Grace Tame gets engaged to partner Max Heerey
Australian child sex abuse survivor Grace Tame has revealed she is engaged after her partner popped the question on a recent bike ride.
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Australian child sex abuse survivor Grace Tame has revealed she is engaged after her partner popped the question on a recent bike ride.
Tame, who was named Australian of the Year in 2021, shared the news on social media on Saturday, where she posted a photo of her partner Max Heerey on one knee while proposing with an engagement ring in a jewellery box.
She also posted a photo of herself with the ring on her finger and Heerey giving her a kiss. She captioned the photos by saying: “I said, “OATH YES!”
The news drew a round of congratulatory notes from high profile Australians including Proessor Kerryn Phelps who said: “Congratulations to the two of you. May you have a lifetime of shared adventures and happiness together.”
Radio personality Wendy Harmer also wrote: “Many, many congratulations, youse two!”
Heerey has been by Tame’s side ever since they met a week before the Australia Day Awards when she had just moved back home to Tasmania.
A week later she was named Tasmanian of the Year, which automatically put her in the running for Australian of the Year title.
In her role as Australian of the Year, Tame has used her voice to push for legal reform about the impacts of sexual violence after she was groomed and raped by her maths teacher, who was found guilty and jailed.
In December 2021, she launched the Grace Tame Foundation to help sex abuse survivors. Heerey is listed as the Foundation’s Chief Operating Officer and is also one of three directors on its board.
After Tame’s birthday in late December last year, Heerey wrote a note to her saying he was so proud of what she had done.
“Just as you are finally finding peace after a rough start to life by no fault of your own. You have been taken from that peace and thrown involuntarily into traumatic chaos,” he wrote on Instagram.
“You have been expected to talk every day for a year about the horrible things that happened to you, and demanded to come up with solutions to stop it happening again while most of the nation critiqued from their armchairs (G’day Mark Latham if you’re reading).
“It hurts you. The lights go out at night and you don’t sleep. But you have gotten up each day, put on a brave face and a smile and gotten on with it.
“You have done and continue to do an amazing job. It’s time to have a break, you have earned it. I am so proud of you. Cya at the boat ramp.”
“He’s the love of my life, my actual soulmate,” Tame previously told marie claire.
Tame is also due to speak with Brittany Higgins, a fellow advocate for sex assault and abuse survivors at the National Press Club on February 10.
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