Ben Cousins’ long road from prison to prime-time TV as Channel 7 sports anchor

In the age of cancel culture, why Channel Seven is taking a big punt on football’s wildest man.

From prison to prime-time, Ben Cousins is on a mission for redemption. Picture: Ross Swanborough

On Channel Seven Perth, Ben Cousins looks and sounds like another TV sports anchor, rattling off the headlines and bantering with his colleagues.

But Ben Cousins has never been ‘just another’ anything – and his presence on morning television is the latest chapter in a life story that’s been triumphant, tragic and terrifying.

He was a supremely gifted AFL footballer – the son of a beloved Geelong Cats star, who rocketed to nationwide fame with the West Coast Eagles.

But every moment he wasn’t playing or training, Ben Cousins was going wild.

“In WA back in the late nineties, early aughts, it was either you were talking about the Claremont serial killer or you were talking about Ben Cousins and the West Coast Eagles, and they were just a juggernaut,” The Australian’s associate editor Jenna Clarke said.

Jenna Clarke is an associate editor with The Australian. She’s writing our media diary – and has an exclusive sit-down interview with Ben Cousins.

“Ben was known as the Prince of Perth and it was really a moniker that he I don‘t know whether he endorsed, but he definitely lived up to it.”

Cousins – like many of his teammates – was what West Australians fondly call a Perthonality; immensely famous in this small city where football is life.

“These athletes were considered to be gods. They were beautiful looking, They were so charming. They were cheeky,” Clarke said.

WHAT MADE BEN COUSINS SO GOOD?

By 22, Cousins was captain of the West Coast Eagles

“He was a freak. He had this ability to be a leader not only just a leader on the field, but a spiritual leader and really galvanised people together. He was a wonderful player.”

WHAT DRUGS DID BEN COUSINS DO?

The fall, when it came, was spectacular.

As Channel 9 reported, “He was banned from football for a year after the AFL found him guilty of bringing the game into disrepute. His first run in with police came back in 2006 when he fled a booze bus. Then he was arrested in Melbourne for public intoxication. In 2007 Cousins was arrested again in Northbridge.”

He cleaned himself up, retired, relapsed, cleaned himself up again, relapsed again.

Ben Cousins celebrates after winning the 2006 Grand Final. Picture: Robert Cianflone

In 2012 he lashed out at a 7 News crew, demanding they “get out of my personal space” and saying “you don’t care about me.”

Jenna Clarke said: “I can‘t even remember how many there were. There was so many off field indiscretions, drugs, alcohol, avoiding drug testing from the AFL. There was a case where he was he ran away from a booze bus after a friend’s wedding. And that’s when it started to unravel.

“One of the common threads by a lot of AFL journos and people within that clique at the time, where if you start to bring the AFL into disrepute, they will kill, they will annihilate you. And you know, that‘s what they did. He was sanctioned.

“He was stood aside for bringing the game into disrepute. And then it all just sort of began to come undone for them.

In 2020 Cousins told Seven’s Basil Zempilas: “I said to the coppers every time, I said ‘You guys have let me down’, I said: ‘The community has let me down’.

“Now I’ve gone to jail, I cop it sweet. I‘ve gone back to jail. I come out and cop it sweet. I’ve missed half my kids’ lives.”

All this made Ben Cousins one of those stories sports fans tell each other.

His behaviour became so spectacular it took American podcasters James Pietragallo and Jimmie Whisman two and a half hours to recap his story in their show Crime In Sports, made by Wondery.

First – and this is always entertaining – they had to explain AFL to an international audience.

“It appears like several dozen – I don’t know how many, but just a sea of white people with no pads on,” the hosts laughed.

“They’re tossing this ball all around as they go, they can kick it, too, right? All these guys falling and ball going up – it’s muddy and a mess and it looks like a disaster.”

Even by the standards of American sport’s excesses, Cousins’ story was startling.

