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Ben Cousins
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Ben Cousins
Benjamin Luke Cousins (born 30 June 1978) is an Australian former professional Australian rules footballer and media presenter. He played 270 games for the West Coast and Richmond in the Australian Football League (AFL) between 1996 and 2010, captained West Coast from 2001 to 2005, won the 2005 Brownlow Medal as the league's best and fairest player, and was a member of West Coast's 2006 premiership side. Cousins is listed by journalist Mike Sheahan as one of the fifty greatest players of all time.
Cousins's playing career was overshadowed by a long-running substance abuse problem, principally involving methamphetamine. He was sacked by West Coast in October 2007 after being arrested for drug possession and the following month was banned by the AFL Commission for 12 months for "bringing the game into disrepute". After being selected by Richmond with the sixth pick of the 2009 pre-season draft he played 32 games across two seasons, retiring at the end of the 2010 season. His addiction was the subject of the 2010 documentary Such is Life: The Troubled Times of Ben Cousins, which aired shortly after his retirement and was one of the year's most-watched programs in Australia.
In the decade following his retirement, Cousins was convicted of a series of criminal offences against the mother of his two children. In March 2017 he was sentenced at Perth Magistrates Court to 12 months' imprisonment after pleading guilty to eleven offences, including aggravated stalking, multiple breaches of a violence restraining order, and possession of methamphetamine; Magistrate Richard Huston described the conduct as "persistent, sustained and intended". He served the sentence at Acacia Prison and was released in January 2018. In November 2020, following a further arrest in April that year, he was convicted of aggravated stalking of the same complainant and sentenced to seven months' imprisonment backdated to his arrest. Australian Associated Press reported at the time that Cousins had accumulated 22 convictions for breaches of restraining orders, 20 of which had resulted in prison sentences.
Since 2023 Cousins has rebuilt a career in Perth media. In June 2023 he began presenting sport for 7NEWS Morning Edition; he appeared as a contestant on the 2024 season of Dancing with the Stars Australia, and in February 2025 joined the Hit Network's Perth breakfast show Pete & Kymba with Ben Cousins on Mix 94.5.
Cousins was born in Geelong, Victoria, on 30 June 1978, to Stephanie and Bryan, an Australian rules footballer who had moved from Western Australia to play for the Geelong Football Club in the Victorian Football League. When Cousins was 18 months old, his family moved back to Perth, Western Australia, where he was raised with younger siblings Matthew, Sophie and Melanie. He played junior football for the Bull Creek-Leeming Junior Football Club and for his private school, Wesley College. In his last year at Wesley in 1995, he was recruited to join the East Fremantle Football Club's senior side in the West Australian Football League (WAFL) and played for both his school and East Fremantle throughout the season.
While Cousins was still at school, three AFL teams competed to draft him under the father–son rule: the Geelong Football Club, the West Coast Eagles, and the newly formed Fremantle Football Club. Cousins' father Bryan played 238 games for Perth in the WAFL and 67 games for Geelong in the VFL during the 1970s and 1980s. Geelong's recruiting manager, Stephen Wells, said, "Ben barracked for Geelong and we tried everything to get him here." However, Cousins preferred to remain based in Western Australia and chose West Coast in October 1995.
At 17, a week after his tenth WAFL game for East Fremantle, Cousins played his first AFL match and kicked two goals for West Coast against Geelong. He won the Norwich Rising Star award for his debut season in 1996, polling 15 votes from the six judges to beat Shannon Grant by one point.
Cousins' popularity continued to increase over the following seasons. In 1998, the Herald Sun ran a two-page article across its centre pages about 20-year-old Cousins, titled "West goes wild for the kid". The article portrayed Cousins as a sex symbol and "football's answer to Brad Pitt". When asked about the article, he said the popularity "comes with the territory... If you want to be a league footballer you have to accept that it is part of the game." Sports agent Ricky Nixon approached Cousins in 1998 about managing his endorsement deals, because "He's good-looking, he elected to stay in Perth and not play in Victoria, opposition coaches take notice of him and on top of that he's a future leader." In 1999, International Management Group, who managed sports stars such as Tiger Woods and Pete Sampras, said they would like to sign Ben, as "There is no doubt that he is now in the top bracket of players and has great marketing potential... Apart from being an outstanding footballer, he is a quality young man." Ross Nicholas, West Coast's marketing manager, said:
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Ben Cousins
Benjamin Luke Cousins (born 30 June 1978) is an Australian former professional Australian rules footballer and media presenter. He played 270 games for the West Coast and Richmond in the Australian Football League (AFL) between 1996 and 2010, captained West Coast from 2001 to 2005, won the 2005 Brownlow Medal as the league's best and fairest player, and was a member of West Coast's 2006 premiership side. Cousins is listed by journalist Mike Sheahan as one of the fifty greatest players of all time.
