Big Brother’s Tully & Drew Reunited For A Podcast To Finally Discuss Why They Broke Up
There are a handful of Aussie reality TV moments that belong in the history books.
The chocolate bath on The Bachelor comes to mind. Martha Kalifatidis throwing red wine on Cyrell Paule on Married at First Sight’s reunion was beyond iconic. But there’s nothing that got people talking quite like Tully Smyth cheating on her girlfriend with Anthony Drew on Big Brother in 2013.
For those who are too young to remember, or didn’t watch Big Brother growing up, let me set the scene: Tully entered the Big Brother house very much loved-up and in a two-year relationship with then-girlfriend Tahlia Farrant. The nation then watched on, in horror, as Tully and Drew fell for each other and became the house’s most dysfunctional couple.
It was a national scandal. Actress Ruby Rose even got involved, tweeting her disapproval of Tully’s actions at the time, posting: “How could anyone ever do that to someone they care about. Or not care about.” Eventually, Tahlia dumped Tully over Twitter while the season was still filming, tweeting out: “Thanks for your concern, but I am big girl. I will be just fine. Life goes on.. x #singlebabescomeatme.” It was truly savage. After Tully was evicted, she later re-entered the house to tell Drew, “by the way, I’m single,” in another iconic moment of pure petty drama.
After the season ended, Tully and Drew only dated for three months before confirming they had split.
Was it all for nothing? What the hell happened between them? And is there still hope for Drully? These are questions I’ve been yelling into the void for the past seven years and FINALLY we have answers. Drew appeared on the latest episode of Tully’s podcast Too Much Tully to reflect on their time on the reality show and the aftermath. This interview is…chaotic.
I don’t know about you, but this is the most satisfying thing to happen to me all year.
Here are the highlights from Tully and Drew’s reunion on Too Much Tully:
On their first impressions of each other when they met in the Big Brother house:
“She was loud and complained and cried”, Drew actually said. “Cool, that was a good answer. Do you want to ask me what I thought when I first saw Drew?” Tully asked her producer Jess Lucas, before recalling, “In walks this 6’2″, tall, dark, and handsome, bright blue eyes kid, and honestly, hand on heart, Taylor Swift’s song ‘Trouble’ had just come out before we went into the house and that shit started playing in my head.”
On whether they discussed Tully’s relationship with Tahlia in the house:
Drew began, “We knew that everything we said, whether we were in the pool, there was cameras in the bedhead, even if you didn’t have one around your neck, you knew you were always on mic, so you knew you couldn’t say something, without the potential of it going out to the world. We talked about it, but we didn’t talk about it.”
“That was probably the hardest thing,” Tully said. “We would try and almost talk in a code. We would pussyfoot around the issue…There were spots [in the house] that we were more confident to talk, like showers…the middle of the pool.”
Tully revealed that her and Drew were watched more closely than everyone else. “They allowed the other housemates to sleep with their microphones off, but they would not ever let us do that ever. The minute we tried to take them off , they were like, ‘Tully and Drew put your microphones back on,’ because it was ‘The Drully Show.'”
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On whether they banged in the Big Brother house:
“We didn’t have sex. You got more action than I did,” Drew joked. “First and foremost, we were mic’d at all times,” Tully confirmed, adding, “This sounds like a moot point, but I was aware that I had a partner and Dad was watching…we fooled around though, I won’t pretend that we didn’t fool around.”
On that iconic freeze challenge moment where Tully re-entered the house:
“I was evicted, I was devastated obviously because I had to face the music, and probably a week or two weeks [later] I got a call from our producer,” Tully began. “They were like ‘we are going to do a freeze challenge with the housemates’ and he goes, ‘do you want to go back into the house?’ I was like ‘yes!'”
Tully went back through the whole experience. “I just come on in, I take my time, I say ‘hi’ to my friends and then I tell him [Drew] that I’m single,” Tully recalled, and then she pashed him. Drew recalled his reaction, joking that “I couldn’t move my lips, you did all the work and I was like, ‘why are you kissing me?’,” before adding, “I was overwhelmed, of course I was happy.”
On their first time having sex on the night Drew was evicted:
“There was a lot more pressure on it, it felt a lot more real, the fun and the cameras were gone,” Tully said. “We did have sex that night, and it was a really beautiful three seconds [laughs],” she joked. “I had already had a wank in the bathroom before [laughs],” Drew added. TMI, folks.
On why their relationship ended only three months after the show:
“First of all, I moved to Melbourne to be with him. It was a struggle, we were both mentally struggling,” Tully began. “Then we had the additional problems of me having to deal with my break up with Tahlia, which blurred into my relationship. Like, how can you start something new, when you’re still trying to deal with the old, so that was constantly a problem. And then we had the additional issue of Drew suddenly being a mega hot, superstar model, and his head…your head just being fucking enormous suddenly.”
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Eventually they broke up, despite the fact Tully had uprooting her Sydney life. “I moved to Melbourne, I was all in. He wasn’t,” Tully said. Drew added, “I was a bit of a prick,” before explaining why he thinks their relationship broke down. “I don’t have regrets but it wasn’t real. It was more real inside the house,” he said. “I wasn’t myself for 12 to 24 months after the house and neither was she. It [their relationship] wasn’t given a real life go.”
Tully added to his point: “We were our true, authentic, rawest versions of ourselves in the house and that’s how we fell in love. Then we came out and we were thrust into the spotlight and we were instantly famous, people wanted a piece of us, our heads got really big. We had these vague plans to go away, go on a holiday just the two of us and be by ourselves and we didn’t do that because we both got really caught up in the parties, we were being invited to everything,” she said.
“We got caught up in it, and before we knew it, we had fallen apart.” Tully ended on a rather interesting note, admitting, “I’m forever going to wonder if we would have worked out, I think that will be one of my life regrets.”
Drew concluded by noting, “It’s a double-edged sword, without it [Big Brother] we would have never met each other, but what it turned us into made us not work.”
On whether they have remained friends over the years:
“We’ve never really fallen out of touch,” Drew said, but Tully saw it differently, saying, “Drew has had a lot of relationships since us, whereas I haven’t, so I’m always open to being friends and keeping the line of communication open and it’s sometimes harder for him. Apparently a lot of his ex-partners don’t like me. It’s bizarre.”
On whether they will ever get back together:
“You’re not cheap to run,” Drew replied, then joking, “I think it would cut down our life spans considerably.” Tully didn’t address the question. INTERESTING.
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On who they are still friends with out of the former housemates:
Drew said, “This one [Tully], Tim, Boogs, Tahan, and Ben. In terms of like mates, there are some that are like nothing, and some I won’t tolerate.” While Tully replied, “I’m friends with everyone, bar Rohan,” and then added, “Drew hasn’t said it but him and Ed did not get along, ever.” The tea is HOT today.
On what Drew has been up to since Big Brother:
“I did a lot after it. I tried the influencer thing, but it’s a lot of work,” he said. “I threw my hat in the ring with acting,” and at this point, Tully butted in adding, “The minute he was out of the house he had agents, talent management, shows [all] reach out, everyone wanted a piece of him…on Neighbours, Home and Away, he had one of the best talent management in Sydney in Australia reach out.” Drew said he even auditioned for a role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
“Now I run a late-night nightclub in Prahran called One Six One…[and] I’m about to finish my Bachelor in Accounting, which sounds dry but you can make accounting fun.”
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