Jules Neale has attacked the Brisbane Lions for posting footage of her estranged husband Lachie holding their crying daughter as he walked onto the MCG in his 300th match.
Four-year-old Piper was front and centre as the footy star reached the milestone against Melbourne on April 19, with her father holding her while she burst into tears as the team prepared to run through their banner just before kickoff.
The Lions posted a clip showing the moment to Instagram along with the caption ‘Our shy queen’ – and Jules was furious.
‘She’s not shy. She’s scared and it’s not funny,’ Jules posted on Saturday night.
She and the former couple’s other son, Freddie, remained in Perth instead of going to Melbourne for the match.
The clip posted by the Lions also shows Piper holding a microphone like she was interviewing her dad the day before the game.
Jules and Lachie Neale are pictured with their daughter Piper, four
The Brisbane Lions posted an Instagram video showing Piper in tears as she was on the field before her dad’s 300th match – and Jules was not happy
The club called Piper ‘our shy queen’ in the post, and Jules hit back with a withering spray in the comments section (pictured)
‘Are you excited to run out onto the ground tomorrow?’ he asked, with Piper replying by shaking her head.
The Lions added the caption ‘She wasn’t lying’ with two crying emojis over that part of the footage.
While the vast majority of the comments on the club’s post were positive, some agreed with the WAG turned social media influencer’s take on the clip.
‘Aww poor darling has gone through so much,’ one wrote.
‘Absolutely terrified, the poor little darlin. When ego takes over, the child suffers,’ added another.
Footy stars bringing their young children onto the field for milestone moments is a tradition in the AFL, and the scope of the occasion and incredible attention from the crowd often gets to the youngsters.
Jules’s stinging rebuke comes just after she revealed she was left crying for an hour straight after receiving hypnotherapy in the wake of her scandalous break-up with Lachie.
She and the Brownlow Medal winner split last November after she posted to Instagram that he had ‘betrayed [her] in the most unimaginable way’.
Pictured: Lachie Neale runs out with Piper in his arms just before kickoff in his 300th AFL match, which was held at the MCG on April 19
Jules and Lachie’s scandalous split has seen her take their two children and leave Brisbane to live in her hometown of Perth
Lachie admitted their split was a result of his actions in a press conference in January, after rumours swirled about an affair with Jules’ former friend Tess Crosley.
The footy player did not go into specifics, but admitted the couple had separated.
‘Don’t mind my appearance, I’ve just been crying for an hour straight because I did hypnotherapy,’ Jules said.
‘It was incredible. I just wanted to share it because I thought, like, if anyone’s dealing with anything emotionally – any kind of trauma or anything that you go to normal talk therapy for, maybe try hypnotherapy as well, because I feel like that did a lot more for me in one session than talk therapy has before.
‘It kind of delves a little bit deeper, I suppose. It was really incredible.’
On April 16, Lachie finally talked about the split in detail on a Brisbane radio show, admitting he ‘let a lot of people down’ and opening up about his future in footy.
It has been heavily rumoured that the premiership-winner will seek to play for West Coast or Fremantle so he can be close to his kids in Perth when his Lions deal finishes at the end of the season.
‘I felt like I had let a lot of people down, so I wanted to redeem myself in a way, by the way I came back into the preseason and games, in particular,’ he said.
He admitted he has ‘got to be real’ about the situation with Piper and Freddie.
‘I’m always thinking about it, and what the future is going to look like,’ Neale said.
‘It’s in the back of my mind, but I brush it aside, we’re only five weeks into the season, but I think in about three or four months from now, I’ll tap into that.’
The 32-year-old said he will decide whether living so far away from his children is ‘sustainable’, and said he believes he can keep playing until 2029.
