Nicky Brownless opens up on engagement to Garry Lyon
Nicky Brownless has spoken about her engagement to AFL star Garry Lyon in her first public outing since the huge news dropped.
Nicky Brownless has spoken about her engagement to Garry Lyon after attending the Australian Open.
Lyon popped the question in December which came as a complete surprise to Brownless who took to Instagram to share the news.
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The duo, who have been together for close to eight years, took off to New York shortly after the proposal with the Herald Sun capturing the happy couple upon their return to Melbourne.
Brownless enjoyed a day out at the tennis alongside daughter Lucy and sons Oscar and Max and spoke about the recent engagement and the overseas holiday.
“We’d planned to go and we did (have so much to celebrate),’’ Nicky said.
“We’re really happy.”
Their relationship has blossomed despite facing a series of public scandals right from the beginning.
Lyon and Geelong cult hero Billy Brownless are only now patching their relationship back together after Lyon famously began dating Nicky one year following her separation from her ex-husband.
The two families have in recent years spent Christmas together as one big family. Brownless, a 198-game Geelong legend, recently spoke about how time has been healing the wounds he suffered during the public marriage breakdown.
Nicky and Brownless were together for 18 years before splitting in 2014.
Nicky’s relationship with Lyon became public in 2016, breaking the close friendship between the ex-AFL players who also worked side-by-side on The Footy Show.
In 2020, Brownless addressed the situation on reality show I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here.
“We separated about four years ago,” he said. “Had a big, big dust-up we did. It was public, very public.
“She just fell out of love, which happens. I didn’t expect it. You think she’ll come back and all that, but she didn’t. So that was a real kick in the guts.”
Brownless added that Lyon and he were “not best mates … but one day I suppose we’ll sit down and have a beer. Time heals”.
Lyon has also previously addressed the situation, apologising for his actions and discussing the relationship he conceded was “frowned upon”.
“It’s important I apologise publicly for the hurt they’ve been through,” Lyon said when the relationship became public.
“I was separated back in 2014. It’s hard enough to deal with separation, hard enough to deal with privately let alone publicly when you throw in a new relationship that lots of people frown upon, a person who was once married to a friend.”
Brownless in late 2022 confirmed he has a new lady in his life and said the pair were “taking it slowly”.
“It’s really new and a nice little friendship. We’re going all right and taking it slowly,” he said.
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