There’s owning your mistakes, then there’s Wayne Carey.
The two-time premiership player with North Melbourne has appeared to reference the infamous affair he had with the wife of his Kangaroos teammate Anthony Stevens in a bizarre exchange on social media.
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Writing on X, Carey posted about Jack Ginnivan’s decision to leave Collingwood for Hawthorn on the last day of the AFL Trade Period after it appeared he had been leapfrogged by new recruit Lachie Schultz in the small forward pecking order at the Magpies.
Then the conversation took a very rude turn.
“If your club gets a player that plays your position ? That should always be used as motivation to have the best preseason you have ever had,” Carey wrote.
“Difference between being good and great ??Absolutely nothing beats hard work.”
Footy fans couldn’t help but remind Carey that his career went off the rails when he left North Melbourne for the Adelaide Crows following his affair with then teammate Steven’s wife Kelli.
One person responded on X: “How come you traded clubs?”
Carey replied: “Really?”
Another said: “Didn’t work hard enough?”
A third person added: “He slept with his teammates wife!”
To which Carey replied: “3 times.”
At the time of writing, Carey’s comment has received more than 600 likes and around 200 retweets.
One commenter summed up the reaction to Carey’s quip with: “This is taking ownership.” Others simply reacted with cry laughing and skull emojis.
Carey said on SAS Australia last year: “I slept with a teammate’s wife. It’s haunted me for 20 years.”
It was revealed last year Carey and Stevens were involved in a verbal stoush during North Melbourne’s reunion for the 1996 premiership team.
Carey insisted at the time the conversation was not heated.
Carey split from ex-wife Sally in 2006. The pair share daughter, Ella, born six weeks after the split was announced. Carey then began dating former model Kate Neilson.
He then became engaged to Stephanie Edwards in 2015, but separated a year later.
The pair have a daughter, Charlotte.
He also has a son, Carter, with model Jessica Paulke, with whom he split from in 2019 after dating for a year.
The 52-year-old most recently split from influencer Catie O’Neill.
