The dream for the sporting world’s golden couple was over long ago … we reveal why Lisa had to walk away.
When Lisa Curry and Grant Kenny last week announced their separation after 23 years of marriage, with Lisa moving out of the family home, their devoted fans were shocked. But while the Australian public saw them as the perfect golden couple, Woman’s Day can reveal that after enduring troubles for some time, Lisa was left with no choice but to leave Grant.
“It’s as if they have been leading, unofficially, separate lives over the last few years,” says one former ironman who knows the couple well. “When I first met Lisa and Grant back in the ’80s they were this golden-haired dynamic duo who lived for each other in their own little world.
“They had the sort of connection that made other people jealous and seemed to have even more in common than other husbands and wives. But that bond between them went up in smoke quite a while ago, and now when they’re together everyone around them feels uncomfortable.”
The final blow for the relationship came after the bombshell news of Lisa’s heart troubles in early 2008. Lisa says at first she was “tearful and angry and upset” about her diagnosis of myocarditis — an inflammation of the heart muscle caused by infection — but her resilient nature soon kicked in.
She underwent surgery to have a pacemaker implanted to control her erratic heartbeat, and was hospitalised again six months later when her body threatened to reject the implant.
As the former swimming champ put up the fight of her life, Grant was overwhelmed by serious problems of his own after a helicopter owned by the family’s Curry Kenny Group, a property and aviation empire worth an estimated $80million, crashed in WA, killing four people.
