Kelli Stevens breaks silence on Wayne Carey affair and her failed marriage to Anthony Stevens

WEEKEND CATCH-UP: KELLI Stevens finally broke her silence on her affair with Wayne Carey in the Herald Sun on Saturday. Read the story that had everyone talking.

• STORY, VIDEO: Anthony Stevens breaks silence over Carey affair
• CAREY, IN HIS WORDS: Why I risked it all with Kelli

KELLI Stevens has sensationally revealed Wayne Carey begged her to start a new life with him in the days after their infamous affair was discovered.

Kelli, 41, told the Herald Sun she was “sick of the lies” still surrounding their secret affair, the exposure of which rocked the football world 13 years ago.

She says the then Kangaroos captain begged her to leave her husband, Anthony Stevens, his vice-captain and best friend of over 10 years.

“He rang me and said, ‘Why don’t we just come out and say we love each other?’

“He even asked to speak to my parents to try and persuade them, too,” Kelli said.

“But I felt it was all about him, because of his career.”

Kelli also denies they both wanted to start an affair. She says he ruthlessly pursued her for a sexual relationship.

Anthony Stevens embraces Kelli and daughter Ayva after his final game.

However, she concedes her mistake in agreeing to start the passionate affair with Carey, saying they found it impossible to stop until it was too late.

“It was all-consuming. When you are in the middle of something like that it’s like a trap because you can’t stop.

“We often told each other we loved each other.”

CAREY’S FIANCEE: ‘WAYNE THINKS ABOUT IT EVERY DAY’

The divorcee accuses the controversial Channel 7 commentator, 44, of lying about the infamous toilet incident at a March 2002 party which finally exposed the sordid affair.

Carey, who became a father again in January when partner Stephanie Edwards gave birth to a girl, wrote in a 2009 autobiography that he had shouted at Kelli to leave the bathroom.

Of the hurt she felt when she read this, Kelli says: “I just thought, how can someone come and out and tell lies, straight-out lies?

“He didn’t tell me to get out of the toilet or anything like that. We were in there for two minutes at least. We were kissing, said ‘love you’, and went back to the party.”

Kelli Stevens outside her Moama home. Picture: Jay Town

Kelli is furious her ex-husband, Stevens, 44, also spoke about the affair for the first time in a TV interview this week, labelling him “selfish”.

“He showed a real lack of thought. He doesn’t seem to have any empathy,” she says.

Speaking at her home in Moama, NSW, Kelli says it is finally time to tell her side.

Now working as a spa therapist in Echuca, Kelli says she is worried about the effect of lies on their children Ayva, 14, and River, aged 9.

“All I care about is the kids,” she says.

Kelli also says that the affair was, in fact, a symptom of the strains on her marriage to Stevens.

“There were times when he didn’t get home five nights in a row, and things like that,” Kelli says.

Kelli and Anthony.

Carey arrives at a press conference to resign from North Melbourne.

WOMAN AT THE HEART OF FOOTY’S BIGGEST SCANDAL COMES OUT SWINGING

KELLI Stevens still has the same alluring, charismatic beauty which ultimately led to Wayne Carey’s downfall, but right now she’s wearing her angry face.

Gesticulating wildly as we talk in her front garden in Moama, NSW, the 41-year-old says it’s finally time for her side of the story to be heard.

After all, her former lover “The King” Carey, 44, and ex-husband Anthony Stevens have both had their own say about the infamous affair in 2002 — shattering friendships, marriages, careers and a whole AFL team along the way.

This once honey-blonde WAG is now a wellness warrior. She’s been silent for 13 years. Until now.

This isn’t a kiss ‘n’ tell.

This is a kiss ‘n’ yell.

“It’s like I’ve been thrown to the wolves again,” she says.

Stevens, 44, didn’t warn her he was doing a TV interview for Fox Footy about the affair this week, Kelli claims, and she’s livid.

“It’s been an emotional few days, it’s like a nightmare that never stops,” she says.

“The past keeps coming back.”

That’s putting it mildly.

Kelli’s “past” is a skeleton weighted with ten tonnes of bricks that regularly falls out of the cupboard.

But the mother-of-two concedes immediately it was a mistake to have an affair with sports icon Carey — the captain of North Melbourne at the time but, more pertinently, her husband Anthony’s best friend.

