In her first public comments, Tess Crosley — the woman at the centre of the Lachie Neale cheating scandal — has accused Jules Neale of breaking an agreement.
The bombshell affair between Crosley and Lachie was made public at the end of 2025, sparked a high-profile breakup between Lachie and Jules, an endless stream of headlines, and forced Lachie to step down from his captaincy role at the Brisbane Lions.
Those headlines are continuing on the eve of the AFL finals with Jules speaking on a podcast this week and Crosley hitting back just hours later.
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Jules said Crosley was her best friend and had a four-month affair with Lachie “behind my back”.
Crosley now says Jules has broken an agreement.
“I thought we sort of made the unanimous decision not to make any comments publicly at all,” Crosley told the The Debrief podcast on Wednesday.
Both Jules Neale and Tess Crosley have conducted tell-all podcast interviews, marking the first time either has spoken out about the Lachie Neale cheating scandal. Credit: Instagram, @prettysure.pod, @tesscrosley
“Only a couple of months ago, I also learned that somebody from the parties was sending private information to the journalists. And that was really hard.
“I’d been staying silent out of respect.
“There’s so much more to this story that people don’t know, but I’m not going to bring others down just to make myself look better either.
“It almost did feel like a betrayal.”
Earlier, Jules had said she only found out that the affair had gone on for four months after she moved back to Perth.
“I was (first) told it was a kiss and that’s all it was,” Jules said on the Pretty Sure podcast.
“I actually packed up and left because of that and then when I got to Perth, it all came out and I found out that it was a lot more than that, and it had been going on for a lot longer.
“It was probably a good thing that I was interstate when I found out that had happened because it wouldn’t have been good if I was in the same town.
“The worst part of it is not even the cheating, it’s the lying after the lie. You question your whole reality after that.”
Jules called it “the worst feeling in the world’’ and revealed she first found out through a good friend.
“The poor thing, (she’s) a close friend of mine,” Jules said.
“It came from another partner at the club to her. She called one of my close friends at the club. ‘This is the information I know and what I’ve seen. I don’t want to have to call Jules and tell her, can you do it? It would be better coming from you’.
“So my poor friend had to call me and tell me.”
Jukes said after she found out, she questioned her whole life.
Lachie Neale and Jules Neale arrive at the 2025 Brownlow Medal. Credit: Getty Images
“You’re like, who knows about this? Am I the only person that doesn’t know? Does everybody else know, and did the other players know? Did the other partners know?” she said.
“You kind of question your trust with everything and everyone at that point.
“It’s not a good feeling. But after talking to the other partners at the club, they all seemed very shocked, so I don’t think it was a known thing among them all, which is good because that would have been more salt in the wound to know everyone knew before you.”
The public admissions have been called a new “distraction” for the Brisbane Lions and one “they really don’t need” on the eve of the AFL finals.
“Quite extraordinary timing to think they’re both coming out (in the same week) … I make no judgement on either of these women, but it just amazes me that that you would want to do this, I’ve got to say,” veteran journalist Caroline Wilson told Channel 7’s The Agenda Setters.
Wilson said Brisbane had privately made two points about Neale and the timing of the “salacious” podcasts.
Then family friends Tess Crosley, Lachie Neale, Ben Crosley and Jules Neale celebrate the Lions’ premiership. Credit: Instagram
“One is that Lachie has been extraordinary all year, despite everything that’s been going on in his private life,” she said.
“He’ll be one of the top three in their best-and-fairest. Halfway through the year he was probably leading their best-and-fairest. He’s been amazing.
“He’s obviously very good at handling this sort of pressure in terms of his game time. I can’t comment on the off-field, but they feel that this is a distraction that they really don’t need.”
Neale’s former Lions teammate Luke Hodge agreed “it’s not ideal” before the finals.
But he believes, having rolled through the saga at the start of the season, “they’re switched on enough” to manage being in the headlines again
“I think the relationship that they’ve got with Lachie Neale, and obviously their families, they’ve been through it, they’ve spoken about it,” Hodge said.
“And I think what they’ve seen on field, of course, especially the last six or seven weeks, that it hasn’t fazed them too much or affected them too much.
“So they’ll be hoping the next five weeks would would be exactly the same.”
The podcasts arrive not just with the finals campaign ahead of Brisbane but Neale weighing up his next move.
The 33-year-old has long appeared bound for the exit door but Wilson revealed the Lions have never had a new contract offer on the table to try to sway him.
It is expected Neale will be at Collingwood next season and it is on the record that he has toured their facilities.
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