Apprentice opens up about relationship with Alan Jones
Jake Thrupp describes Alan Jones as one of the most generous mentors an aspiring broadcaster and Liberal politician could have and is keen to set the record straight concerning some vagaries circulating in the media.
Opinion
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Young Jake Thrupp describes broadcaster Alan Jones as one of the most generous mentors an aspiring broadcaster and Liberal politician could hope to have and is keen to set the record straight concerning some vagaries circulating in the Sydney media.
For starters the handsome 22-year-old, who has been working for Jones since April 2018 and has been described in some circles — inaccurately we’re assured — as Jones’s companion, isn’t getting a free ride in the radio business.
He is also not the newest member of the Sky News team.
“Peta Credlin happened to be sick a couple of weeks ago and that afternoon Alan emailed me and another member of his team and said we could make an appearance on his Sky show,” Thrupp said, scotching rumours his star is on the rise at Sky.
“The executive producer of the show, Mark Calvert, is always trying to find young talent, young faces, and on that day, I was it. It was a one-off and it was a good experience and would I like to do it again? Absolutely. It was an amazing opportunity.”
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As Thrupp explained exclusively to The Sunday Telegraph yesterday, his relationship with his mentor began in 2017.
“I connected with Alan a couple of years back when he was doing charity work in Queensland and I was working for Tweed Heads councillor James Owen,” he said.
“Alan was keen to donate some prizes for the (2017) Lismore floods and I was working in James’s office. Alan made contact and we started emailing back and forth and that’s how we got to know each other.”
There was much about the university student Jones, a fellow Queenslander, might admire.
As a teenager, Thrupp harboured Olympic dreams and at 12 was a state champion backstroker: “I wanted to be an Olympian, but I got over it.”
One-time sporting coach Jones’s regard for athletes and swimmers is well known. He famously mentored Olympic great Ian Thorpe, making a call on Thorpe’s behalf to Westpac boss Gail Kelly to help restructure Thorpe’s sinking finances, and was a long-time supporter of troubled Atlanta Games butterfly swimmer, Scott Miller.
At 15, Thrupp joined Queensland’s Young Liberals.
“I have always been interested in politics,” said Thrupp.
“My family’s not overly political, but I just love it,” he added, stating he thinks the role as PM is an “easy” job.
“It doesn’t scare me.”
After high school, Thrupp studied politics at Queensland University, transferring to Sydney at the start of 2018 to complete his degree at the University of Sydney.
After arriving in Sydney, he found work in the marketing arm of Justin Hemmes’s Merivale restaurant group. When that gig soured, he spoke to Jones.
“I was nuts about politics and was around Alan a lot and then the Commonwealth Games happened (in April 2018) and Alan needed some extra help so he offered me a permanent part-time work with his show,” he said.
“Alan works six days a week and we have built a structure around him to help manage his long days. There’s always a job, whether it’s driving him — we never let him drive himself — or chasing things up for his show, or writing things for him.
“He has two television shows, two newspaper columns and the radio show … there is plenty of work,” said Thrupp, the youngest member of Jones’s eight-person production team.
Following a restructure of Jones’s breakfast team last year, Thrupp went from being employed on the 2GB payroll in 2018 to being employed on Jones’s personal payroll at the start of this year.
Around the same time, Thrupp launched a podcast.
“My latest thing is this weekly podcast, A Week With Jake Thrupp. It’s become very popular since Alan plugs it and I’m lucky enough to have had some great guests on,” he said, rattling through an impressive list of interview subjects who include former prime minister Tony Abbott, Member for Wentworth Dave Sharma, retired rugby league player Craig Wing and retired tennis player Mark Philippoussis, all of whom, he adds unashamedly, Jones helped secure for interviews.
He is not the only member of the Thrupp family to work for Jones, with his mother, Chantrel, also on the payroll.
The one-time Queensland Department of Housing administrator who is married to Thrupp’s father, Jason, a retired police officer who now drives trucks, came on board earlier this year to manage the broadcaster’s Queensland properties after being introduced to Jones by her son two years ago.
A long-time close buddy of pop singer Cody Simpson, his former Gold Coast swimming club teammate with whom he often hangs out in the US, Thrupp regularly posts of his trips with Jones to his social media accounts but explained he was always at Jones’s side in his capacity as employee.
“Alan Jones is an incredibly generous person and I’m very lucky to have him as a mentor. We share a lot of interests. He introduced me to horse racing and I now love the horses but mostly he’s just a great boss, the kind anyone would be lucky to have.”
annette.sharp@news.com.au
Twitter: @InSharpRelief