Why Tony Armstrong and Rona Glynn-McDonald are Australia's 'hottest couple'

After hard launching their romance last year, Tony Armstrong and his girlfriend, Rona Glynn-McDonald tell all about their relationship - and why it is 'sacred to us'. 

Television presenter Tony Armstrong and CEO of First Nations not-for-profit Common Ground and DJ Rona Glynn-McDonald have joined Stellar for their first official photo shoot as a couple.

The pair sit down with editor-in-chief Sarrah Le Marquand on the podcast, Something To Talk About, to recall their fateful first meeting, banter about their diverging interests in sport and make predictions for Armstrong’s chances of taking home the Gold Logie next month.

‘Ever since then, we’ve just hung out.’ Tony Armstrong and Rona Glynn-McDonald. Picture: Steven Chee for Stellar

Stellar: How did the two of you meet?

Rona Glynn-McDonald: Tony stalked me.

Tony Armstrong: Oh, piss off!

Rona: That’s how I always respond to that question. We didn’t know a lot about each other [before meeting]. We kind of had been operating in similar-ish circles.

Tony: Probably just on the edge of each other’s circle, to be honest.

Rona: We realised after meeting that there were so many moments where our lives should have crossed many years before. Many moments – whether it was gigs, at the same place at the same time – but it never happened. I feel like it happened in the moment that it was meant to.

Tony: I went along and watched Rona play a gig somewhere.

Rona: It was at a club that no longer exists.

Tony: Well, there you go. Didn’t get any better than the gig that was played that night so they shut it down. I went along to support Rona and another one of our friends, and ever since then, we’ve just hung out, then Rona went away for ages.

Rona: Then I came back.

Tony: And then she came back and we’re like, “Yeah, let’s give it a go”, pretty much.

‘He made some sh*t jokes.’ Picture: Steven Chee for Stellar

Rona, were you aware of Tony’s public profile before you met?

Rona: He shared my event online, and then I saw your Instagram and I think a couple of people had mentioned your name, and I was like, “Who? Tony who?” I’m not up very often watching the 6am [ABC News Breakfast show, on which Armstrong is the sports presenter].

Tony: And nothing has changed [laughs].

Rona: I’d been on the News Breakfast couch a couple of times before I met you but then I’d stopped doing that. I did less media and you weren’t around then, and then you jumped on the couch … We just never crossed paths in that context. I didn’t know a heap about you but after you shared the event, we chatted, had a couple of exchanges. He made some sh*t jokes.

Tony: Great jokes.

Rona: And then we met each other in person at that event and the rest is history.

Tony: It’s been great, honestly. Been awesome.

Listen to the full interview with Tony and Rona on Something To Talk About:

You went public with your relationship in November with an Instagram post but this is your first official interview and shoot as a couple. How are you feeling about it?

Rona: I’m really excited to show a bit of a glimpse of us. I feel really strong in us. We went out with a big splash at the end of last year after a long time of getting to know each other and thinking about when would be the right moment. We wanted to be really strong in us before we let the world know. And I think since then we’ve been pretty quiet because our relationship is sacred to us, and something that we don’t want to share everything about. But we do want to share the strength and the amazing connection and fun that we have together.

There was a lot of commentary when your relationship was “hard-launched”. What was your reaction to that?

Rona: I was really nervous in the lead-up. Given the way people speak about Tony as “Australia’s husband” or “everyone’s boyfriend”, I was ready for the death threats. I was ready to break hearts. We talked about it for months and months and months and it just felt right. We were sitting on the couch and we were like, “You know what? Now is the moment.

Let’s just post something up and let them all know.” I was just really proud to share a glimpse of our love and how much we care for each other and the positive response was overwhelming. I think straight away, like half an hour later, some people were writing up articles saying I had great hair. I’d never thought of myself as someone with great hair but they were giving me slogans and saying really lovely things.

Tony: It was pretty full-on. I don’t really do too many interviews and stuff like that, and if I do, I normally keep it about what I’m doing, not about me. I was nervous too, to be honest. It’s pretty weird having … well, not “having to” – we didn’t have to do anything, but being in a relationship where it becomes a public thing. I’m a bit nervous even talking about it in retrospect because I like my privacy as well. I’ve realised as I get older in the public eye, you can’t get it back. Once you’ve given that bit of you away, that’s out there, that’s gone. So yeah, it was a big moment and thankfully it’s one that was really positive.

Picture: Steven Chee for Stellar

Was there also for each of you a sense of liberation when you went public?

Rona: Yeah, I think so. For our families and friends who had known for ages, they were trying to keep it on the [down low], they were like, “Oh, finally.” They were all waiting for it. We were pretty intentional about protecting that privacy and thinking about where we would go together and making sure that our stuff remained our stuff for as long as we wanted it to.

Tony, there was a photo of your mum and Rona posted to your Instagram, which is

the ultimate seal of approval.

Tony: Mum is funny. I don’t think you ever know what’s going to come out of Mum’s mouth or what she’s going to think. But I think I knew with Rona. They’re the two most important women in my life.

You both live in Melbourne now but Rona, you’re a Kaytetye woman who grew up in Alice Springs. What can you tell me about that time in your life?

Rona: I was born on Gadigal country in Sydney, and then went to Alice when I was about eight years old. My family have been in Alice Springs for many generations. It’s a beautiful place in the world on Arrernte country. It’s a complex place. Country there is so beautiful. I was surrounded by stories – like all First Nations people; I come from a family of storytellers and filmmakers [so] from a young age, I saw the power of camera lenses and creating space for our communities to tell our stories our own ways as a form of healing and a form of resistance. That love of storytelling is something that Tony and I really share.

