Annette Sharp: Slater’s loves burn out as ‘rock star’ life takes hold

The breakdown of retired cricketer Michael Slater’s second marriage was one of sport’s best-kept secrets — until he was charged with stalking another woman, writes Annette Sharp.

The breakdown of retired cricketer Michael Slater’s second marriage was one of Australian sport’s best kept secrets until last week when he fronted a Sydney court on stalking and harassment charges involving another woman.

According to sources, Slater and second wife Jo, a one-time PR consultant-turned-yoga instructor with whom he has three children, split some six years ago, not long after they’d put the finishing touches on their Newport dream home, bought in 2013.

Jo and Michael Slater at Cirque Du Soleil in 2006.

The sale of that house in June last year offered one of few public clues Slater’s second marriage, hushed up by sympathetic sports media, was over.

Weeks later he bought a Randwick house with new partner Melanie Livesey, just one of a number of women Slater is said to have romanced since the breakdown of his second marriage.

The Randwick house was sold at auction in August.

Those close to Slater and his second wife say the couple’s marriage ended sadly, with the relationship between the duo “burning out”.

“You’d have said they were really well suited, until they weren’t any more. They were an explosive pair who loved to have fun and party, yet in the early years of their relationship Jo was instrumental in encouraging Michael to get help when he needed it.”

The couple reportedly met at an Inside Sport magazine event in 2003, two years after the breakdown of Slater’s first marriage to Wagga Wagga childhood sweetheart Stephanie, to whom he was married from 1993.

Slater with first wife Stephanie …

… his childhood sweetheart.

By the time Jo arrived on the scene, Slater — transported by fame, wealth and ego — had been unravelling in the public eye for years.

By 2001 his reputation as a world class opening batsman was being compromised by his propensity for outbursts, one of which, on the pitch in India involving Rahul Dravid, saw Slater fined and banned.

That same year the reportedly unfit Slater was dropped from the Australian team, never to play again.

The unravelling would continue the following year, when Slater was criticised for throwing his helmet at a photographer after being struck by a bouncer.

An initial stint as a commentator with Channel 9 sputtered out prematurely amid talk of health issues for the Ferrari-driving star.

Slater leaving Manly Police Station after he was arrested on domestic violence charges last month. Picture: Richard Dobson

It would be sports mad Jo, Slater would later say, who urged him to seek treatment.

In 2005 he revealed he’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Despite Jo and first wife Stephanie’s positive influence, reports of Slater’s rock-star behaviour kept finding their way back into the media.

In 2019 Qantas booted him from a Sydney-to-Wagga Wagga flight after he shouted at two female companions and delayed the flight.

Eyewitnesses would claim he’d locked himself in the aircraft toilet.

Slater’s reps denied this, but the commentator later apologised for any “inconvenience” he’d caused other passengers.

Having employed the ex-Nine and ex-Fox Sports commentator in 2018 as part of its cricket commentary team, Channel 7 initially kept Slater on, but this year the network cancelled his contract after he criticised Prime Minister Scott Morrison over pandemic-related border closures to India.

Slater was in India commentating on the Indian Premier League at the time, and posted to social media that the PM had “blood on his hands”.

Slater, 51, was arrested last month on the northern beaches and charged with stalking and harassing a woman.

He was in a hospital on Friday seeking unspecified treatment after his lawyer applied to have the matter dealt with under Section 14 of the Mental Health Act next month.

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