Leave it up to Google’s search algorithm and it quickly becomes apparent what anybody looking for more information about ABC News Breakfast sports presenter Tony Armstrong is after.They aren’t so much interested in, say, his age – for the record, Armstrong is 32 – or the stats from his one-time career as a professional AFL player who notched 35 games across six years with the Adelaide Crows, Sydney Swans and Collingwood Magpies. Plenty of them are, however, watching – and re-watching – the live cross that went viral in June when Armstrong, standing in Melbourne’s Federation Square, boisterously lost his composure (and, for a moment, his mum’s scarf) while screaming alongside fans upon learning that the Socceroos had qualified for the World Cup.Yet one mystery remains unsolved – and it is the question of whether or not Armstrong has a wife.In just shy of three years, the proud Gamilaroi man has gone from calling AFL games for the National Indigenous Radio Service to becoming one of the most talked-about men in Australia and, it seems, our most sought-after bachelor. Last month, he won The Graham Kennedy Award for Most Popular New Talent at the TV Week Logie Awards, all but certifying his mass appeal. But Armstrong tells Stellar it was actually near the end of 2021, when he was just six months into his tenure at the ABC, that he realised his life had irrevocably changed.“Normally I like to hang at home,” he reveals. “But I’ve got a lot of friends who play music, so I’ll go support them. But then it started to become a bit annoying… or more of a consideration. “I’ve learnt that I’m a bit of a recluse. I know the irony of saying that, considering I’m sitting for a cover shoot and interview. But I do like to be private.”As he settles in for his chat with Stellar, Armstrong describes his meteoric rise to national recognition as “pretty weird… I’ve enjoyed the work and made some new friends but probably all this [fame] side of things wasn’t something that I had to think about until now. “Everything’s just happening really fast. It feels like being on a rocket ship.”One might assume playing professional football in a country where athletes are treated like gods would have prepared Armstrong for all this attention. Yet he has described his stint in the AFL as “a failure” and, after being dropped from two clubs, he finally called time on his childhood dream. “I learnt a really rough lesson but one I think everyone needs to learn,” Armstrong says. “Life’s not fair and it doesn’t matter how hard you do work. I know it sounds really devo, but hard work doesn’t always mean success. “We are all sold the dream that you can do anything and anything is possible. However, a lot of the time, it doesn’t work out. That’s OK.” Forced to find a new career, Armstrong started studying psychology before the turning point arrived in 2019 when Triple M tapped him to become the first Indigenous person to call an AFL game on commercial radio. “That’s probably the thing I’m most proud of,” he says. “That wasn’t like an ‘I’ve arrived’ thing – more of a ‘That’s pretty cool.’”Since then, he has hosted Yokayi Footy on NITV, replaced long-time sports presenter Paul Kennedy on News Breakfast, picked up stints on The Project, and found himself the centre of attention from sports fans (and Twitter users) around the world thanks to that exuberant clip of his Socceroos celebration, which was shown on US TV. Despite the adulation, and because Armstrong’s successful new career in broadcasting wasn’t necessarily a childhood dream – unlike his football aspirations – it has freed him from the pressure of failing to live up to his own expectations. “When I started, I probably didn’t realise the gravitas of what I was doing, but that took the pressure off,” he tells Stellar. “When I was playing sport, I was unsure and I was insecure. I probably didn’t have that trust in myself to be good enough. When you want something so much and you try so hard, maybe you just repulse it a bit. “What I’m doing now, I know I’m good enough,” he adds. “But I also don’t overthink something if it goes wrong. In fact, I lean into it. I love when things go wrong. Because we are not saving lives. We are just on TV, talking sh*t.”To use an athletic term, Armstrong has found his flow state on television, and the audience – many of whom probably have far less interest in sport than they do Armstrong himself – is eating it up. When asked to explain why he has become such a popular presence in the Australian cultural landscape in such a short period of time, Armstrong offers a pragmatic response: “Someone said to me the people who work the hardest make it look the easiest. So you bust your arse, you watch yourself back, you make little notes and adjustments. But once the lights are on, I trust the work. “And I will tell you it is a performance, because no-one wants to be on TV at 6am.” Tim Ayliffe, ABC News managing editor of TV & Video, hired the relatively green Armstrong to replace Kennedy. He tells Stellar that Armstrong’s abundant charisma and natural talent were immediately clear. “He gives a real candid freshness and you can’t teach that. It’s also contagious to be around,” Ayliffe says. “Tony has not gone looking for [fame]. It just found him. On air, he’s a pretty ordinary guy and