The Crime in Sports guys reeled off his habits: “Ecstasy, meth, coke, pills, ice, booze, He lives like a professional wrestler in the eighties.”

WHAT DID BEN COUSINS GO TO JAIL FOR?

Jenna Clarke: “There were a lot of great people around him, but he just didn‘t want to listen and he didn’t listen for so many years. Don’t forget what he went to jail for was really horrific. It was stalking and intimidation of his former partner and the mother of his children. So there has been a time where during COVID, he came out before COVID and then he sort of reappeared. It was then that a switch was flicked and he realised that if he wants to even see his children moving forward, he’s got to pull his socks up.”

BEN COUSINS AND QUEENS PARK

When Ben Cousins was in prison, he heard about a suburban football club, Queens Park, that he thought might get him.

Jenna Clarke explained: “90 per cent of the players involved are indigenous. He came out and he just said, Look, I got to have a kick and just get amongst the community. And that‘s why he really understood how special the football community was to him, and that really got him on the path to getting himself well. So he joined it. And it’s funny because he says, Oh, you know, I joined this club. I didn’t know any people there and they didn’t know me. And I looked at him. Everyone knows who Ben Cousins is.

“They loved having him around. And, you know, he took to the field. The president, Ross White, told me that, you know, they started at having 100 people there on Sunday games and it was up to 1200 when he started to pull the boots on.

Cousins started working in construction, as a labourer and a scaffolder.

“The flame was sort of flickering about what he enjoyed most in his early days and it was media. So I think that‘s where he had a chat to Barra,” Clarke said.

That’s Adrian Barich, a long time sports presenter on Channel 7 in Perth – and a former player. He was captain – and is now president – of the Perth Demons.

He gave Cousins a go.

It was tentative at first but Cousins drove himself to get better.

“He‘s there 3 hours early, reading over scripts, rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing. He reads the midday news bulletin, sports news bulletin, and then he does a lot of AFL stuff. So he’s interviewing players for, you know, online pieces and he’s also doing live footy crosses when games are playing as well,” Clarke said.

It’s been a while since Ben Cousins has done a sit-down interview, but he spoke to Jenna for her story, published in The Australian today.

He’s tipping a Collingwood premiership – and he’s thrilled to be back inside the footy fold.

Cousins said: “The football as a product is amazing, I think women’s footy is improving all the time, I‘m just amazed at how much progress the girls are making.

“The game certainly doesn’t get slower, the players seem to get quicker and stronger and the game keeps moving forward at a rapid rate which is quite amazing.”

He’s practising in case the autocue fails – which is an interesting mindset.

“You know, I don‘t think a lot of broadcasters would say, okay, let’s have the worst case scenario,” Clarke said.

“And let me flip the script and see if I can make it out of here. And I think that was really blown his managers away at Channel Seven because he just wants to make sure that he‘s just getting it right. And to use a footy term, you know, hitting his mark every single time.”

IS BEN COUSINS CLEAN NOW?

Yes, he is, says Jenna Clarke.

“So now every night he gets into bed and I don‘t know whether he has a cup of tea, but he definitely reads a novel every night to wind down. Which is crazy considering all those years ago, after either a defeat or a win on the field, he would famously go six days without sleep.”

We live in the age of cancellation where people have lost careers for a lot less than stalking and intimidation – so why does he deserve another chance?

Jenna Clarke said: “I think I‘m probably going to be cancelled because I decided to write the story about this guy.

“But I think at the end of the day, we‘re all human and I think everyone deserves the chance to have another crack at life. I mean, sure, he has done some horrific things and he’s not shying away from the fact that he has been a really bad human and a bad member of society for a number of years.

“Does he deserve a second chance? A lot of people would say no, because he‘s had way too many.

But if he is doing all of the things that he says he‘s doing, and clearly when you see him physically, he seems to be in the best place I’ve seen him for a number of years.”

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This is an edited transcript of our daily news podcast The Front, where our journalists speak candidly about their stories. Hear it now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or in The Australian’s app.