Young love: Matt and Jessica Shirvington met at 17 and are still going strong, 3 kids later
The new Sunrise host and his author wife credit their relationship success to their young love.
Australian athlete and television host Matt Shirvington will be joining Natalie Barr on the Sunrise couch as he takes over from David Koch as co-host of Channel Seven’s breakfast popular TV program. As a dad of three, the former Olypmpic athlete is well qualified to carry on the dad-jokes that his predecessor, Kochie was renowned for!
44yo Matt shares his children – two daughters Sienna, 17, and Winter, 15, and a five-year-old boy Lincoln – with the love of his life, wife YA author, Jessica Shirvington whom he fell in love with at age 17.
Matt and Jessica Shirvington met and fell in love at age 17.
Jessica credits her early age romance and its longevity for contributing to how she tackles relationships in her YA novels, and Matt himself says it’s that young love that has helped make his marriage the success that it is.
Speaking with Kidspot, Matt shared that Jessica’s support through his sporting career is something that helped keep them together.
Sport loving Matt competed at seven Athletics World Championships, as well as the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur in 1998 and Melbourne in 2006. In Malaysia, he placed fourth and broke the Australian 100m record.
“She went through an Olympic period in my life where I was competing and preparing for the Olympic games and my mood swings were massive because I lived and died by my performance,” Matt said. “She worked through all of that.”
Matt will go down in history as one of Australia’s greatest ever athletes.
Like many couples who found each other at a young age, Matt and Jessica have had their ups and downs, but Matt says that has only made them stronger.
“Allowing each other to be ourselves but supporting each other is probably the key to that,” he told Kidspot. “We had our times where we broke up and got back together. Now we just don’t blame each other.
Three kids later, Matt and Jessica Shirvington are going strong.
Matt and Jessica are famously private when it comes to keeping their children’s lives out of the public eye, but they have been open with their struggles to fall pregnant the third time due to some issues Jessica was having with endometriosis.
“We tried and failed to have a third and let it go on the back-burner. Then 9 years after, Lincoln came along,” Matt told Kidspot.
The couple did begin IVF, however eventually Jessica was able to fall pregnant naturally.
“She went and had some surgery to clean things up and ultimately we got to a point where she was able to probably fall pregnant naturally,” Matt shared. “But we still had about 14 frozen embryos. I don’t think infertility was the issue, it was more that the endometriosis was making her struggle to fall pregnant.”
