Phoebe Burgess: ‘I believe love conquers all’
In an exclusive interview, Phoebe Burgess opens up for the first time about the scandalous events of the past seven months, and confirms where things stand with her marriage to NRL star husband Sam.
If the past seven months have been a time of enormous challenge and change for Phoebe Burgess, there have also been moments that have crystallised what really matters.
One she remembers vividly came the day after she had given birth to her son Billy via caesarean in December.
The new mum was determined to be up and about when her rugby league star husband Sam brought their daughter Poppy in to meet her new baby brother.
As she recalls, when father and daughter arrived, Sam lifted newborn Billy into his arms and leant down to introduce him to Poppy.
“We were taking photos but as Poppy bent over to kiss Billy on the head, I put my phone down and immersed myself in that moment,” says Burgess, her voice catching.
“I’ll never forget looking at them and seeing the genuine joy in my family, and it made me feel like I was doing a really, really good job in life.”
She pauses. “I realised that I wanted a lot more moments like that … but you have to work hard for those moments.”
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To anyone walking past the hospital room that day, the Burgesses would’ve looked like any other young family.
But behind the kisses and smiles that greeted the birth of little Billy Burgess — “Haven’t I given him a good footy name,” his mum says, laughing — speculation was swirling around his headline-attracting parents.
Three months earlier, as his heavily pregnant wife neared her due date, Sam became embroiled in a sexting scandal involving allegations that Rabbitohs players had sent lewd images to a young woman using his social media account.
Days later, the club cleared the players of any actionable misconduct — but when fans booed Sam after the Rabbitohs’ semi-final win and the couple skipped Stakes Day and the NRL’s Dally M Awards, questions began to emerge about the state of their marriage.
Then when Burgess was not at the family’s Christmas lunch — as evidenced in a photo posted by her sister-in-law — and her husband was seen leaving their family home a few days later carrying packed bags, conclusions were drawn that the high-profile couple had split.
As she sits down with Stellar to address for the first time what took place over that tumultuous period, Burgess picks her words carefully.
The exact details of what happened during those difficult few weeks “will always and forever just be between Sam and I”, she says firmly — but she will reveal they are still a couple.
“We are together, we are married,” she tells Stellar.
Wearing casual pants and an oversized white shirt that unbuttons easily for breastfeeding, the former television producer understands better than most a journalist’s need to deliver a story versus a wife and mother’s need to protect.
“The main thing I’d like to say is that we’re a young family and we’re learning every single day,” she says.
“Sam and I will have good days and we’ll have trying days. We’ll have challenges but it’s how you deal with those challenges together. Every single person on this planet who is married knows it isn’t perfect. It’s never going to be perfect.”
She looks down at her hands, where her engagement ring sparkles, and says quietly: “I’ve always believed that in the end, love conquers all.”
Impending motherhood is never an ideal time for emotional upheaval, and Burgess knows the public’s interest in the state of her marriage was heightened because it dovetailed with the birth of her second child.
Looking back, she says it was vital she focused on her own wellbeing. “You can choose to internalise all the sh*t that’s swirling around you, or you can choose to bunker down and concentrate on what’s important,” she says.
“I think a lot of mums will know that when you’re pregnant, you don’t want cameras in your face. But at the time, we as a family had a higher purpose and that was bringing our son into the world.
“That’s what brought out my resilience and strength, that protective tiger instinct. [My thoughts were] I’ll protect my family, I’ll protect my husband. We’ll bunker down and look after each other.”
Having turned 30 last week and with Mother’s Day approaching, it’s no surprise that Burgess is feeling reflective.
Whatever happened behind closed doors over the past several months, the mother-of-two is determined that her family will endure — and having come from a close-knit family herself, she clearly wants to replicate that for Poppy, now two, and Billy, four months.
One of her greatest comforts is that her children were too young to know what was happening.
“The scrutiny was more affecting than what was happening between me and Sam,” she reveals. “I was pregnant or had a newborn when a lot of things were written, and it was tough to say the least.
“But what does Rocky say? ‘It’s not how hard you [get] hit, it’s how you get up.’ If I’ve learnt anything, it’s to hold my marriage a lot closer to my chest.”
