For more than two decades, the name Kelli Stevens has been tied to one of Australian football’s most infamous off-field scandals. Once known almost solely as the woman at the centre of the Wayne Carey–Anthony Stevens affair, she has slowly rebuilt her life, launched a fitness career and recently stepped back into the spotlight as the proud mother of North Melbourne draftee River Stevens.
This long-form look at Kelli Stevens traces how a private relationship exploded into a national talking point, what she has said about that period, how the fallout affected North Melbourne, and how she has tried to move on as a business owner, mindset coach and parent.
Who Is Kelli Stevens? The Woman Behind The Headlines
Before the scandal, Kelli Stevens was known mainly within football circles as the wife of North Melbourne tough midfielder and future captain Anthony Stevens. Anthony played 292 games, won two premierships (1996 and 1999), claimed two club best and fairest awards and earned All-Australian honours, making him one of the Kangaroos’ most respected figures.
Public records don’t reveal much about Kelli Stevens’ early life, but media coverage consistently places her in Victoria, moving in the same social and club circles as her husband and his teammates. As North Melbourne enjoyed its successful late-1990s era, she was part of the broader Kangaroos family – the partners, friends and relatives who formed the club’s off-field support network.
By the early 2000s, that circle also included superstar forward Wayne Carey, then the game’s dominant key forward and one of the most high-profile players in the AFL. Carey and Anthony Stevens were close on and off the field, with Stevens even serving as a groomsman at Carey’s wedding to long-term partner Sally McMahon.
How The Wayne Carey Affair With Kelli Stevens Began
The scandal that would define Kelli Stevens’ public life emerged in early 2002, but accounts of how it began reach back to late 2001. In later interviews, Wayne Carey said the pair’s flirting escalated around a November wedding, where he, Kelli and his wife Sally ended up in the same hotel room.
In her own recollection years later, Kelli Stevens said Carey pursued her after that wedding, ringing “every day for weeks” before the affair started. She has described the relationship as something that unfolded during a difficult period in her marriage rather than as a pre-planned betrayal, later telling the Herald Sun that “looking back, of course I made a mistake but now I see it as a symptom of my marriage.”
Wayne Carey has spoken in various interviews about his personal state at the time, saying he was in “self-destruction mode” and that sleeping with a teammate’s wife has haunted him for over 20 years. On the reality series SAS Australia, he called the affair “the biggest regret of my life as an adult”.
The Glenn Archer Party-When The Kelli Stevens Affair Became Public
The scandal involving Kelli Stevens burst into full public view at a party in March 2002 at the home of teammate Glenn Archer. According to reporting and later biographies, guests noticed Carey and Kelli missing from the main gathering and discovered them together in a bathroom.
Different accounts of the exact moment have emerged:
- Wayne Carey has claimed that he told Kelli Stevens to leave the toilet and return to the party.
- Kelli, in contrast, has directly disputed that version, saying in one interview: they had been kissing, said “love you”, and then “went back to the party” – insisting that he did not tell her to get out.
Whatever the exact exchange, the discovery triggered an explosive confrontation and a complete breakdown of trust. Both Carey and Anthony Stevens failed to attend training soon afterwards, and word of the incident quickly spread through the club and then the wider football public.
Fallout For North Melbourne & The Stevens Marriage
The affair between Wayne Carey and Kelli Stevens had consequences far beyond their personal lives. Within days, Carey resigned from North Melbourne, walking away from the captaincy and the club he had led to two premierships.
Teammates rallied behind Anthony Stevens, condemning the betrayal of a close friend and vice-captain. North Melbourne champion Brent Harvey later said the scandal set the Kangaroos back “four or five years”, underlining how deeply it affected morale, leadership and on-field performance.
For the Stevens family, the impact was even more personal. Although both Wayne Carey’s and Anthony and Kelli Stevens’ marriages survived in the short term, they did not last. Carey’s marriage ended in 2006, while Anthony and Kelli divorced in 2008 – six years after the affair first became public.
In subsequent interviews, Kelli Stevens has spoken about how the scandal overshadowed every aspect of her life. She has acknowledged that the affair was a mistake, but has also suggested that the media focus on her behaviour, compared with Carey’s, reflected a double standard about women in sport-adjacent roles.
Kelli Stevens Speaks-Regret, Responsibility & Her Side Of The Story
For many years, Kelli Stevens said little publicly while Wayne Carey and Anthony Stevens each gave their perspectives in interviews and books. That changed in 2015 when she spoke to The West Australian and the Herald Sun after both men had revisited the saga in the media.
