Jesinta Franklin has reunited with her AFL star husband Buddy after state border closures forced them apart for seven long weeks.
WATCH Jesinta Franklin commences 14 days of hotel quarantine
Buddy and his Swans teammates relocated to Melbourne while Jesinta quarantined in Brisbane with their two kids, daughter Tullulah, one and son Rocky, four months, due to Queensland’s latest COVID-19 outbreak.
On Thursday afternoon, Jesinta and her two young kids were seen boarding a flight to Melbourne, where the Swans are expected to stay for the rest of the AFL season.
“It’s day by day and the whole thing has changed so many times but we’re hoping to get out,” Jesinta told The Herald Sun before she jetted out.
“It’s been tough but it’s just the reality of the world we’re living in at the moment.”
Jesinta and her two kids, along with 100 other WAGS, planned on joining the Swans and GWS Giants in their Queensland AFL families bubbles, but Brisbane’s latest outbreak put a hold on the arrangement.
The 29-year-old admitted thousands of Australians are doing it tough due to border closures.
“If you want to be reunited with your family who are either living abroad or interstate now, gone are the days where you could just jump on a flight. It’s a sign of the times,” she said.
Jesinta said being able to Facetime Buddy has been a “saving grace” for their family.
“We live for those little moments we get as a family,” she said.
During their time in hotel quarantine, the former Miss Universe Australia often posted photos of one-year-old Tullulah staring out windows, colouring in and cheekily reaching for the hotel room’s door handle.
Her separation from Buddy seems to have made the situation bittersweet, with both of their kids reaching milestones during the quarantine period.
“The kids have both grown so much, Tullulah said her first word in here and Rocky rolled for the first time, so we’re just trying to keep Bud involved in those moments as much as possible,” she explained.
The couple met in 2012 after the Swans star got Jesinta’s number from a mutual friend.
After Buddy messaged her out of the blue, Jesinta nearly turned down his advances, insisting she wanted to stay single.
“I was like, ‘Um, I’m not dating at the moment. I’m dating my career’. Cringe! Oh my God, I can’t believe I said that,” she told Beauticate in 2017.
The Dior ambassador eventually ended up saying yes to a date with the , and the pair met up at Sydney’s Crown Hotel bar.
Sparks flew between them instantly, and even though Jesinta thought Buddy was “just after a bit of fun”, a relationship naturally flowed on from there.
Despite Jesinta’s reservations about his intentions, Buddy later admitted he was convinced she was The One from day dot.
“I knew as soon as I met her that I wanted to marry her,” Buddy said in 2018.
“As clichéd as that sounds, it was love at first sight for me.”
Buddy proposed to Jesinta with a $100,000 4.5 carat diamond ring by Nader Jewellers in December, 2014.
Keeping their special day a top-secret affair, Jesinta and Buddy tied the knot at Mount Wilson’s Wildenstein Gardens in the Blue Mountains, NSW.
The very intimate ceremony, which took place in November 2016, was attended by a handful of guests consisting of the couple’s immediate family and close friends.
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