Anna Heinrich: ‘People always underestimate me’
As one half of the most popular Bachelor couples, Anna Heinrich is used to being in the spotlight with husband Tim Robards. But now the lawyer is ready to take on projects solo — and to prove the naysayers wrong.
Stellar
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Anna Heinrich has always been independent. When she was 10 years old, she decided it was time for her to move out of home.
“My dad reminded me that I asked to move into our two-storey shed when he was doing my wedding speech,” she tells Stellar.
To her surprise, her parents said yes. “I brought in my mattress and I set it up like my own place. They thought I’d be back within the week, but I stuck it out for a good couple of months.”
The 32-year-old lawyer rose to fame when she successfully matched with Tim Robards on Australia’s first season of The Bachelor. Five years later, they married last June, however, with the pair now living separately, Heinrich has once again found herself drawing on that independence.
While Heinrich holds down the fort in Sydney with a number of projects on the go, Robards spends most of his time in Melbourne filming Neighbours.
Despite the distance, she confirms their relationship is as solid as ever. “It shows that as a couple we can do anything and it’s going to work,” she says with conviction.
“While he’s away, I can focus on myself and do things for me, then when we come together, we can do things as a team.”
Public scrutiny is part and parcel of forming a relationship in the spotlight, but it intensifies further under the microscope of a reality TV program.
When Heinrich and Robards spoke to Stellar ahead of their wedding last year, the pair — while grateful for the public’s ongoing support — expressed their frustration at the paparazzi and false break-up stories that come with fame.
Heinrich is relieved the interest has pulled back a bit since they wed, however she is well versed in how the gossip cycle works. “I think people almost want us to find [living separately] difficult, but I really don’t,” she says wryly.
“We both were independent people before meeting each other. I’d never had a serious boyfriend before Tim, so I was kind of always on my own in that regard, but I was happy.”
Spending her 20s as a career and family focused woman set Heinrich up to view their current living arrangements with a healthy outlook.
“I think it’s important for all relationships to have time away from each other because you learn a lot more about yourself and each other as well,” she muses.
But she also admits she feels the pang of long distance during “those little moments when you are home at night watching TV or cooking dinner on your own.”
Speaking of which, yes, she still tunes in to The Bachelor. “Every year I watch it,” she confirms. “I think they’ve done a fantastic job this season.”
“I love that Matt is someone different from some of the previous guys. And I love that they have brought someone in who has a career, is intelligent and I think is doing a fantastic job.”
With several television shows on the go, Heinrich is busier than ever — particularly given she continues to work part-time as a practising lawyer.
It’s her primary career that also made her the natural choice to co-star with Kyle Sandilands on Network 10’s upcoming series Trial By Kyle, which was greenlit after first appearing during last year’s Pilot Week.
The series sees Sandilands presiding over a mock court as judge and Heinrich’s role is to advise him on the law.
No stranger to reality television, it’s a natural fit for Heinrich, but she’s also thrilled to show that side of herself to Australian audiences.
“I felt like I was in my element because I knew what I was doing and I knew what a courtroom was like. I walked in like, ‘I’m nervous because I want to do well, but I’m not so nervous in the situation because I don’t know what I’m doing.’”
And then there’s Sandilands, one of the Australian media’s most polarising figures.
Heinrich admits she didn’t know what to expect when she first signed on to the project, but tells Stellar she was eager to impress him with her legal knowledge.
“Coming from a show like The Bachelor, I wanted to make sure he saw me in a different light,” she admits.
“I have to say, I take my hat off to him. He is very witty, intelligent and he knows what he is doing.”
While the Australian Idol audience will recall Sandilands as fulfilling the role of “bad cop”, Heinrich says it isn’t as black and white on their new show.
“There were times when I was tougher on the plaintiff or the defendant as I knew what the law was, but then Kyle brought emotion into it. He would turn to me for the legal advice, and there are a lot of times he doesn’t listen to me, but that’s what makes it fun.”
Her legal knowledge isn’t the only skill Heinrich is putting to the test on the small screen — she’ll also be appearing on the Seven Network’s The Real Dirty Dancing.
While her legal expertise far outweighs her dancing experience, she says she successfully mastered the famous “lift” prior to going on the show.
“I actually tried it once with Tim at the Melbourne Cup,” she recalls with a laugh. “We were in the birdcage and it was getting to the end of the day where everyone had a few too many drinks, and the song came on. Everybody wanted us to do the lift so we did it and we nailed it.”
With that feat already conquered, Heinrich found she had to overcome quite a different challenge — dancing with other men.
“I struggled with the connection you have to form with your partner,” she admits, “trying to get up close and personal. It was very intimate and quite confronting. I struggled with that because I haven’t been up that close to someone since meeting my husband.”
Robards flies back to Sydney every Friday evening so weekends have become precious time, although they never miss joining the extended family for the Sunday lunches hosted by Heinrich’s mum, Jude.
“I grew up surrounded by this love of food and entertaining, and that’s carried on throughout the years. Every week we have friends over to my mum’s place so she can cook for them.”
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While Heinrich is quick to give the lion’s share of the credit in the kitchen to her mum, she says she has picked up a few skills — especially when it comes to Robards’s favourite dessert.
“Tim loves my sticky date pudding. I cook it for him now, but I used to cook it for other guys,” she says, laughing. “I think he knows that.”
Family meals are an enduring tradition for the Heinrich clan and Jude became “Insta-famous” when Heinrich started hashtagging #judesfood on her account.
Before long, fans of Heinrich and Robards became just as eager to see the meals served up by Jude as they were to look at snaps of the telegenic couple.
When Heinrich realised how popular her mum’s food was, she decided they should pull together their favourite recipes into a cookbook — the soon to be published Jude’s Food.
With two prime-time TV shows, a part-time job as a corporate lawyer and now the co-author of a cookbook, Heinrich’s CV is a particularly crowded one.
“Since I was a kid, I’ve always wanted to do things to prove people wrong,” she observes.
“I always felt people thought I couldn’t do the things I said I wanted to do. I think that being blonde, people have underestimated me — they probably wouldn’t say it to my face though.”
Jude’s Food by Judy and Anna Heinrich ($39.99) is out October 1.
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Originally published as Anna Heinrich: ‘People always underestimate me’
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