Wayne Carey (centre) celebrates a win with Anthony Stevens (right) after a win over Essendon in 1998.

They were like brothers, the dream team who played magnificently together for the Kangaroos from 1989 to 2001.

She agrees there could be no greater betrayal.

“But things don’t always get planned in life,” she says.

“It’s something that happened and looking back, of course I made a mistake but now I see it as a symptom of my marriage.”

FURTHER READING, VIDEO: Anthony Stevens breaks silence over Wayne Carey affair

She points out that when she fell in love at the age of 17 with Stevens, who was 21 and already a Kangaroos star, she only ever dreamt of the happy ever after.

“It was definitely lust at first, he was so handsome,” she says.

“I wasn’t that into football so it wasn’t about his status or fame. I just loved him.”

But even early in their relationship there were problems, she claims, not helped by constant pressure put on the players by coach Denis Pagan.

“Footballers get very stressed, so we would have our rough times,” she says.

After the couple married in 1998, Kelli reveals, they tried unsuccessfully to start a family naturally and turned to IVF which finally resulted in the birth of their first child, Ayva, in 2001.

Kelli and Anthony with baby Ayva.

But the whole process was a strain.

So things weren’t so picture perfect then when her friendship with Wayne — a huge part of the couple’s close-knit group which included Wayne’s new wife, Sally — suddenly turned dangerously flirty in November 2001 at a wedding.

“He rang me every day for three weeks afterwards. He was pushing it, it wasn’t mutual despite what he says,” she says.

Still only 27, Kelli felt cornered, but admits she also felt excited.

“I had never felt like that before,” she says.

“It was exciting. No one had shown me this type of attention before.”

When all the flirting finally turned sexual, Kelli found their secret liaisons so addictive, so passionate, she just couldn’t stop.

“Everyone must know what that feels like,” she says.

Kelli reveals the affair in fact grew so intense the pair told each other regularly that they loved each other.

“We both said we shouldn’t keep going ahead, but we really enjoyed each other’s company,” she says.

Kellis is now a busy single mum. Picture: Jay Town

And then, inevitably, it all went so terribly — and publicly — wrong.

The pair were both with their spouses and more than 100 others at a party thrown by teammate Glenn Archer at his home in early March 2002, when they were famously spotted leaving a toilet together by Stevens himself.

This is where Kelli gets agitated again.

She accuses Carey of lying in his 2009 biography about what actually occurred in the small bathroom.

Carey says he told her to get out.

BOOK EXTRACT: Carey reveals why he risked it all for Kelli

She says otherwise, saying they kissed for two minutes before saying they loved each other.

But why did she take such a risk in the first place?

“I was actually just walking outside and saw him go into the toilet and without thinking just went straight in after him. It was a spur-of-the-moment sort of thing,” she said.

“I just thought it was a chance to have a quiet moment together.”

In the ensuing bitter fallout, amid all the headlines and the humiliation, Kelli fled to her parents’ house with Ayva.

She reveals that Carey, who had instantly fallen from superhero to villain and resigned from North Melbourne in disgrace, rang a few days later begging for her to agree that he should announce in a TV interview they wanted to be together.

She declined.

“I had a young daughter,” she says.

“I just wanted that happy marriage back together, so he went back to Sally.”

Anthony and Kelli on their wedding day.

Like Wayne and Sally, Kelli and Anthony reconciled in the tearful months that followed, but both marriages were doomed, despite both couples welcoming a child each a few years later.

Kelli gave birth to River, now aged 9, again by IVF, and the couple tried to carve out a new life together in Echuca running a party hire business.

They finally divorced three years ago after first breaking up in 2008.

“We had fallen out of love, it just wasn’t working,” she says.

Now a busy single mum, Kelli is spa-therapist, running wellness expos and trying to get on cordially with Anthony, who lives in Bendigo, for the sake of their two children.

“I’d love to meet someone nice one day of course,” she smiles, now seemingly much calmer after telling her side of the story at last.

As we leave, River, the spitting image of his father, snaps a drop punt from across the street.

Kelli leaps up into the air in her skinny jeans and marks it like a pro.

She’s no longer a footballer’s wife or a footballer’s lover.

But she’s still a damned good catch.

@luciemorrismarr