Robin Bailey had an affair before her husband’s suicide. This is how she told their kids

Robin Bailey was still reeling from the suicide of her husband Tony Smart in 2014, when her “hand was forced” into sharing a secret she’d been keeping from their three sons.

“And I knew I had like 24 hours to make a decision,” the KIIS FM Brisbane star explained in an emotional interview with QWeekend. “But I had to sit them down …”

Robin’s confession was not an easy one to make. And when the moment came, it was on a day she “wasn’t prepared”.

In the lead-up to her husband’s death –  while their relationship was “disintegrating a lot” – Robin had been having an affair with a married man.

“I had an affair after it was … you know, we had separated within the same house but we were still living in the house together,” Robin told QWeekend.

“I’m not making excuses, I’m just explaining. And I think that everyone should question what that means. 

“Like I think everyone should question what their own moral compass is on that. Because a lot of people have affairs, not everyone’s ends like mine does, but the feelings are the same. The betrayal, the anger. 

“In my space it had dire consequences and I think people will harshly judge me and I think there are a lot of people that will probably see me very differently and that’s their right. But it is the truth.”

Robin – whose moving memoir Flamingos Aren’t Born Pink is available for pre-order – candidly admits that she “didn’t want to write this part” of her book. 

“It’s the part where I’m the villain,” she shares in her book. “But I promised myself and the boys that this book would tell the truth, the whole ugly truth, even when it shows me at my absolute worst. So here it is”

Indeed, Robin recalls how children Fin, now 25, Lewin, now 23, and Piper, now 21, – who have read the book and given it their blessing – reacted following her confession.

“It was not okay, it was hard. Like watching their eyes be so disappointed and also them joining the dots,” Robin recalled.

“This is why Dad did it. Now, I know they don’t think that now because we’ve had many conversations, but I start the book, it’s a reason. And probably the number one reason in Tony’s mind, we’ll never know. But I’m not gonna sit here and just pretend that, you know, if I hadn’t have done that, would he have ended his life? I don’t know that either.”

In a previous interview with Stellar, Robin divulged more about the aftermath of Tony’s suicide, and how she agonised over how to tell the kids that he was gone.

“The day Tony died, I rang our counsellor and I asked, ‘How do I do it? Tell me what to say. How do I do the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life?’” she tearfully recounted.

“It was so tough because it was going to change their lives, that one moment, and if I didn’t do it right…They were never going to be OK with it. I knew what was to come; I knew how different their lives would be.”

The star alluded to how there was “a lot of trouble” as her sons grappled with the life-changing news, admitting there were “downright awful” times.

“Now I look at them and I think they’re amazing. If this whole experience has given them anything, it’s resilience,” she added.

While Robin shares more about the emotional aftermath of her first husband’s death in her memoir, she also discusses another deeply moving family tragedy: the loss of her second husband, Sean Pickwell, to cancer.

Robin wasn’t looking for love when she bumped into Sean – a former colleague – at a 2015 concert. Their romance was a slow burn, but Robin would later call Sean her “soulmate”, with the pair exchanging vows in a 2018 wedding.

Just eleven months after the ceremony, though, Sean was gone. He passed away after a battle with liver cancer.

Sean died in Robin’s arms on September 26 2019 overlooking the river at their home, surrounded by family.

 “I will hold on to that until I join him,” Robin told then-Today show co-host Georgie Gardner after his passing. “It was such a beautiful gift for him to be in his own space with his own people.”

She also shared how the tragedy had altered her approach to life.

“You get an amazing chance to value life. There is nothing I would change,” the star explained.

“I wish [Sean] was here, but cancer also gave us the ability to grab life by the hands and just shake it.

“[Sean] really healed my kids, my two youngest ones particularly. He really showed them that gentle, kind…and he wasn’t their dad. They had a great dad who really loved them. But Sean was just mum’s partner who cared for them.”

In an emotional Instagram post shared a month after Sean’s death, Robin also reflected on his “final learning” as he was dying.

“He said there were three things he’d learnt – to listen, learn to live in the moment and this the most important… LOVE,” Robin shared.

“This was his greatest gift. I know I could go a million lifetimes and not experience again the wonderful fierce glorious love we shared. 

“Some people never feel it and I had it and it will always be my beacon,” she went on. “But it wasn’t just for me. I know his children felt it, my children felt it and so did his friends . He gave his love so willingly and said ‘Don’t wait for a terminal diagnosis to tell the people who mean the most to you how much you care’.

“Sean spent the final weeks having those people coming into his orbit,” Robin concluded. 

“He would prepare for the day’s visitors by surrounding himself in white light and saying that his heart was open to both give and receive and some of the most profound exchanges happened on those days.

“He broke down so many barriers for his male friends in particular to give and receive love from him and that was transformative as he realised how loved and valued he was and not just by me.”