Australian celebrities Kirk Pengilly, Layne Beachley entertain crowd at Toowoomba Hospital Foundation’s charity luncheon
One of Australia’s most famous celebrity couples, Layne Beachley and Kirk Pengilly, have enthralled the audience at a special Toowoomba charity luncheon. Gallery of pics here:
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Australian power couple Layne Beachley and Kirk Pengilly treated residents to plenty of laughs and revealing anecdotes at the latest edition of the Tilly’s Legends At Their Game luncheon.
Helping to raise funds to upgrade the Toowoomba Hospital’s oncology unit, the seven-time world surfing champion Beachley and former guitarist for rock band INXS Pengilly helped fill the room at Rumours International on Friday.
The event included performances from Pengilly, while the couple even interviewed each other.
“There’s bound to be some secrets, because every time I go out I hear another (story about Kirk) and think ‘I didn’t know that before’,” Beachley said prior to the event.
While it was Beachley’s first time to the Garden City, Pengilly said he’d toured Toowoomba many times and was full of praise for the city’s architecture.
“The band over the years would do a tour up the coast, from Melbourne up to Cairns (and) Toowoomba was often a stop,” he said.
“I love the houses here, they’re different, they’re not like typical Queenslanders, but they’ve got the beautiful verandas and the weatherboard exteriors.”
The function has been a long time coming, with the couple originally booked to star at the event in 2020 before Covid-19 occurred.
Beachley said regional centres like Toowoomba deserved quality medical services, something she was hoping to improve through fundraising.
“We saw with Covid the tree change that a lot of people made, so there are a lot of people moving out of the cities and into regional areas, so we need to boost the resources to withstand the increased capacity,” she said.
“Capital cities tend to get more of the funding, so we need to extend that more to the regions.”
As one of Australia’s most famous celebrity couples, Beachley and Pengilly celebrated 21 years together in 2023 after being introduced in 2002 by singer Jon Stevens.
The pair said honesty, communication and humour were the keys to a healthy relationship.
“Humour is the number one thing for me, making sure you are laughing with your partner and not at them,” Beachley added.
“And always holding hands – that’s an important part of marriage and one of my love languages is physical touch.”
Check out photos from the luncheon below:
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