Surprise lifestyle change Buddy and Jesinta Franklin are planning

AFL glamour couple Buddy and Jesinta Franklin are planning to take up farming, in a huge lifestyle change it’s likely nobody saw coming. Oh, and Jesinta also cut off her hair, without telling Buddy.

Jesinta Franklin has opted to swap her long locks for a stylish bob. Picture: Eugene Canty

There have been many different looks throughout the rise and rise of Jesinta Franklin but this one has a special meaning behind it.

After a week-long health retreat in Thailand, one of Australia’s most marketable models knew she needed a change.

So when she arrived in Melbourne this week in her long-term role with Lancome, launching the Génifique Ultimate at EQ, a preventive wellbeing retreat, Franklin rang ahead and told her hair stylist to bring the scissors.

The result is a chic bob and the funniest part of the story for her is how spontaneous the decision was with her husband, former AFL champion Lance ‘Buddy’ Franklin, still oblivious to change.

“Budd doesn’t even know,” she laughs.

Buddy and Jesinta with Gai Waterhouse trained racehorse, Knights Order. Picture: Jason Edwards

Franklin, 33, is re-energised after falling into what she described as a “rut”, dealing with her growing business empire, raising a young family and uprooting her life and moving interstate.

“I feel like I have just emerged from that baby toddler phase,” she says.

“Lulu is four-and-a-half and Rocky is three-and-a-half, and I have started to feel like myself (again) so I wanted something that reflected how good and fresh I am feeling right now so I chopped the hair off.

“A change is as good as a holiday. It feels good, I feel so much better, I feel more focused and present, more motivated.

“I got in a rut there for a while where every day you are just slogging to the finish line.

“That’s how I describe motherhood, it’s like the most amazing relentless experience ever, the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows all in one but it’s definitely getting easier.”

Ironically, as one of the original Aussie influencers, Franklin has actually taken steps to limit her social media usage as part of this new health kick.

“I have now got an app blocker on my phone so I’m only allowed an hour on Instagram a day,” she explains. “I now realise how much time I was wasting just being consumed by social media, it was such an unconscious habit.

“That’s what I learnt over there (in Thailand) to set up more boundaries. It’s like OK you have got access to it for one hour and now if I’m not working I’m actually not finding that I’m reaching for my phone.

Jesinta felt she was stuck in a rut but now has a new enthusiasm for life Picture: Eugene Canty

The Gold Coast hinterland home of former AFL star Lance “Buddy” Franklin and his wife Jesinta.

“Before that it was what I’d do all the time so now I feel more productive, I feel like I am sleeping better, I have more time for things I didn’t think I had time for so it was a really good break.”

Next on the agenda for the one-time AFL glamour couple is life on the farm.

Twelve months on from Buddy’s retirement, they’re about to embark on a life of raising chickens, tendering a veggie patch and riding horses.

The couple’s $8.75 million dream “forever” home on the Gold Coast is up for sale as they seek another lifestyle change.

Buddy Franklin during a lap of honour with Jesinta and their children Rocky and Tullulah at halftime of the Sydney Swans Round 24 match against Melbourne at the SCG in 2023. Picture: Jonathan Ng

“We are home bodies Bud and I,” she says. “We actually live such a simple boring regular life besides our careers.

“We really want to buy a farm. I just want to create a sanctuary on some land, I want to have a flower farm, I want a veggie garden.

“We have really got into our horse riding on the Gold Coast, Bud and I and the kids.

“We are giving up our dream home, it is so beautiful and every time we walk in the door we’re like we don’t want to sell but we need to do this for the kids, we want to have quad bikes, horses, a creek on the property.”

She says with the bright lights and relentless pressure of the AFL scene behind them the couple have settled into a “nice little groove and rhythm”.

“We are really , really happy, just settled and life feels perfect right now.”