Their feud has been the subject of intrigue behind the political curtain for years – and now the Mail can reveal precisely why Brittany Higgins and Grace Tame fell out.
The two activists once graced magazine covers together, including Marie Claire’s Women of the Year issue in 2021, which hailed them as ‘forces for change’.
When the same publication invited them both to an International Women’s Day event in Sydney last week, they stood metres apart and failed to acknowledge one another.
An industry insider has now identified the point at which the friendship fell apart: when Tame mysteriously deleted a supportive Instagram post about Higgins.
The post from 2022 – a rousing tribute to the former Liberal staffer – decried what Tame called an ‘insidious nationwide character assassination campaign’ against Higgins, saying her ‘friend’ had faced ‘layered injustice’ and ‘relentless criticism’.
Alongside a striking photograph of the two women taken during their magazine cover shoot, Tame wrote: ‘Happy birthday, dear Brittany. Warrior. Human. My friend.’
However, it was then deleted in June 2023, which the insider claimed to the Mail was an ‘unforgivable’ act by Tame, who would have known it might lead to negative coverage of Higgins. Indeed, the deletion did not go unnoticed by us at the time.
The apparent social media snub came at a fraught period for Higgins as she was under fire over several reports of leaked messages with now-husband David Sharaz.
Their feud has been the subject of intrigue behind the political curtain for years – and now the Mail can reveal precisely why Brittany Higgins and Grace Tame (pictured) fell out
This photo went up on Tame’s Instagram page on December 7, 2022 – Brittany Higgins’ 28th birthday. It was a behind-the-scenes snap from their Marie Claire magazine shoot
In June 2023, a link to Tame’s Instagram post praising Higgins as a ‘national hero’ came up as ‘broken’. It appears she deleted it during a challenging time for Higgins, who considered this an ‘unforgivable’ act given some of the unflattering headlines Tame knew it would generate
It had emerged – in the same month Tame removed her photo – that texts between the pair suggested they planned to recruit the help of Labor MPs in relation to Higgins’ rape allegation against former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann.
Lehrmann maintains his innocence and has not been found criminally liable for the alleged rape after a 2022 trial was aborted due to juror misconduct. However, a subsequent civil trial found that, on the balance of probabilities, he did rape Higgins.
An early draft of a shelved memoir by Higgins – which had been brokered by Peter FitzSimons – was also leaked at the time, in which she referred to herself as a ‘B-grade Grace Tame’ because the man she accused hadn’t been found guilty by a criminal court. By contrast, Tame’s abuser, Nicolaas Bester, was convicted and jailed.
‘She exists outside and beyond the political bubble. Court case closed, awarded and revered,’ she wrote.
‘Here I am in the mud with the pigs.’
Only six months earlier, Higgins had been admitted to a mental health facility after Lehrmann’s rape case was abandoned and it was announced he would not face a retrial.
Tame’s publicist at the Harry M Miller Group has been contacted for comment.
At least three posts referencing Higgins remain on Tame’s Instagram, including an image of the two women’s Marie Claire magazine cover, posted in November 2021.
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When Tame’s post was deleted, Higgins (pictured at Sundance Film Festival in January) was in the middle of a media firestorm over leaked messages between her and husband David Sharaz
Tame and Higgins, once fast friends, had been featured together as ‘forces for change’
The women also appear in a photograph taken at the National Press Club, posted by Tame in February last year and lauded by her followers, one of whom wrote, ‘Grace and Brittany: thank you for speaking out.’
In an earlier post still on Tame’s Instagram, she wrote next to an image of a lighthouse and choppy seas that ‘speaking out takes incredible courage and I hope justice is reached’.
That post was dated one day after Higgins went public with her allegations against Lehrmann on February 15, 2021.
It comes after Higgins and Tame were noticeably frosty while both appearing at Marie Claire’s ‘Balance the Scales’ event on Friday at waterfront restaurant End of the Wharf.
As the Mail reported on the day, their rift could not have been clearer as the former friends stood only a stone’s throw apart during the reception but failed to exchange pleasantries.
The behaviour is of little surprise after Inside Mail revealed earlier in the week that another contributing factor led to the secret bust-up between the pair.
Another contributing factor to the falling-out was that Higgins didn’t appreciate the unsolicited relationship advice Tame offered years ago, namely that she dump her then-boyfriend Sharaz
Among their numerous joint media appearances, Tame and Higgins spoke at the National Press Club in February 2022
Apparently, Higgins didn’t appreciate the unsolicited relationship advice Tame offered years ago, namely that she dump her then-boyfriend David Sharaz.
Instead of giving Sharaz the flick, she happily accepted his proposal on top of a Byron Bay lighthouse on New Year’s Eve in 2022, before they married in June 2024.
The couple welcomed their first child Frederick Leon in March last year.
In recent years, Higgins has focused on rebuilding a professional career while raising a young family, and is said to be no longer interested in the world of online bickering and grudges.
By contrast, Tame has widened her activist persona beyond its origins as an advocate for victim-survivors of sexual abuse.
Now, she is chanting ‘globalise the intifada’ to the horror of federal and state MPs, prompting a painful gaffe by Anthony Albanese when he referred to her as ‘difficult’.
A slew of Tame’s supporters were out in full force at the Marie Claire event, with the Mail noting a few ‘difficult woman’ branded T-shirts.
As one friend of Higgins and Sharaz put it to the Mail last week: ‘Brit doesn’t draw energy from that world anymore. She wants to move on with her life.’
