‘I can buy my own properties – and my own handbags’: Jesinta Franklin on why equality with Buddy is non-negotiable
After hitting back at trolls who suggested Buddy was Jesinta’s main source of income, the model mogul is here to set the record straight on the finances of her marriage.
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Reality for Jesinta Franklin means no high heels, no designer outfits, and no dressing up for anything less than the rarest of occasions. Sure, she’s still comfortable in full party-dress mode for Stellar’s cover shoot – or as she puts it, showing off her “quite glamorous” side – but Franklin, 31, insists this isn’t her natural state. “It felt like a stark contrast to my life,” the model and entrepreneur tells Stellar later that day, now dressed in her day-to-day outfit of a sand-coloured knit and winter overcoat.
“I do get to dip my toe into that [high-fashion world] with my job every now and then, but everyday life isn’t like that. I felt like a Real Housewives character, all dolled up and swanning around a beautiful home.”
So how would Franklin describe the everyday life that she shares with her husband, Sydney Swans star Lance “Buddy” Franklin, and their children, daughter Tullulah, 3, and son Rocky, 2? She settles on one word: regular. “My job isn’t the norm but day-to-day is very much ‘mum life’,” she insists.
“We wake up early with the kids, we make breakfast, Bud goes off to work for the day and if I’m working, I head off as well. On the days that I don’t work, we’re with the kids and doing washing, cooking and cleaning.
“I’m quite hands on – we don’t have housekeepers. It’s a very regular life; I feel like kids do that to you. I’m lucky that in my job I get to do fun, glamorous things but the day-to-day is pretty regular.”
Except, to many, Franklin’s life is far from regular. Raised on Queensland’s Gold Coast, she shot to fame after being crowned Miss Universe Australia in 2010, and has since become one of Australia’s most in-demand models. She’s also a successful influencer with 369K Instagram followers and a host of luxury endorsements including French cosmetics giant Lancôme, for which she’s an official “friend of the brand”. And even though she’s one half
of the AFL’s most high-profile power couples, Franklin doesn’t let her six-year marital status define her, which is why she and Buddy, 36, decided to keep their careers mostly separate. “Our marriage is really sacred to us,” she tells Stellar. “It’s not something we’ve always wanted to commercialise or really push to profit from.”
Franklin made headlines earlier this year when she hit back at trolls who suggested that Buddy – whose original contract with the Swans was said to be worth $10 million across nine years – was her main source of income. Reflecting on those comments, Franklin states, “There’s absolute true equality between Buddy and I – with financial contribution, with emotional, spiritual, mental, all of that. It’s very equal.
“That’s what makes me feel really empowered as a woman. I know it’s not the same for everyone. Being able to stand on my own two feet, being an equal in this partnership – in every sense of the word – is important for me. I was probably more focused on that when I met Buddy because of that judgment of being a WAG, and being called everything – a ‘gold-digger’ and all of that. I always say, ‘I can buy my own properties and my own handbags. And we can buy them together!’ At the end of the day, it feels equal.”
Buddy recently celebrated his 350th game, a huge milestone that has only been reached
by 21 other players in AFL history. After declaring that he’d play on for “one more” year at the Swans, many expect Buddy to retire at the end of this season. Whatever he chooses, Franklin says they have “started to make plans for what we’d like life to look like” after the AFL, which was hinted at with the Sydney-based couple’s recent purchase (for a reported price tag of $9 million) of a seven-bedroom home on the Gold Coast.
“Whether it’s in a year, or a couple of years’ time [that we relocate], we happened to find our dream home at the end of last year,” Franklin says of the property. “We thought, OK, we feel like if we don’t do it now, then it might be hard to find something like this again. Sydney is still home for us at the moment. I’ve been lucky to commute a bit – two or three trips this year. I was meant to do it more often but, as I found, travelling solo with children isn’t quite as easy as I thought. We’re craving a more suburban family lifestyle, a lot more simple and laid-back. The city life isn’t something that really fulfils us.”
Both from tight-knit families, the couple prioritise spending time with each other and their children, she says. “We went to a pub the other night in Queensland – it wasn’t fancy, it wasn’t high-end food, but we had the best time,” she recalls. “Bud and I are pretty chilled. We’ve never really lived that high life. Our careers probably lend people to the assumption that that’s what we do, but my industry has always been work for me. Events have always been ‘work’. Footy is footy for Bud. When we’re off-duty, we’re homebodies. We don’t need the fancy stuff, and we never really have.”
