AFL great Wayne Carey says he mentally abused, intimidated former partners
Radio host Lauren Phillips has hit out at Wayne Carey’s role on a new reality show, questioning why the AFL great keeps “getting oxygen on television”.
Confidential
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Radio and TV personality Lauren Phillips has slammed the decision to have Wayne Carey featured on Channel 7 show SAS: Australia.
Phillips said it was a poor move to pay the former AFL star to open up on past indiscretions.
“I personally really struggle with Wayne Carey being glorified for some of the things he’s done,’’ Phillips said on her KIIS 101.1 show
“Whichever way you put it, even though he’s admitting fault and he’s talking about it, he’s still being glorified and being paid money to go on a show to talk about some of the things he’s done in his life.
“How do people like this keep getting oxygen on television?
“I understand that the show is about dealing with people’s inner demons. Should he be getting paid to go on a show to talk about these things?”
Phillips said Carey’s past was more than just “dirty laundry” and labelled sleeping with the wife of his former North Melbourne teammate was “lower than a snake’s belly”.
“It seems to be only footballers that get away with this stuff,’’ she said.
“You shouldn’t be glorified for it and it actually makes my blood boil and I’ve struggled watching him on television for many years because of that and I won’t be watching SAS.”
Phillips’ views come after an ex-girlfriend of Carey dismissed his claims that he didn’t intend to glass her in the face.
Carey was arrested for assaulting police following the 2007 incident in which Kate Neilson was hit in the face with a wine glass in Miami.
Asked about glassing his ex-girlfriend during an “interrogation” on SAS: Australia, Carey insisted it was an accident.
While he admitted being mentally “abusive” and “intimidating” to past partners, the 50-year-old denied ever physically hurting a woman.
But Neilson dismissed Carey’s version as nonsense, saying “he knows the truth”.
Now an actor and writer based in Los Angeles, she said while the pair had a tumultuous relationship the incident was no accident.
“If it was an accident he wouldn’t have fled the scene when glass smashed in my face,’’ Neilson said.
“There was a lot of blood, why wouldn’t you stay and aid someone you love when you can see they’re in a bad way? It looked like someone had been stabbed and people were screaming. The glass was so loud when it shattered, it doesn’t make sense it was an accident.
“We have discussed it and I know he knows the truth. If he wants to go with that narrative, I guess once you say something publicly, you have to go with it.
“Wayne was highly intoxicated that night, he’d had a lot to drink during the day, and I only started drinking at night. My recollection is crystal clear.”
In a confronting interview, Carey had spoken on the reality show about how he would never act physically against a woman after seeing what his dad did to his mum in his childhood.
“In America I’ve been charged with assaulting police, I got accused of glassing my girlfriend,’’ Carey said.
“I leant over to throw wine over her in a restaurant which clearly is wrong. The glass touched her lip, the headlines were that I glassed her.
“(It’s) one of the biggest regrets of my life. Of course throwing that on a girlfriend is unacceptable – completely unacceptable. Yes, the glass touched her lip, didn’t break. I wasn’t trying to glass her.”
Carey added: “What my partners will say, I’ve never been physically abusive but have I been abusive mentally and also I guess intimidating? Absolutely.
“Why I behave that way is due to I think a number of reasons. Not addressing things and actually being physically violent to someone, I saw that every day growing up. The way my dad was with my mum, horrific stuff. And that’s why when people close to me said that is unacceptable, I’d say, hang on what do you mean? I raised my voice, I stood up, I put my arm on her. I now know how warped my thinking was. You don’t actually have to hit someone to be abusive.”
Carey said he had turned his life around in the past decade after seeking professional help.
The two-time premiership forward and former captain of North Melbourne, said his deepest regret was sleeping with Kelli Stevens, the wife of then teammate Anthony Stevens, 20 years ago.
Neilson, who was with Carey for seven years, said she had forgiven him over the glassing, but only because she had empowered herself to move on.
“I dropped the charges against him so he had a good run,” she added.
Carey was placed on two years’ probation by a US court in 2008 over the police assault, avoiding a conviction.
“I copped a lot of backlash and hate from people who didn’t understand why I stayed with him,” Neilson said. “I was engaged to him, and you’re young and so in love … I imagined my future was with him.”
But she added: “I’m not triggered the way I used to be … I am still in contact with him and part of forgiveness is moving on.”
Domestic violence activist Phil Cleary said there needed to be more accountability in condemning violence against women.
“We have only just begun to accept that, overwhelmingly, women don’t lie about men’s violence,’’ Cleary said.
“More than a decade ago Wayne did tell me the same version of events that he threw wine but didn’t glass her. If it is as Wayne Carey claims, why is Kate Neilson claiming that it wasn’t? This is the question every man, including TV executives, should be asking.”
Carey, a father of three, said he hoped people accepted he had changed.
“The penny dropped. I spoke to the right people and since then … and that’s not to say I’m the perfect human now, either,” he said. “I’m still a work in progress.
“People say people don’t change. You haven’t lived in my shoes if you say people can’t change.
“People can change and they evolve, and I’m a perfect example of someone that’s been able to evolve.”
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