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Life as a WAG
Is it as glam as we all think? Elise Pitt chatted to former Sydney Swan Brad Seymour's wife, Melissa, to find out.
Fame, fashion, glamour. Jetting around the world with your man. From the outside, the life of a WAG (wives and girlfriends of sportsmen) seems the ultimate of leisure. Just take a look at Victoria Beckham or Bec Hewitt. But the recent NRL scandals have revealed a darker side to ball sports and the experiences of some women involved with sporting stars.
Some are shying away from the term. Beautiful sport TV presenter and girlfriend of cricketer Shane Watson, Lee Furlong (right), recently said she found the WAG title a bit embarrassing. "There are so many successful women around the world who might be termed that but they have their own life", she told the Daily Telegraph.
WAGs often get a bad wrap - they were even blamed for Australia's loss of the 2005 Ashes series. Former Australian wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist spilled the beans on the behind-the-scenes bitchiness last year in his book True Colours. "A guy would go out to dinner with his partner and hear bad things about someone else's partner," he wrote. "You could be sure that the same was happening somewhere else, in reverse. So it ended up that some of the guys were suffering from their divided loyalties."
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Bitchiness aside, it must be difficult to be away from your partner for so long. In the case of Lara Bingle (right), fiancée of cricketer Michael Clark, nine months of the year. "I take it day-by-day. I don't like to know too far ahead (where he's going and how long he'll be gone). Otherwise you'd get too upset thinking, 'Oh no, you're going away for three months'," Bingle has said.
So what is it really like to be a WAG? We chatted to Melissa Seymour (left), wife of former Sydney Swans Brad Seymour, who is writing a book on the very subject, to find out.
She's teamed up with Australia's answer to Manolo Blahnik and the girlfriend of Sydney Roosters full-back Anthony Minichiello, Terry Biviano, on a new book called Girl's Guide to Boy's Ball Sports.
Seymour says the book aims to dispel some of the common preconceived ideas that exist about being a WAG, particularly "that we are all living off our partners' success and notoriety - that we don't work, that we are party girls and don't have a brain", she said.
"Prior to meeting Brad, I was known in the media for the work I was doing for my model agency. Then, all of a sudden I was not Melissa Seymour, model agency owner but Melissa Seymour WAG," she says. Nowadays, Melissa has her own successful career, again, post Brad's retirement. She is a published author, magazine columnist, writes a daily blog on her website melissaseymour.com and has recently been chosen as Yahoo!7's new travel blogger. All this inbetween juggling two tiny tots.
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Fame, fashion, glamour. Jetting around the world with your man. From the outside, the life of a WAG (wives and girlfriends of sportsmen) seems the ultimate of leisure. Just take a look at Victoria Beckham or Bec Hewitt. But the recent NRL scandals have revealed a darker side to ball sports and the experiences of some women involved with sporting stars.
Some are shying away from the term. Beautiful sport TV presenter and girlfriend of cricketer Shane Watson, Lee Furlong (right), recently said she found the WAG title a bit embarrassing. "There are so many successful women around the world who might be termed that but they have their own life", she told the Daily Telegraph.
WAGs often get a bad wrap - they were even blamed for Australia's loss of the 2005 Ashes series. Former Australian wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist spilled the beans on the behind-the-scenes bitchiness last year in his book True Colours. "A guy would go out to dinner with his partner and hear bad things about someone else's partner," he wrote. "You could be sure that the same was happening somewhere else, in reverse. So it ended up that some of the guys were suffering from their divided loyalties."
read on below advertisement
Bitchiness aside, it must be difficult to be away from your partner for so long. In the case of Lara Bingle (right), fiancée of cricketer Michael Clark, nine months of the year. "I take it day-by-day. I don't like to know too far ahead (where he's going and how long he'll be gone). Otherwise you'd get too upset thinking, 'Oh no, you're going away for three months'," Bingle has said.
So what is it really like to be a WAG? We chatted to Melissa Seymour (left), wife of former Sydney Swans Brad Seymour, who is writing a book on the very subject, to find out.
She's teamed up with Australia's answer to Manolo Blahnik and the girlfriend of Sydney Roosters full-back Anthony Minichiello, Terry Biviano, on a new book called Girl's Guide to Boy's Ball Sports.
Seymour says the book aims to dispel some of the common preconceived ideas that exist about being a WAG, particularly "that we are all living off our partners' success and notoriety - that we don't work, that we are party girls and don't have a brain", she said.
"Prior to meeting Brad, I was known in the media for the work I was doing for my model agency. Then, all of a sudden I was not Melissa Seymour, model agency owner but Melissa Seymour WAG," she says. Nowadays, Melissa has her own successful career, again, post Brad's retirement. She is a published author, magazine columnist, writes a daily blog on her website melissaseymour.com and has recently been chosen as Yahoo!7's new travel blogger. All this inbetween juggling two tiny tots.
next page »