Regarding their move to the GC, Franklin insists that her family will always have a base in Sydney (“I just have to, for work”). Among her upcoming commitments is an event this week for the launch of the Lancôme Rénergie H.P.N. 300-peptide cream, set to be held at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art.
“It’s my second year working with the brand,” Franklin says of her role with Lancôme. “This year, I’m turning 32, so [I’m] focusing on quality [beauty] products that help me age gracefully and putting more effort into self-care and taking that time out for myself.”
That also includes a new-found self-confidence, which Franklin puts down to a shift in perspective fuelled, in part, by motherhood. “Back in the day, I probably had a lot of anxiety,” she reveals, “which has eased a lot now. I think just being a bit more mature, and having more perspective – not being so harsh on myself [has helped]. I used to put a lot of pressure on myself, but not so much anymore. I think you just put your focus on things that really matter.
“Not that the job doesn’t matter, but I used to really watch what I would eat before a shoot and be really strict on myself, and restrictive. I think I’ve grown up. I actually have respect for myself and I look after my body in better ways.
“I used to be really harsh on myself and probably [had] body image issues as well, if I’m being totally honest. And now I’m like, ‘Well, I’m showing up as me’. And if I’m not good enough, then I’d prefer to bow out of the industry than put pressure on myself to be something that’s unhealthy.”
Looking back on life before motherhood, Franklin adds, “I had Tullulah when I was 29. I think you just, as a woman, become more comfortable and confident in your own skin, in your own body. My 20s felt a bit tumultuous with my relationship with myself and my confidence with my body. You become more self-assured, more sure of who you are.”
Then, recalling her private struggles with fertility, she says, “Mentally, physically, and going through the process of not being able to fall pregnant [before having Tullulah], and then going through multiple miscarriages – I think we had four before I fell pregnant through IVF, it was the second round of IVF – I have a deeper appreciation and respect for my body and what it does. I think there’s a shift that happens, and it happens in your 30s for most women – it’s a change in perspective.
“When you’re in [the fertility struggle], it eats up your entire world; it’s the only thing you can think of when you wake up; it’s the last thing you think of before you go to sleep. That was two years of my life. Now, being on the other side of it, when you’ve been through all of that, the pain starts to fade away and it seems like a distant memory. I still think about it a lot.”
On a broader scale, Franklin has been a vocal supporter of Indigenous issues (Buddy descends from the Whadjuk-Noongar people in Western Australia) and is mindful of the impact of the upcoming Voice to Parliament referendum and the discussions being had this NAIDOC Week, which starts today. “The people who I admire and look up to and learn from within the community are passionate about a ‘yes’ vote, and are very passionate about a Voice to Parliament, and that’s where my support lies,” she says. “I’ve tried to learn as much as I can. I think it’s really important and something that I think will be an incredible step for this country towards recognition for our Indigenous people. For so long, they haven’t been consulted … They’ve been told how things should be done.
“I think this is a really empowering step forward. My full support, and Buddy’s, is behind it. The fact that our children will be recognised in an official capacity like that – having a seat at the table is sometimes the first and most important step in the right direction, and I think that’s what this will achieve.”
As for what the future holds, she says the couple plan to give back to their communities “in what we do moving forward” (Franklin caused a stir last year when it was revealed that she’d become a qualified AFL player agent). “Buddy has been really lucky to have spent the past 19 years playing football, I’ve been lucky to have been doing [modelling] for the past 12-13 years,” she says. “The football schedule isn’t family-friendly at all. It’s been quite a challenge, finding and making time for each other. [We’re] looking forward to more time together [and] creating new opportunities, whether it’s in that player agent/management role, we haven’t really discussed it too in-depth yet. [We’re] trying to be in the moment.
“It’s a bit of give and take, and sometimes, there’s a bit more give, and a bit more take. I think that’s just being in a marriage. I’m also very aware that his career can’t go on and on and on. And mine can probably evolve and change a little bit more. I’ve always been really mindful of that, and wanting him to get the absolute most out of his career and the time that he’s playing. That’s my perspective. I don’t know what his perspective is in supporting me in my career. But I feel like I have his 100 per cent support as well.”
Read the full interview with Stellar this Sunday, inside The Sunday Telegraph (NSW), Sunday Herald Sun (VIC), The Sunday Mail (QLD), and Sunday Mail (SA).
Originally published as ‘I can buy my own properties – and my own handbags’: Jesinta Franklin on why equality with Buddy is non-negotiable
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