Chris Smith’s private pain goes public as ex contacts cops about daughter
The concerned former wife of television and 2GB radio commentator Chris Smith last week appealed to police to help her contact their teenage daughter after he didn’t return her calls, Annette Sharp reveals.
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Sometimes celebrity means some private matters become very public.
And that was certainly the case for radio announcer Chris Smith and his ex-wife Ally Bell this week.
Bell took her concerns to the police last week. She asked Balmain police to help her contact her teenage daughter. The concerned mother’s meeting with police came just days after 2GB weekend presenter Smith informed his radio audience he had “full custody” of his two teenage children from his first marriage.
On Saturday, as Smith retracted the custody comments on his radio show, his ex-wife confirmed her visit to Balmain police station on Thursday after alleging that her ex-husband had not answered her calls and emails.
The couple’s daughter is currently studying for her HSC.
Bell said she was worried about her daughter: “How is she eating? Who’s supervising
her? COVID-19 is frightening enough. She needs to be safe and not anxious,” she told this column.
“I had to go to police because Chris, who has been telling people, including his radio audience, that my daughter and son are living with him now, won’t return my calls and won’t disclose where our daughter is.
“The police made a call to him and he told them he’s put her in an apartment in Ryde — on her own, I believe — and nowhere near where he lives. He lives in Alexandria.”
Smith told his radio audience on Saturday he planned to move into the apartment with his daughter for the last 19 weeks of Year 12.
“She’s been setting up her pad all week and will move in properly this afternoon … all done then,” he said.
“I’ve got a couple of mates in buildings nearby as well who will drop by – and I think she’s going to try and bludge some food off them.
“So anyway, that’s her problem … Imagine doing the HSC in the year of a pandemic …. and so I’ve spared her the noise and mayhem of living with my twin boys.
“It does get crazy.”
Bell confirmed approaching her ex-husband two weeks ago and asking him to take his children for a “rare”, albeit indefinite, visit.
“He’s very busy with his media career and his new family, I realise. I’d have been thrilled and grateful for his support if he’d just done as he told his radio audience he had — and kept them at his home.”
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Smith said on radio yesterday: “The kid’s mum has been doing most of the heavy lifting in terms of parenting the kids – and doing her very best of course – but she’s been looking for me to help out a little bit more and so I’ve got full-time responsibility of all four currently.”
Smith and Bell separated briefly in 2009 after an incident at a 2GB Christmas party.
He was suspended by radio station management and later gave this newspaper a contrite interview in which he blamed a cocktail of “the wrong antidepressants” mixed with red wine and champagne for his behaviour.
He also revealed he was a bipolar alcoholic and said the incident had led to his wife kicking him out of the family home.
The couple reconciled for the sake of their young children, then aged seven and five, but separated again in 2013. Since then, the children have lived with their mother, who reinvented herself as a Balmain florist following the breakdown of her marriage to Smith, the longtime understudy to now-departed 2GB breakfast host Alan Jones.
Smith went on to fall for nutritionist Susie Burrell, who appeared as a regular contributor on his now-redundant afternoon radio show at 2GB. The couple welcomed twin sons in 2016.
Smith stepped down from the weekday radio show last year and moved to weekends after his former employer Nine fully acquired the company and recast Today show host Deb Knight in his slot.
When the announcement came through, Smith was on a 2GB-sponsored world cruise with his daughter. Upon their return, she took to Facebook to complain about having been declined work experience at the station. “I was supposed to spend this week at 2GB … to then turn up on Monday and be told go home at 9am. So upset because without this 35 hours of work experience, there is no HSC. But they didn’t care. I was gutted at least I can say I am the ONLY student to have ever been refused work experience in radio,” she posted.
Smith did not wish to comment on the record when contacted yesterday. He had his daughter phone in, however, to assure this writer she was safe and well in the Ryde apartment and to say her father visits her most days.
Annette.sharp@news.com.au; Twitter:@insharprelief
Originally published as Chris Smith’s private pain goes public as ex contacts cops about daughter