Michael and Kyly Clarke: Instagram image-making smoothes divorce

A ‘conscious uncoupling’ by Michael Clarke and Kyly Boldy is unfolding on social media.

Michael Clarke, left, leaves Ravesis at Bondi on Thursday; Kyly Boldy’s Instagram ‘twinning’ post with daughter Kelsey Lee, top right,; Kelsey Lee at the park.

When your career — and fortune — rely almost entirely on your status as a celebrity, precious little seems to matter as much as your image. But for Michael Clarke and Kyly Boldy, the only image that seems to matter right now is that of their precious little girl.

In an almost breathtaking display of the art of “conscious uncoupling”, the pair have spent the week reinforcing the defining role daughter Kelsey Lee will play in their lives through a series of supportive Instagram posts and videos — while declaring the demise of their seven-year marriage.

The former couple, who broke the news of their amicable split via The Australian on Wednesday night, have been at pains to focus on their four-year-old and place her front and centre of their ­future as a family.

It began with a symbolic post by Clarke on Monday, featuring him hand in hand with Kelsey Lee facing a new dawn, as the sun gently rose across the Pacific. “Right beside you,” the 38-year-old ex-Test skipper told her, before adding “#love #family #myangel”.

Then on Wednesday afternoon, as the two prepared to announce their end of their marriage to the nation, Clarke shared a video he had taken of Kelsey Lee that day during a trip to the park.

Within hours, Boldy followed suit, posting an image of herself with their daughter in matching leopard-print outfits, captioned: “It’s Wednesday … Twinning.”

The pair have taken care to ensure they publicly like and comment on each other’s posts of their daughter. The message to Kelsey Lee — and the world — could not be clearer: we might not be ­together but we will always be a family.

“With the greatest of respect for each other, we’ve come to the mutual conclusion that this is the best course for us to take while committed to the co-parenting of our daughter,” Clarke and Boldy reaffirmed to The Australian in a statement on Wednesday.

As a Test player, Clarke’s ­career was defined by his precision and timing with the bat — and when it came to announcing what is shaping as a $40m divorce, things proved no different. Within hours of revealing their split, he signed off on the sale of his ­famously opulent Campbell Parade sub-penthouse apartment on Bondi Beach for a figure believed in the “early $7 millions”.

On Thursday, knowing interest in him would be at a peak, Clarke dropped Kelsey Lee at daycare before making a beeline for Hotel Ravesis at Bondi Beach where he happily lunched with Laurie Daley outdoors in front of the city’s paparazzi, and confirmed — again via Instagram — he would be joining the rugby league great as a host on Sky Sports Radio’s Big Sports Breakfast.

For those paying attention to their Instagram accounts, the signs of a split had long been there. Aside from one family picture on Christmas Eve, they have not posted pictures of each other since November, instead increasingly focusing on Kelsey Lee.