Instagram influencer and entrepreneur Sophie Cachia has detailed her off-and-on relationship with Matildas star Alanna Kennedy following her separation from husband of four years, former AFL star Jaryd Cachia.
Sophie is a former “The Young Mummy” blogger and company director, appearing as a contestant on Channel 10’s Australian Survivor: Blood V Water.
She fell pregnant with her first child at 22, tying the knot with Jaryd a couple of years later.
But in 2017, a couple of months after the birth of her daughter Florence, Sophie’s life was thrown into chaos when a fleeting encounter with a woman sparked a sexual awakening.
Stream every match of every round of the 2022 Toyota AFL Premiership Season Live & Ad-Break Free In-Play on Kayo. New to Kayo? Try 14-Days Free Now >
Sophie, who now identifies as “sexually bisexual and emotionally gay”, dated several women over the following few years, with her and Jaryd splitting in 2019 after deciding their relationship was no longer romantic.
It was during this time that Sophie started dating Australian football star Kennedy, who has made 107 appearances for the Matildas since her international debut in 2012.
Speaking to Mia Freedman on the No Filter podcast, Sophie explained she took on a more submissive role during her complicated relationship with Kennedy.
“I don’t like to use the word ‘toxic’, but our relationship at times showed signs of that for sure, which we both contributed to,” she said.
“Alanna is an incredibly strong woman as well. And I don’t say I feared her out of fear for my safety or anything, but I found myself cowering down to someone all the time — willingly.
“It was such a different relationship dynamic for me. I’d never known anything like that. So I thought, ‘Oh this feels different, I’m gonna go with this’.
“It could have been the littlest decision but I didn’t have to think because I got told what to do. And I loved it.”
According to Sophie, the couple would continually fight about small things like “who didn’t have a nice tone on the phone or who didn’t put a kiss on the end of her message”.
“She was not the person for me, which I can wholeheartedly accept now,” she explained.
“All I wanted was for her to just commit — not commit in terms of a marriage sense, but just say, ‘Yeah, I’m here. I love you’. And it very rarely came.
“(We broke up) four or five times, maybe. I was gutted every time. And every time, I went straight back.
“She was my drug and I was addicted. And if you ask me why, I can’t tell you. You know, I loved her. It’s as simple as that.”
The relationship ended for good during the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, with Kennedy calling it quits.
“The reality was I’d been cut off by someone who I loved so much,” Sophie said.
“I wasn’t just dealing with heartbreak. I was dealing with grief plus severe depression. And being a single mum at home with two kids full-time, trying to keep them afloat. But I was drowning.
“The best thing she ever did — which I now can see, I didn’t see at the time — was cut me off completely. Because she had recognised she could no longer do that to me as well. And I needed her to do that because I never would have been brave enough to do it.”
Sophie later met WNBL basketballer Maddie Garrick, popping the question on Mardi Gras weekend in March this year.
“She’s my number one. She’s a six-foot glamazon, she’s funny, she’s gorgeous, she’s so smart,” Sophie told Stellar last week.
“My kids think she’s the coolest person in the world, they idolise her. Maddie and Jaryd’s relationship is also special – and I only see glimpses of it because they have their own friendship.”
Sophie also told the No Filter podcast: “What initially scared me about Maddie was that when I met her, I saw so many similarities between her and Jaryd. Which is brilliant, because he is an incredible person.
“But then this voice in the back of my head would go, ‘Well you left Jaryd and you didn’t want to be married to him anymore’.”
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7r7HWrGWcp51jrrZ70qmmq6xfqL2wvtOsZKWhlpp8tLTEZq6aq12ixm6w0a6eZqGem7m2sc2cnKtlo6W2rbjSZqanZaSkxaqvjKucpZmknryvv8eip2avmam1brnAraClnJGoerTAwKtmp52nqHq0wM6rsGhvZJeud7CPm2trbZFprqStxJtrnHFibIV4fMJrbm1wkw%3D%3D