Who exactly is Michael Clarke?
Fashion glamour boy, flashy property investor, august sporting academy entrepreneur, settled family man – exactly who is Michael Clarke? Annette Sharp looks into the life of the retired cricketer following his split from wife Kyly.
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Fashion glamour boy, flashy property investor, august sporting academy entrepreneur, settled family man – exactly who is Michael Clarke?
Hot on the heels of news last week the retired Australian cricket captain has separated from his wife of seven-years Kyly, media reports on Friday linking Clarke to Sydney’s eternally fickle glamour set and the fashion-forward stylist-turned designer Pip Edwards, ex of Sydney bad boy Dan Single.
Edwards, the founder of fashion brand PE Nation, has denied talk she and Clarke are now an item.
Via social media, however, the pair have confirmed they are working together on a new project – a fashion collaboration.
It appears that 18 months after being spurned by local media for cricket commentary duties – he missed out on one of 50+ commentary positions with multiple Australian media outlets when the cricket rights changed hands in 2018 – Clarke, now 38, is struggling with new local media obscurity.
But a desire to be loved by the Australian public might explain his collaboration with Edwards which suggests he is revamping his image.
Begging one question – who will Clarke be next?
Back in 2007 when he still representing his country on the cricket pitch, Clarke tried suave playboy on for size – upsetting his car sponsor Ford into the bargain – when he bought a Ferrari and took up with swimwear model Lara Bingle, giving birth to Clarke Mk II.
In an attempt to cash in on Posh and Becks fever sweeping the western world the pair launched their own energy drink, Synergy, and signed their named to a raft of products, started dressing in high fashion and made a small – though short-lived – fortune into the bargain.
But the partnership with the young model – friend to nightclub boss John Ibrahim, radio shock jock Kyle Sandilands and AFL bad boy Brendan Fevola – appeared to be wildly at odds with the image Clarke had for a decade cultivated as a cricketer. One of earnest, serious, careful, obsessive, sometimes dour Bradman-esque sportsman.
Few could understand his pairing with a perky party girl.
The relationship ended in a storm of scandalous ungracious headlines that threatened to undermine his hard work at the cricket crease.
In 2010 he moved on and Clarke Mk III, the family man, emerged.
After reconnecting with an old school friend and one-time V8 grid girl, Kyly Boldy, in 2010, Clarke decided it was time to settle down and quickly popped the question.
In May 2012 he and Boldy were married. Later that year he bought a 92 hectare Berrima estate – complete with cricket oval – on which he planned to open a long-planned-for post-retirement cricket academy – just down the road from the hometown of the revered Bradman. Local council gave the project its blessing.
But within two years the pseudo-aristocratic dream was out the door – the property put on the market and sold – as the couple relocated to a new home in highbrow Vaucluse to await the arrival of their first child, Kelsey-Lee, born in 2015.
Now with his impending divorce, Clarke Mk III will give way to Mk IV who, some fear may look a lot more like globe-trotting ladies’ man Shane Warne, a man Clarke has long admired.
Just how long the nation will have to wait to see the real Michael Clarke remains to be seen. It could be a while yet.