimming families. So there’s understanding there too, my parents, for example, don’t get mad if I can’t come to a family thing, because I have early training the next day. I feel like I’m just surrounded by this wonderful support system in my life, and what I want to achieve.”
And what he wants to achieve requires both physical and mental fortitude. Fortunately, Simpson has both, in spades.
“When I started training again for swimming, even though I understood what I was taking on, and knew how grossly gruelling it would be, I don’t think you can be prepared for it until you experience it,” he says.
“It’s like you can’t really fathom what it’s like getting into an ice bath – you know it’s going to be cold but you don’t know how cold until you’re in it and you can’t get out,” Simpson laughs, and adds that his coach in the US, Australian Olympic swimmer Brett Hawke, was “either going to break me or make me”.
Hawke began training Simpson in secret during the Covid pandemic in 2019-20.
“Brett was so demanding, I think he was really trying to prepare me mentally for how hard it was going to be. I would be vomiting by the pool during our sessions,” he says. “The psychological side was easier, because I almost had an inflated sense of ‘I can do this and no one’s going to stop me’ which is the attitude you need if you’re actually going to do it. I think that attitude is in part innate, but it can also be cultivated through experience and failures.
“I’ve experienced failures, and had to get up and try again. The music looked more glamorous than what it actually was. I was 15 in the back of a van going to three different towns in the States a day, and performing at radio station after radio station every day and that went on for months and months. It was absolutely brutal, so I was well prepared for swimming, yes.” Simpson says he was well prepared too, for the knockers who questioned his swimming bid and weren’t shy about vocalising it.
“Some people were: ‘This is awesome.’ But others were: ‘What is this? You’re dreaming. This is not going to be possible at all.’
“But I have learnt you have to block out the bad stuff and the good stuff as well, because both are distracting. I’ve always held really big dreams and aspirations for coming back into swimming; I have met some of those aspirations, and I have fallen short in other ways.
“You know there’s that classic quote about ‘shooting for the moon and landing among the stars’. That’s not a bad place to land, is it? So all any of us can do is just take your shot.”
Simpson’s next shot is winning a place on the Dolphins’ Paris team at the trials in June next year. “The challenge for me is the trials,” he says.
“In some ways I view that as more difficult than competing at the Games themselves. The Australian team is just so, so good, so if you’re on it, you’re good enough for any competition.”
But whatever happens, Simpson says his return to the pool has given him one thing no one can ever take – his Dolphin number 838.
“When I made the Commonwealth Games team, and I got my gear, my pin, my number, it was such a validation of everything I had done to get there,” he says.
And after the Olympics? A return to the music industry.
“I always said I’d give swimming four years, and that’s the end of next year,” he says.
“I am lucky I have the luxury of something I’m equally excited to do afterwards, not everyone has that. Swimming is something you can only do for a certain amount of time, some guys do swim into their mid 30s but most retire around 30, so there’s that. And all this time I have kept writing – not a crazy amount, but I am collecting songs and bits and pieces that I am excited to put together when swimming ends, whether that is next year or the one after.”
Cody Simpson, readying himself again for his next shot. His next tilt at the moon, his next journey to the stars. ■
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