Annette Sharp: Social media posts suggest Charlie Teo is engaged to vegan activist Traci Griffiths

Controversial brain surgeon Charlie Teo looks set to marry ex-model and ‘vegan activist’ Traci Griffiths, with her tagging recent social media posts #ilovemyfiance, writes Annette Sharp.

Sydney neurosurgeon Charlie Teo looks set to marry retired model-turned-reiki practitioner and “vegan activist” Traci Griffiths — or so suggests the statuesque blonde in recent social media posts.

Griffiths recently starting tagging images of her and the controversial brain surgeon — to whom she was introduced more than a decade ago after seeking him out for a professional consultation — with the hashtags “#ilovemyfiance” and “#myfiance”.

Griffiths and Teo, who it’s believed twice operated on Griffiths, to whom he became close thanks to the efforts of their mutual friend Michelle Leslie, did not return calls on Friday when approached for comment about their wedding plans.

This column first heard the pair were engaged last year after Griffiths was spotted wearing what some took to be an impressive engagement ring, but father-of-four Teo was quick to pour cold water on the talk.

Griffiths, from Woonona north of Wollongong, first started employing the #myfiance tag on her @veganforearth Instagram page in May, alongside images of the couple attending the Charlie Teo Foundation Ball.

Traci Griffiths and her ‘fiance’ Dr Charlie Teo at a Great Gatsby party in June. Picture: Instagram

The following month she applied the tags again to photographs of the couple in costume dress — she as a leggy ingenue, he as a paperboy — at a Great Gatsby-themed birthday party for a Dr Hung Nguyen.

Since word of the relationship came to light in 2020, months after Teo confirmed he and his wife of 30 years, Genevieve, had separated, Griffiths, a former pet clothing designer, has expanded her social media profile and professional interests exponentially.

Teo has embraced Griffiths’ hobbies and passions, including fitness …

… and animals — in this case, cats. Pictures: Instagram

The fitness enthusiast last year started posting her personal workouts to Instagram on her @myfitnestory site, setting pulses racing with her racy bikini-clad workouts and “crush it booty exercises”.

The site now boasts 30k followers. Not bad for a woman getting started in her late 40s.

In December she launched a Reiki For Health website after becoming a reiki practitioner. Reiki is a Japanese healing energies technique that involves “laying on hands” to promote healing.

With less bouncy video clips and bikini shots of Griffiths on her reiki Instagram site — and more spiritual mottos about confusion being a blessing and similar — Griffiths’ @reikiforhealth, as of yesterday, had found an audience of just 392.

Meanwhile, Teo, 64, looks to have wholeheartedly embraced Griffiths’ alternative passions, including fitness and animal conservation.

On a recent trip to Indonesia, the neurosurgeon, who today is focused largely on teaching and lecturing, could be seen acting as a scratching post for a clowder of cats during a visit to an animal rescue shelter that is home to 300 strays.

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