entertainment

The reason we won't be writing about Gabi Grecko anymore.

It’s time to turn off the oxygen.

We’ve been writing about Gabi Grecko for a few years now. Her January/December relationship with disgraced businessman Dr Geoffrey Edelston has been fun celebrity fodder. Their outfits, their outlandish lifestyle, their occasionally stomach-churning public displays of affection – it’s reality TV come to life.

But things have happened over the past week that have made us stop and consider what we are doing here. Whether we’re telling the story of a quirky couple or whether we’re contributing to something that is unhealthy and potentially damaging. Today, we’ve decided that we need to stop talking about this couple. We need to disengage with this story. Because something is not right here. Something is very disturbing.

Gabi Grecko is in the hospital, apparently with a collapsed lung, cracked ribs, a broken foot, a cut on her leg and bruises covering her body. We know because we’ve seen – by my count – fifteen pictures of her in hospital and four videos of her injuries in the three days since she was admitted.

In the days before she was admitted, Gabi Grecko announced she was pregnant. Now she said that she has taken so many pictures because people think that she may have faked that pregnancy. The 26-year-old has denied that particular suggestion in the Daily Telegraph, saying, “I think that’s a horrible thing to say. I’ve been putting off talking to the specialists but I think Geoff knows.”

So she doesn’t know whether she is still pregnant? Or she doesn’t know the health of her child – or does she not know about her own condition?

ADVERTISEMENT

To understand what we’re talking about, you can see some of  Gabi’s hospital images below (at least one of them is NSFW):

Gabi says her fall was caused by pain medication that she is taking for her endometriosis (a condition often associated with infertility).

She says that she fell down some stairs when she was trying to walk up them after forgetting the swipe card for her apartment’s elevator: “I tried to skip like a step I think and the bottom of my shoe and foot, the back of my shoe barely hit the stair and I grabbed a handle but not firmly enough and I fell.”

There are the question marks over the pregnancy itself. She said on radio she was “three or four weeks” into her pregnancy. Now it’s five weeks. She says her gyno apparently rang her on Saturday to give her the pregnancy news, but she checked it with a home pregnancy kit.

And then there’s the actual pregnancy test that Gabi used in her Instagram announcement. It appears to be a Clearblue digital pregnancy test – but not one that is available for sale in Australia (the digital Clearblue test available here is shaped differently – see below). Maybe she bought it overseas and kept it just in case she needed it. That’s possible.

Top: The pregnancy test from Gabi’s Instagram pregnancy announcement. Bottom: A Clearblue digital pregnancy test (which does not appear to be available in Australia).
Top: The Clearblue pregnancy tests available in Australia. Bottom: The shape of the digital Clearblue pregnancy test available in Australia.

It’s a troubling thing to fake a pregnancy. It’s even more disturbing to potentially manufacture an injury in order to get out of an earlier fabrication. Maybe she was never pregnant, maybe she was. It seems that trying to track down where the truth lies comes to Gabi and Geoff is not only time-consuming and virtually impossible – it’s also pointless.

ADVERTISEMENT

The story shifts constantly with this couple. It always has. They tell tales (even the story of how they met is contested – she says they met at a fashion show; he says they met on the street) and they court public attention with a relentless dedication rarely seen in this country. So-called ‘spontaneous’ moments are hooked up with the paparazzi in advance. Their entire relationship is chronicled in excruciating detail with media statements and social media posts. Their lives appear performative at best.

What’s clear is that they love attention. They live for it. To be looked at and photographed. To be talked about.

But it’s time to turn off the oxygen.

There is something happening here, right now, that goes beyond publicity seeking. Things have suddenly become very dark.

Gabi Grecko is injured. She’s in hospital. That much appears to be true.

She says that her husband has been speaking to the specialists, but he hasn’t told her what they are saying. This suggests a woman who needs help and not just for her physical injuries.

This situation has always been weird, but now it seems damaged and damaging.

A dangerous thing has happened to Gabi, whether she fell, whether she jumped, whether she was assaulted. She has injuries. That we know for sure.

ADVERTISEMENT

This is a woman who last year tweeted that she was on suicide watch. She was hospitalised after she found her now-husband texting another woman. She has been depressed and stressed. She is a long way from home. Does she have supportive and nurturing friends? Who knows.

It’s not clear that she has a supportive partner in Edelston. Yes, their affection is widely documented, but those who have seen inside their home and their relationship tell a different story – one of control and image-obsession.

Yes, Gabi seems a willing participant in the couple’s attention-seeking escapades, but there is a disturbing edge to it now that we can’t ignore. Gabi has provided the evidence herself. It’s time to stop talking about this couple.

Admittedly, we have probably waited to draw the line for too long. The line could have been drawn after her first trip to hospital.

Either way, we’re drawing it now.

This is the last post that you will read about Gabi Grecko and Geoffrey Edelston. This is the last time we will service their need for attention. We will no longer feed the beast that is their insatiable appetite for media attention.

What is happening here is not clear – but what is clear is that it is not good.

So this is where it ends.