that almost makes him more interesting. “The thing I love about him is what you see is what you get. He’s really smart and he can talk about the news as well as sport. He can dive into a lot of topics.”Armstrong’s rapid ascent was cemented at the Logies on June 19, where he was hounded on the red carpet before even stepping into the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre and bantering onstage with close mate Dylan Alcott before taking home a shiny silver statuette. Still, he’s quick to point out with a smile, “Nowhere on the Logie does it say that you’re actually good at your job. It’s for the most popular new talent. What that means is f*cking nothing apart from a popular vote. “I mean, it’s flattering… and I’m very smug to my friends about it – it’s how I finish every argument. But that’s it.”That’s why Armstrong, who was born in Paddington, Sydney before moving to country New South Wales with his single mother Margaret, who raised him from birth after his father left, wants the attention to remain focused on his work. He reveals he’s writing TV scripts that are “both very different. One is super absurdist and not something you would expect to come out of the head of someone who’s reading the news on ABC.”Armstrong says he has always had a vivid imagination, and insists his creative spirit formed early. “Being an only child in the country with not many kids around, I just had to make sh*t up,” he says. “I was into reading The Magic Faraway Tree, stuff that’s not real. And I found wonder in that. At school, I loved creative writing. I can’t count. I’m numbers illiterate. Sometimes I don’t even know how I’m doing this sport stuff because it’s quite regimented and that’s really not how my brain works. “I’m so bad with money and I’m lucky I’ve got so many people around to help with that.”While other networks would no doubt welcome the chance to bring Armstrong into their fold, he tells Stellar he remains committed to the ABC. “Maybe I’ve had [other offers] but I’m managed by three wonderful women,” he says, “and they’re my Fort Knox.”Margaret continues to wield a huge influence over Armstrong’s life. He humorously recalls the eye-opening experience of househunting in Melbourne last year. “You go to an auction and some f*cking rich bastards blow you out of the water, first bid. And you’re like, well, that coffee shop I was dreaming of going to is over…” he jokes. When he finally did manage to find a house last year, he admits he could tell his mother was proud. “I think Mum was like, ‘I can stop stressing now. My son is going to be OK.’ It brings Mum a lot of joy when she comes down and hangs out at the place as well.”While Margaret is of Irish descent (his middle name is Patrick in a nod to that side of his heritage), Armstrong’s father is Indigenous. And his priority now is getting to know the other side of his family and go on country. He has connected with his mob, the Gamilaroi, and is learning about his ancestry. “Culture is such a big part of my people and I was only afforded it just for circumstance,” he says. “I was only afforded a certain amount of it. But it’s something I’m actively looking to explore. I’ve learnt I’ve got a lot of family and that’s cool.”Unearthing more about his own identity has only emboldened Armstrong to keep advocating passionately for Indigenous culture and issues on the whole. Appearing as a guest on The Project last year, he used a documentary about high Indigenous incarceration rates to call out institutional racism in Australian culture. He was also, notably, the only person at the Logie Awards to make an acknowledgement of country; when a Twitter troll accused him of “virtue signalling”, he clapped back during the ceremony with a tweet of his own, writing, “Shut up bro. I’m a blackfulla and I am duty bound to respect the land I’m on.” When Stellar asks what prompted him to reply, he says, “To be honest with that stuff, I couldn’t give a f*ck what people think. I’m going to say what I think is right. “I could never pretend to speak on behalf of all Indigenous people but I can talk about what I know to be right. I don’t always get it right… but I try not to ever be complicit.”What Armstrong doesn’t love talking about, though, is his personal life. And that goes double for any hints of what he has going on romantically. He’s had girlfriends in the past, but when it comes to that secret wife Google suggests? He promises there is no undeclared spouse. “But if I had a secret wife I’d been hiding all this time, do you think I’d tell you?” he asks jokingly. Armstrong concedes while there is space in his life for dating, it has to be with the right person – one who is willing to tolerate the rocket ship-like speed at which things are currently going. “It’s got to be someone pretty special and I suppose I’ve got to be in a space where I can also give them what they need,” he offers.But what about his needs? “I don’t want anything,” Armstrong insists. “The only, you know, money worries I’ve got are, ‘Can I service my mortgage and live a life I want to?’ Everything other than that, I think, is superfluous. “I’m just trying to remind myself to enjoy the ride and not buy into things when they’re going well. And not buy into it completely when they aren’t.”
Powered by WPeMatico
