She shot to fame as one of Australia’s greatest sporting talents of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, her successes in the swimming pool cementing her into a life of stardom, but for Lisa Curry AO MBE, there is no greater achievement in her life than her three children.
After falling in love with decorated Iron Man athlete Grant Kenny, the couple became Australia’s unofficial golden couple of sport, a perfect pairing of athleticism and good looks, with a shared desire to start a family.
WATCH NOW: Lisa Curry pays tribute to her daughter Jaimi. Article continues after video.
In her memoir Lisa: A Memoir – 60 Years of Life, Love and Loss, Lisa revealed how after a few chance encounters with her future husband, she was certain she was “going to marry that guy.”
“I was smitten. Aside from being handsome, Grant was amusing, upbeat, polite – he always opened the car door for me, which I liked – not to mention highly intelligent and analytical,” she wrote of the early stages of their relationship.
“He was fast becoming an important part of my life and the time we spent together was really meaningful. I had a feeling he just might be the one.”
After getting together in 1982, the couple had a largely long-distance relationship in 1983 and 1984, before Grant proposed at his parent’s house on the Sunshine Coast in 1985.
“We weren’t together just because we were elite athletes. We were together because we loved each other’s company and enjoyed doing things together. We had such a lot in common, the same interests. We were two chatterboxes who got on extremely well,” Lisa shares in her memoir.
“We were very young. But I was in a hurry. I wanted to have children and, back then, it was still frowned upon if you had children before being married; it wasn’t considered the right way around.”
“We had done so much already, achieved so much, travelled the world. We were ready.”
Finally, at the tender ages of just 21 and 22, the young couple wed on April 19th, 1986, Jaimi quickly falling pregnant with her firstborn, a daughter she and Grant named Jaimi when she was born in June 1987.
Jaimie was followed by her sister Morgan in 1991 and finally, a baby brother Jett who was born in 1994.
After an idyllic few years as a family, sadly Lisa and Grant confirmed they were separating in August 2007, Lisa sharing that she wasn’t “living [her] life” and would be “happier if [they] weren’t together.”
“My marriage to Grant was very important to me. I wanted to be married. I wanted to live my life with someone and I loved being married to Grant. But there came a time when our common interests started to divide,” Lisa has previously said of that emotionally turbulent time in her life.
“I was increasingly feeling like I was doing everything on my own and I could feel our relationship, as strong as it was, unravelling.”
Despite their split, Lisa and Grant remained close, the professional athletes happily co-parenting their three children together.
Having experienced firsthand what it was like to have absent parents, Lisa knew she and Grant both needed to remain active players in the kids’ lives.
“My dad didn’t see a lot of my career firsthand, to me at the time it didn’t bother me too much,” she shared with our sister publication Now to Love in 2020.
“But, when you look back at it, you think, ‘Oh gee, it would have been nice for him to share in those successes.”
That experience had a significant impact on the mother of three and her relationship with Grant after their break up, as Lisa never wanted her children to grow up in a world where their father was not around.
Despite breaking up in 2007, the couple took their time legally divorcing, Lisa waiting until she was engaged to Elvis impersonator Mark Tabone in 2016 to make things official.
“He makes my heart sing,” Lisa reportedly said in her vows at the couple’s 2018 Sunshine Coast hinterland wedding.
Grant also moved on, striking up a brief romance with radio host Fifi Box whom he fathered daughter Beatrix “Trixie” Belle Box with in 2014.
Sadly, in 2020, the Curry-Kenny family was left devastated by the death of eldest child Jaimi, who died on September 14 following an undisclosed long-term illness.
United in their grief, Lisa and Grant have brought together their blended families on many occasions since Jaimi’s tragic passing.
Their daughter Morgan has also brought some light and love back to the family with the arrival of her three sons Kit, Flynn, and Taj.
Son Jett has also been making serious strides, the now 30-year-old making his debut as Viking in Channel 10’s reboot of nostalgic 90s show Gladiators in January 2024.
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