In those comments, she described:
- Feeling pursued by Carey in the lead-up to the affair
- Receiving daily calls from him for weeks after the wedding where they first flirted
- Being asked by Carey to “start a new life” with him and to “come out and say we love each other” once the scandal broke
At one point she recalled Carey telling her parents he wanted them to be together, later saying she believed it was really about protecting his career rather than their relationship.
Through these interviews, Kelli Stevens tried to balance acknowledgement of her role with criticism of how the story had been framed. She accepted that she had hurt people she cared about, but also highlighted the intense scrutiny that followed her long after the original affair faded from front-page news.
Kelli Stevens After The Scandal-F45 Owner, Fitness Trainer & Mindset Coach
Over time, Kelli Stevens has deliberately shifted focus from the past to her work, health and family. Media reports detail a series of new ventures:
- By 2018 she had become a co-owner of an F45 Training studio in Echuca, helping bring the high-intensity franchise to a regional town of about 13,000 people.
- She has run fitness challenges and training sessions, with local schools thanking “Kelli Stevens and Andrew Hall” for hosting students at the studio.
- Later coverage describes her as a fitness trainer, mindset coach and online marketer, with a strong focus on health, confidence and lifestyle change.
A 2022 piece described Kelli Stevens as “unrecognisable” compared with the early-2000s photos that once accompanied scandal stories, highlighting her gym-focused life and social media presence. In these more recent public appearances, she presents herself less as a former “WAG” and more as a small-business owner and wellness advocate.
Alongside her fitness work, other reporting has mentioned her involvement in Vans Café in Cottesloe, where Kevin McCabe is listed as owner and chef, with his wife Kelli Stevens responsible for interior decoration and their son running front of house. Given the common name, this appears to be a separate Perth-based Kelli Stevens, but it underlines how the name now appears in various business contexts rather than only in scandal coverage.
Motherhood & Family Life-Kelli Stevens As River Stevens’ Mum
For Kelli Stevens, perhaps the most significant change in recent years has been watching her son River follow in his father’s footsteps. In November 2024, North Melbourne drafted 18-year-old River Stevens at pick 67 in the national draft, bringing the family back into the AFL spotlight.
Anthony Stevens’ playing career had already made him a club great. Now, his son is beginning a new chapter with the same team – and media coverage has inevitably revisited the past along the way. On the day River was drafted, Kelli Stevens shared a public statement that doubled as both a message of support for her son and a firm line under the old saga.
In her social media post, she wrote that her thoughts had been “on my mind for a while” and that she felt “now is an appropriate time” to speak. She emphasised that:
“The past is where it belongs… behind us.”
She added that parents’ choices and lessons “do not define our children or their journeys” and described River’s draft as “his journey, his dreams, his challenges, his triumphs”.
The post, signed off “River’s proud Mumma xx”, framed Kelli Stevens less as the woman at the centre of an old scandal and more as a mother determined to make sure her son’s career is not overshadowed by events from the early 2000s.
Media Narratives Around Kelli Stevens In Australian Sport
The story of Kelli Stevens sits at the intersection of AFL culture, celebrity media and public attitudes towards infidelity. The early 2000s coverage, and much of the commentary since, often positioned her as a central villain in the saga, even though Wayne Carey was the club captain, married himself and the one with the most power in the situation.
Academic writing on AFL scandals has pointed to differences in how male and female figures are treated, with women more likely to be fixed in public memory through labels like “the wife” or “the affair” while male players eventually become known again for their on-field achievements. In this sense, Kelli Stevens has become a case study in how sports culture polices women’s behaviour while often forgiving, or at least reframing, the actions of star players over time.
At the same time, recent reporting shows a more nuanced picture. Articles covering River’s draft and Wayne Carey’s reflections now include Kelli Stevens’ own words, her fitness career and her desire to move on, rather than treating her purely as a symbol of past controversy.
Kelli Stevens In 2025-Where She Stands Today
As of late 2024 and into 2025, publicly available information paints this picture of Kelli Stevens:
- She is the former wife of North Melbourne premiership player Anthony Stevens.
- She was heavily scrutinised after her affair with Wayne Carey, which contributed to Carey’s exit from North Melbourne and major upheaval for the club.
- She has spent recent years building a career as a fitness trainer, mindset coach and online marketer, including ownership of an F45 gym in regional Victoria.
- She has spoken publicly about wanting to leave the “shadows of the past” behind and focus on her children and their futures, especially River’s new AFL career.
While she will almost certainly remain linked to AFL history through the Carey-Stevens saga, Kelli Stevens now has greater control over how her name appears in Australian media – as a fitness professional, a small-business operator and a proud mum watching her son run out in the blue and white stripes.
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