You have an incredibly impressive CV: you’re the CEO of Common Ground, a non-profit organisation that works to amplify First Nations voices, and a director of non-profit First Nations Future, which works with communities across Australia. You have a degree in economics. You’re an accomplished musician. You were recently included in the Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 list …

Tony: Ask Rona if she’s spoken at the UN.

Rona: Shut up, Tony.

Tony: Have you?

Rona: Yeah.

Tony: See, that is bullsh*t.

Rona: I don’t put that on the CV. No-one knows.

Tony: It doesn’t even make it on the CV, that’s how good it is.

Rona, when did this potential career path start to take shape for you?

Rona: I can’t think of the moment it crystallised but I was always a little bit turbo. Mum says I was a bull at a gate. I was born in like three minutes and just always trying to walk before I crawled. I remember my brother gave a 21st speech at my birthday, and he was talking about how ridiculous it was the pace that I moved. I’m learning to slow down now, thank God. I was raised predominantly by my mother, who’s an amazing woman, like Tony’s mother is. I come from a strong line of matriarchs. My grandmother was the co-founder of the first Aboriginal media organisation in this continent, and I think the first one globally as well. I just saw from a young age the power of women and the power of us as blackfellas. When things aren’t going well, we do the work to make change and that’s something that I think was just instilled in me as a young person.

Rona and Tony have opened up about how they first met, and why they went public with their romance, in an exclusive interview with Stellar. Picture: Steven Chee for Stellar

Today is the first day of NAIDOC Week (for the National Aboriginal and Islanders

Day Observance Committee), which runs until next Sunday, July 14. Tony, what does

representation mean to you, especially being so visible in the public eye?

Tony: There are a lot of different facets of representation. I’ll talk about it from my own perspective of how I’m coming to grips with it – and I talk to Rona about this; it’s so great being with someone who understands because it can be hard for people to understand the load of it; it’s a silent amount of work or labour, or whatever you might call it. A privilege sometimes … One of the things that’s often overlooked with representation [is] sometimes I can get stuck in just worrying about me and not really thinking about what it can mean to people who see the representation. I’m kind of, “It’s just breakfast TV” or “It’s just this show.” But the other day, this little brown kid ran up to me and I had my noise-cancelling headphones on so I would have looked like an absolute megalomaniac because I feel like he was behind me calling my name for ages and he eventually grabbed the back of my shirt and I turned around and he’s like, “Are you Tony Armstrong?” He would have been eight, and he was so pumped. I was like, Oh my God, that’s why. That’s why it’s important. [At the photo shoot for this year’s Gold Logie nominees] there weren’t too many brown people on the set. It just becomes another place where this panacea of TV, or whatever it is, where people see, generally speaking, people of colour aren’t necessarily valued there. But then, withme in there, maybe we are a little bit.

Speaking of the Logies, congratulations on your Gold Logie nomination, Tony. When you were on Something to Talk About in April last year, I did predict there was a Gold Logie nomination in your future. You said, “It’s not up to me. I don’t think that’s on the cards any time soon. I need to do some good sh*t first. Well, some more good sh*t.”

Tony: That sounds like me, doesn’t it, Rona?

Rona: It does sound like you. So humble. I feel like I may have been the first one to predict the first Logie [Armstrong won the Logie for Best New Talent in 2022].

Tony: You were. When we first met, she was like, “Yeah, you’re gonna win it”, and I was like, “Oh my God. Well, you just mozzed it”, and then we managed to get up there, and then we got up again last year [for Most Popular Presenter], so now I just need both of you to make a prediction about it – a good one – and then I think it will go well, right? Isn’t that how it works?

Rona: There’s one thing I can predict, which is you will make a joke.

Tony: Oh, yeah.

Tony and Rona are the special guests on this week’s episode of Stellar’s podcast, Something To Talk About. Listen below:

Tony, you’re co-hosting the new ABC show Monday’s Experts, a post-weekend fix of sport, alongside sports journalist Catherine Murphy and a changing panel of sports journalists and comedians. Is this the perfect excuse to watch sport all weekend – or was no excuse needed?

Tony: It’s work, babe! Rona just doesn’t understand, I need to watch that ninth game of football. I’m keeping the lights on. It’s quite funny. I get in some arguments. Arguments wouldn’t be the right word, it’s way more gentle than that, but …

Rona: We have a giggle.

Tony: Rona and I have a giggle. I think this is about how different your family is to mine when it comes to consumption of sport and the value placed on sport, because I love it so much. I know what’s happening in all the sports all the time. If someone comes to me and they go “Oh, did you see that?” I’m like, “Yeah, and did you know this?” Because I just love it so much. It’s very fun being brought into a family where sport isn’t really on the radar at all.

In the grand tradition of celebrity couple nicknames, such as “Brangelina” for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and “Bennifer” for Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, what are your thoughts for a nickname for you two?

Rona: A good friend of mine, her stepdaughters had a name … They wanted it to be “Rony”, and then I think another party wanted it to be “Tona”. These are all young kids – we’re talking on TikTok doing dances, 11 or 12.

Tony: Is it Rony? How do you feel about that? I must admit, I don’t really care. I’ve got nothing. We’ll go with Rony for now.

Rona: We’re never going to say it, so it doesn’t really matter. People will use it. Call us what you want.

Monday’s Experts airs every Monday at 9.30pm on ABC TV and ABC iview. For more from Stellar and Something To Talk About, click here.

Originally published as Why Tony Armstrong and Rona Glynn-McDonald are Australia's 'hottest couple'