Lisa Curry: New book reveals how Don Talbot helped her have secret abortion; domestic violence

A secret abortion and how swimming became an escape from the domestic violence at home. These are just some of the shocking revelations Lisa Curry has revealed in her new book.

Exclusive: Swimming superstar Lisa Curry has revealed how one of Australian sport’s most revered father figures helped her have a secret abortion when she was a teenager pursuing her Olympic dream.

The late Don Talbot, who led Australia’s swim team to glory from the 1960s to the early 2000s, discreetly organised the termination when she was just 18.

She documents the story – one of many bombshells – in her autobiography, Lisa: A memoir – 60 years of life, love & loss, out today.

Australian head swimming coach Don Talbot in Adelaide in 1997.

Curry, now 59, also reveals:

•She was pressured about her weight and her looks by coaches;

•Swimming was an escape from her parent’s imploding marriage;

•Her dad regularly left her mum with bruises and once a black eye.

The book, written by Curry with the help of journalist Ellen Whinnett, will once again shine a light on how elite athletes, in particular female athletes, were sometimes body shamed by their coaches during their careers.

But it is the three-time Olympian’s revelation about Don Talbot, who died in 2020 aged 87, that will send shockwaves through Australian sport.

Lisa Curry celebrates after winning gold in the Womens 100m Breaststroke during the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, Australia. Picture: Getty Images

Lisa Curry at the peak of her career.

Curry, who went on to have three children with ironman Grant Kenny, kept the termination secret even from her mother and her friends.

She said confessing the pregnancy to Talbot at the side of the training pool was “terrifying”.

He said her only option was to have a termination, after she told him the pregnancy with an unnamed boyfriend from Brisbane was a mistake and she didn’t want a baby.

“For someone who loves and adores babies so much, I look back on this decision now with surprise,” Curry wrote.

“But I was very young. I wanted to swim, and there seemed to be no other option for me.”

Swimmer Kieren Perkins with swimming coach Don Talbot in 1999.

Australian head coach Don Talbot at the World Swimming Championships in Perth in 1998.

She said Talbot quietly organised the abortion at a clinic in Sydney and she took two weeks off to recover before returning to her training.

She said she never regretted her decision, but had also never told anyone about it.

“I don’t think I even told my friends,” she said.

“I’m not even sure my mum ever knew. I never discussed it again with Don.”

Curry also detailed how the athletes’ food intake was so closely monitored, they would sneak extra food from the buffet when the coaches weren’t watching and how at one camp the girls would eat chocolate in their dorms at night, then take laxatives so their weight would not have gone up at the morning weigh in.

Lisa Curry went on to have three children, including daughter Jaimi. Pictured together after Lisa won gold at the Commonwealth Games.

Curry, who documents her past love of junk food including a penchant for Samboy chips and Cherry Ripes, said weight wasn’t a problem for her until she started going through puberty at the age of 16.

She said that was when the late head coach Terry Buck, who Olympian Greg Rogers later claimed had sexually abused him and his brother as young boys, started calling her “Moon Face” and “Queen Zit”.

Another time Talbot threatened to send her home from a training camp in Hawaii when she said she wanted to buy healthy food from the supermarket rather than eat the buffet “slop” being offered.

She said she was an adult by then and stood up to him.

In the book Curry also reveals for the first time how her father beat her mother.

She said swimming was an escape from her parent’s toxic marriage, but that she only found out the extent of the abuse many years later from her beloved mum Pat, who died in March aged 86.

Lisa Curry was married to ironman champion Grant Kenny for more than two decades.

The book details one frightening moment recalled by her mum, when she tells Curry: “I could have killed him, or he could have killed all of us” and how her dad then picked up the base of a terracotta lamp as if to hit her mum, but she knocked him away.

He later slapped her, giving her a black eye that lasted for weeks on end.

“At the pool, I didn’t have to confront what was going on at home, and how our family was falling apart,” Curry wrote.

“I know he was very proud of me and he was always good to me. That’s why I struggle with loving my dad but hating what he did to my mum.”

Other revelations from her book were revealed at the weekend, including how Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin was named Australian of the Year in 2004 – but the decision was overturned at the 11th hour and the honour handed to cricketer Steve Waugh.

Jaimi tragically died aged 33. Picture: Instagram/@lisacurry

Curry, who was awarded an MBE and a Medal of the Order of Australia for her dedication to her sport, was chairing the National Australia Day Council at the time and said the members were spooked by public uproar after Mr Irwin held his then-baby son Robert while feeding a crocodile at his Australia Zoo.

Intimate details of her eldest daughter Jaimi’s tragic death were also revealed in her memoir.

She has now called for a debate to save “the other Jaimis” out there who are suffering from eating disorders and complex mental health concerns.

Lisa: A memoir – 60 years of life, love & loss by Lisa Curry with Ellen Whinnett published by HarperCollins is out now.

Originally published as Lisa Curry: New book reveals how Don Talbot helped her have secret abortion; domestic violence