Healthy and happy AFL star Ben Cousins faces a fresh new challenge – how to afford his daughter’s staggering list of Christmas requests
- Ben Cousins shares his daughter’s lavish Christmas wish list
- Dazzling list calls for a new MacBook, phone and a refrigerator
- Cousins has turned his life around since being released from prison
Former AFL champion Ben Cousins has taken to social media to share his 10-year-old daughter’s extravagant festive wish list – and he may need a second job to pay for it all.
Cousins, 46, has turned his turbulent life around after a heartbreaking battle with drug addiction, recently revealing he is the ‘happiest he has ever been’.
The football legend has been working hard on rebuilding his relationship with his children: Angelique, 11, and Bobby, 13.
On Monday, Cousins took to social media to share the news that his daughter was graduating from primary school, followed by a photo of the lavish Christmas wish list she gave him.
“My girl on her last day of school is going too fast,” he posted alongside a photo of the couple cuddling.
‘And long after that photo, this Christmas frame of hers landed. Help,” he wrote.
Ben Cousins posted the Christmas wish list his daughter gave him
Angelique gave her father, the AFL legend, a detailed list of what she wanted
In addition to designer clothes, money and jewelry, the toddler’s list also included a MacBook, a new cell phone and a stocked mini fridge.
Cousins played 238 games and scored 205 goals for West Coast between 1996 and 2007, winning the premiership in his penultimate season in Perth.
The former midfielder captained the Eagles from 2001 to 2005, winning the club’s best and fairest award in four of those five seasons.
He was suspended by the club in March 2007 – just six months after the grand final win over Sydney – for alleged substance abuse and sacked six months later after being arrested for drug possession and refusing to submit to a blood test.
He returned to the AFL with Richmond in 2009, before retiring at the end of the 2010 season.
Cousins was imprisoned six times in thirteen years and spent seven months behind bars in 2020, when he apparently decided enough was enough.
He is now on the right track and reads the news for Seven in Western Australia, and recently appeared on Dancing With The Stars.
Cousins has said his only regret is how long it took to get clean.
Cousins has spent the last few years rebuilding his life after a very public fall from grace
Ben Cousins played 270 AFL games for the West Coast Eagles and Richmond Tigers before retiring in 2010
“I wish it didn’t have to take so long and it should have run its course the way it did,” he revealed to The Front Bar in April.
“But yeah, it’s nice to be working and being busy, having some real ambition again, and, you know, just reconnecting with friends, family and even on a community level, you know.
“Life has never been better, honestly.”
When asked about his new job reading the sports news for Channel Seven in Perth, Cousins hit back with a joke.
“It’s a lot easier than being in the news,” he said.