Cousins's playing career was overshadowed by a long-running substance abuse problem, principally involving methamphetamine. He was sacked by West Coast in October 2007 after being arrested for drug possession and the following month was banned by the AFL Commission for 12 months for "bringing the game into disrepute". After being selected by Richmond with the sixth pick of the 2009 pre-season draft he played 32 games across two seasons, retiring at the end of the 2010 season. His addiction was the subject of the 2010 documentary Such is Life: The Troubled Times of Ben Cousins, which aired shortly after his retirement and was one of the year's most-watched programs in Australia.
In the decade following his retirement, Cousins was convicted of a series of criminal offences against the mother of his two children. In March 2017 he was sentenced at Perth Magistrates Court to 12 months' imprisonment after pleading guilty to eleven offences, including aggravated stalking, multiple breaches of a violence restraining order, and possession of methamphetamine; Magistrate Richard Huston described the conduct as "persistent, sustained and intended". He served the sentence at Acacia Prison and was released in January 2018. In November 2020, following a further arrest in April that year, he was convicted of aggravated stalking of the same complainant and sentenced to seven months' imprisonment backdated to his arrest. Australian Associated Press reported at the time that Cousins had accumulated 22 convictions for breaches of restraining orders, 20 of which had resulted in prison sentences.
Since 2023 Cousins has rebuilt a career in Perth media. In June 2023 he began presenting sport for 7NEWS Morning Edition; he appeared as a contestant on the 2024 season of Dancing with the Stars Australia, and in February 2025 joined the Hit Network's Perth breakfast show Pete & Kymba with Ben Cousins on Mix 94.5.
Cousins was born in Geelong, Victoria, on 30 June 1978, to Stephanie and Bryan, an Australian rules footballer who had moved from Western Australia to play for the Geelong Football Club in the Victorian Football League. When Cousins was 18 months old, his family moved back to Perth, Western Australia, where he was raised with younger siblings Matthew, Sophie and Melanie. He played junior football for the Bull Creek-Leeming Junior Football Club and for his private school, Wesley College. In his last year at Wesley in 1995, he was recruited to join the East Fremantle Football Club's senior side in the West Australian Football League (WAFL) and played for both his school and East Fremantle throughout the season.
While Cousins was still at school, three AFL teams competed to draft him under the father–son rule: the Geelong Football Club, the West Coast Eagles, and the newly formed Fremantle Football Club. Cousins' father Bryan played 238 games for Perth in the WAFL and 67 games for Geelong in the VFL during the 1970s and 1980s. Geelong's recruiting manager, Stephen Wells, said, "Ben barracked for Geelong and we tried everything to get him here." However, Cousins preferred to remain based in Western Australia and chose West Coast in October 1995.
At 17, a week after his tenth WAFL game for East Fremantle, Cousins played his first AFL match and kicked two goals for West Coast against Geelong. He won the Norwich Rising Star award for his debut season in 1996, polling 15 votes from the six judges to beat Shannon Grant by one point.
Cousins' popularity continued to increase over the following seasons. In 1998, the Herald Sun ran a two-page article across its centre pages about 20-year-old Cousins, titled "West goes wild for the kid". The article portrayed Cousins as a sex symbol and "football's answer to Brad Pitt". When asked about the article, he said the popularity "comes with the territory... If you want to be a league footballer you have to accept that it is part of the game." Sports agent Ricky Nixon approached Cousins in 1998 about managing his endorsement deals, because "He's good-looking, he elected to stay in Perth and not play in Victoria, opposition coaches take notice of him and on top of that he's a future leader." In 1999, International Management Group, who managed sports stars such as Tiger Woods and Pete Sampras, said they would like to sign Ben, as "There is no doubt that he is now in the top bracket of players and has great marketing potential... Apart from being an outstanding footballer, he is a quality young man." Ross Nicholas, West Coast's marketing manager, said:
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