Agent’s appeal to forget Jodi’s past too big an ask for media

Jodi Gordon’s manager was on the phone appealing on behalf of his client: why did journalists continue to rehash the story of his client and her alleged drug bender? The answer was never going to please him.

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Jodi Gordon’s manager was on the phone appealing on behalf of his client: why did journalists continue to rehash the story of his client and her alleged drug bender?

“The story is old. It happened years ago. When will you guys stop writing about Jodi’s ‘lost weekend’? You mention it every time you reference her?”

The answer was never going to please talent agent Sean Anderson.

Jodi Anasta. Picture: Richard Dobson

It would be a long time — probably decades — before the media forgot about the time Gordon, then live-in girlfriend of media scion Ryan Stokes, was found cowering in the Bellevue Hill apartment with infamous Kings Cross character Mark Judge.

Police had found the pair together on a Wednesday in 2009 after the then-Home And Away star went AWOL and her boyfriend reported her missing.

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Friends of Gordon later told The Daily Telegraph she had no memory of events that preceded being discovered cowering with the alleged Rebels bikie from a mob of imaginary armed men.

When her relationship with Stokes ended hours later and Gordon later hired Anderson to reboot her image, he started trying to persuade reporters to forget Gordon’s sensational past and allow her to move forward with her career as a glamorous model-mum.

It was a big ask. Too big.

Last week’s news that Gordon, who now goes by the name Anasta — the surname of her ex-husband, retired rugby league player Braith — was taking leave from the set of Neighbours to deal with exhaustion, comes 10 years after the incident with Judge.

Now 34, Anasta is taking three weeks off following reports she had recently been arriving late to set and forgetting her lines.

“She’s living between two cities, she’s also a single mum and there are challenges that come with it,” Anderson told our sister paper The Herald Sun last week.“It’s the same as anyone in the workplace, they get a break if they need it.”