Michael Clarke: from Test captain to king of cultural cringe

Michael Clarke and Jade Yarbrough in November last year. Picture: Getty Images

The Real Housewives of Noosa looks predictably tacky, doesn’t it?

Especially bold of them to cast people who don’t live anywhere near the glittering Hastings Street strip. They had to import them from Sydney’s Bondi.

Alas, not even the kaftans are as loud as former Australian cricket captain Michael Clarke was on January 10 when his relationship with interior designer Jade Yarbrough allegedly imploded when she found text messages and “receipts” of his infidelity on their family holiday.

The pair had it out outside a restaurant which was – as most things are these days – caught on film by onlookers. Instead of uploading it to a social media platform the graining vision where “Pup” was repeatedly called a “dog” for allegedly sleeping with his former partner, fashion designer Pip Edwards, was sold to the media. Allegations Clarke denies.

Watch the shocking moment Michael Clarke squared off with Karl Stefanovic over wild cheating allegations.

See what happens next ➡️ https://t.co/Mn8liWB1LMpic.twitter.com/Z4gzCTuj3y

— The Daily Telegraph (@dailytelegraph) January 19, 2023

Pip Edwards and Michael Clarke in 2020. Picture: Getty Images

At first it looks like Clarke, his “celebrity accountant” mate (and alibi) Anthony Bell, Yarbrough and her sister Jasmine – wife of Today Show host Karl Stefanovic – and Stefanovic himself – are role playing scenes from Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare.

Unlike Harry and Prince William’s well documented biff, no dog bowls were broken in this melodrama, just Pup’s hamstring, which he allegedly pulled as Yarbrough attacked him.

There is so much dirty laundry being aired in the two-minute video, it’s understandable as to why Clarke is shirtless.

It is uncomfortable to watch, but we did, we continue to do so and we cannot look away. The only pawn in this is Stefanovic who has been caught up in melee trying to defuse the situation.

Celebrity, or celebrity-adjacent spats, slaps, slip ups and spats are catnip.

The US has sex scandals, the Brits love a royal tiff and we here in Australia seem to produce high-profile people who punch on in parks.

We abhor domestic and family violence, we’re apparently shocked over eshay culture taking hold here and seeing children getting violent in schools, yet when the rich and famous do it we scoff.

James Packer and David Gyngell came to blows in 2014.

The last time a smash caught the collective consciousness was back in 2014 when former Nine boss David Gyngell pounced on his friend James Packer outside the billionaire’s Bondi home. The titans of Australian business were photographed in their house Hanes kit rolling around like amateur wrestlers.

“He didn’t come to my place to punch me, I went to his place to punch him,” Gyngell said at the time.

The reported issue was around the breakdown of Packer’s marriage to Erica Packer. The pair remain close, so do the best friends.

Screaming loudly in public is also a favourite pastime of Australian cricketers. When they’re not getting their coach sacked or tampering with balls, they seem to think yelling loudly outside is akin to therapy.

Former player Damien Martyn unleashed on his ex-fiance and her friends inside a packed Perth pub back in 2005 after she called off their engagement when she allegedly found intimate text messages from another woman.

After being cordial, the woman – herself a high-profile Perth businesswoman at the time – was allegedly told to “f..k off” and called a “s..t”.

Martyn’s friends reportedly attempted to pacify him, instead he gave a blistering analysis of his former partner’s friends:

“He started looking at all the girls that were with me, about half a dozen of us, and he said to one, ‘You can f..k off, you’re ugly’, and said to another, ‘You’re all right, you can stay’. The worst was when he said to one girl, ‘You can f..k off, you’ve got a fat arse’ and she was absolutely devastated and went home because she was so upset,” the woman told the media at the time.

In the middle of a private, professional and public Venn diagram is Clarke.

His former partner, Lara Bingle, now Lara Worthington, was pilloried in the press for causing disharmony among Clarke’s colleagues after the pair met on set of Dancing on Ice and fell in love in 2007.

Lara Bingle and Michael Clarke in 2008.

Clarke’s love life hampered his playing career, as he documented in his memoir, My Story, published back in 2016.

During a test at the SCG he wanted to leave the dressing room to go to a prearranged function with Bingle, but became suspicious that vice-captain Simon Katich and Michael Hussey were deliberately delaying the singing of the team song – the traditional way to wrap-up post-match drinks – just to make Clarke stay longer.

“‘Hang on, you’re doing this out of spite, you f..king dogs’,” is what Clarke said at the time, according to his book. “Have the balls to say it to my face.’

So infatuated was Clarke with Bingle that he got her initials tattooed across his shoulders.

They were some of the first Aussies to take their love online, regularly tweeting each other from different rooms of their Bondi love nest. A house where plumbers had to be called to retrieve Bingle’s $200,000 engagement ring after she flushed it down the toilet. Something Clarke denies.

After they split in 2010 Bingle went on to marry Avatar star Sam Worthington and has launched a successful skin care and cosmetics line.

Clarke married his high school sweetheart Kyly Boldy in a lavish wedding in rural NSW where the bride rode in on a horse.

Clarke tweeted about the secret wedding complete with photos and outfit credits.

“Thank you everyone for your very kind messages. Kyly heavily designed her own dress with good friend Alex Perry and I wore Louis Vuitton.”

They have one daughter – whose life Clarke swore on during his latest lover’s tiff – and split amicably in 2020.

Ten years later the French brand was once again front and centre for Clarke where he “hard launched” his new relationship Yarbrough after being photographed together at an exhibition in Sydney.

Edwards has since released a statement following the cheating allegations.

“This is not my circus. Yet again Michael in his true nature has not taken responsibility for his actions and I was blatantly lied to,” Edwards said as all parties involved now spin more than Cirque du Soleil performers.

No one could have predicted a break up this brutal. Ending in punches and screams punctuated by sobs in front of prying smart phones.

No one except anyone who has followed Clarke’s form.

After retiring as a Test captain, he now takes the mantle as the king of cultural cringe.