Burgess says the weeks of soul-searching helped the couple learn things about each other but, ultimately, they have the same “why”.
As she says: “Our ‘why’ is each other and our children. It’s our ‘why’ for everything. When you know what you want out of life, you’ll do anything to make that happen. Marriage takes work and commitment and resilience.”
Another thing they agree on, she says with a laugh, is that she’s a much better mum of two than she was of one.
“Sam and I joke about it,” says Burgess. “With Poppy, I wanted to achieve a lot more in a day than was possible and everything had to be perfect. But when you’re a mum, if your child is fed and alive at the end of your day, then you’ve hit your KPIs [key performance indicators].”
Yet Burgess’s mother, Sarah Hooke, is a lot less of a hard marker when it comes to her daughter’s motherhood skills.
“Phoebe is fun, loving, caring and incredibly strong,” Hooke tells Stellar. “No mess is ever too much, no park is ever too far and no outfit is ever too good.”
Because of a degenerative disc problem with Burgess’s back, it’s all the more important she sets realistic goals — a philosophy she tries to share with her loyal social media audience (she has 80,000 Instagram followers).
“There’s never been a time when people are more interested in drawing from each other,” she says. “I impart bits of wisdom here and there, whether it’s fashion or what you eat or the exercise you do.”
As an ambassador for Johnson’s Baby, Burgess points out that she’s a good fit for the brand because she’s “a modern mum with traditional values”.
She, her mother and her grandmother have all used the products and she loves the way the company has evolved over the years.
“Johnson’s has kept the essence of its products but reformed them for the modern mother by adding more natural ingredients, by getting rid of the dyes and by using ergonomic bottles,” she says. “We want a one-handed pump, fast lather and a quick rinse.”
As for those traditional values, Burgess says that while she enjoys working, she is grateful to her own mother for raising her and her siblings while their dad worked.
“The structure of our family is quite traditional,” she explains. “We got engaged, then married, then had children. I believe in that structure — it lays great foundations for a relationship.”
Having had a natural delivery with Poppy then a caesarean with Billy — “his shoulders were too wide so he came out of the sunroof” — Burgess says she’s excited that she’s been able to experience both and is hoping she and Sam will have more children.
“We’ve always said we’d love a big family. There could be more if we’re lucky enough.”
She is pleased that by naming their baby son William Mark, they were able to honour Sam’s late father Mark, who died of motor neurone disease aged 45.
Weighing 4.22kg at birth and topping the scales at 8.8kg at four months, Billy could well take after his dad and uncles Luke, Tom and George, all rugby league players, by pulling on a footy jumper in years to come.
“Everyone says that,” says Burgess. “If he loves it, great, he can do it, but there will be no pressure to do anything. We might get an engineer or a concert pianist — and that’s the same for Poppy, although she wants to be a firefighter at the moment.”
One thing Burgess is trying to turn her son into is a mummy’s boy. “Poppy is definitely a daddy’s girl. She and Sam do everything together — tackle, go to the park, read. And he tucks her in every night.
“He’s a passionate, loyal and funny dad. For now I’m keeping Billy as close to me as possible but I’ll have to share him at some point!”
Although she’s a young mother by today’s standards, Burgess believes her generation has a fresh approach to the previous generation’s lament of “having it all”.
After graduating from university, she went straight into a job as a producer at the Seven Network, but says she didn’t feel pressure to wait until her career peaked before she could have children.
“Women started to push it [having children] back, but now we’re saying we can probably juggle it if you’re creative with your work,” says Burgess.
“It’s a tough juggle but you can consider doing both at the same time, as opposed to working to a certain point, taking time out for children then trying to get back on the wheel.”
During last year’s sexting scandal, Sam was clearly distressed by the impact it was having on his family. “I’m upset for my wife and my family, it’s a tough process to go through,” he commented at the time.
His wife concurs. “It was difficult, watching the person I loved being hauled through the glare of public accusation,” she says now. “It was also difficult because at that time I felt like a prisoner in my own home.”
So does she ever wish she’d married the local builder — rather than one of the country’s most famous footy stars?
“No,” Burgess replies immediately with a hearty laugh, “because the local builder is not Sam.”
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