CONSTANCE HALL & DENIM COOKE THE TRUTH ABOUT OUR LOVE!
THE PERTH MUMMY BLOGGER TALKS LOVE, LIFE AND WHAT IT’S LIKE TO RECEIVE SO MUCH HATE
For most women, posting a photo of your newborn on Instagram garners a whole heap of likes and some heart-felt congratulations.
But when you’re Constance Hall – Australia’s most famous mummy blogger – things are never so simple.
‘The trolls were all like: “I f****** hate Constance, but that’s a cute baby,”’ Constance laughs in an exclusive interview with New Idea, cradling her baby son, Raja, three weeks later.
When you’re brave enough to share candid details about your life, it’s clear everybody is happy to have a say on it.
A seemingly innocuous photo of newborn Raja, being doted on by his father Denim Cooke while Constance looked at her mobile phone in the background, soon caused the kind of troll storm the 34-year-old Perth mum is used to.
‘Obviously googling parenting advice,’ wrote one person, referring to the fact that Constance was looking at her phone, rather than at her baby.
Others suggested the photo revealed ‘poor parenting’.
‘I don’t care what they say about me,’ sighs Constance. ‘But I’m so sick of women being thrown under the bus.
‘They suck because they’re cheaters or bad mums. It’s time for people to shut up and focus on their own lives.’
Over the last 15 months, Constance has had it all. A public split from her husband of six years, Bill Mahon, followed swiftly by a new relationship with now husband, Denim, opened her up to the charge of having an affair, something Constance has denied.
She admits the stress of the divorce and two lawsuits she’s currently embroiled in have left her feeling suicidal.
‘But then I think about my friends with terminal cancer and I’m like: “Get a f****** grip, Con,”’ she says.
And of course, despite all the bad bits, Constance is also in the early flushes of love with the man she says is her soulmate.
‘I met Denim at a skate park in Margaret River I used to go to with my kids,’ she smiles. ‘We’d go there in the evenings when it was quieter and, when you’re by yourself, being out with the kids in the evenings is better than being at home.’
When Denim recognised her from her blog, Constance assumed he must be married to know who she was.
In fact, the father-of-two was also single and Constance began her campaign for him. ‘I did the chasing,’ she says firmly.
‘I saw it straight away. He said he wasn’t worthy of being with someone like me, which was maybe his nice way of saying he wasn’t attracted to me, but he came around!’
Constance is quick to describe Denim as the love of her life.
‘We’re so similar,’ she gushes. ‘If we meet someone new we walk away and have the same thoughts about them. And he ignores so much of the stuff I say. He’s not offended. I spent the whole first year asking if he was angry or p****d off with me, but now I know I don’t even have to ask. He’s brought my anxiety down so much.’
Despite already having six kids between them – Constance had Billie-violet, nine, Arlo, six, Rumi and Snow, three, with her ex, while Denim is dad to Sunny, 17, and Zeyke, 13 – the couple wanted a child together.
‘We were sitting in a winery in Margs [Margaret River],’ Constance says, ‘and I said:
“When we’re 70, and we’re looking down at all of our kids, we’ll always wonder what ours together would’ve looked like.’
It became the catalyst to try, and baby Raja was born on 28 May. ‘We liked the Indian name Raj, but Raja gave it a softness,’ she says. ‘If we’d had a girl, Denim is bird obsessed so maybe a bird name. Sparrow’s cute.’
Within the first few weeks Constance was wowed by how involved her new hubby was, talking of a potential power struggle for main parenting duties. But things have settled now and even if he’s being a perfect dad, Constance says he can still annoy her.
‘I still find things to pick on,’ she laughs. ‘I think women just get it more with a new baby. My mum, for example, doesn’t give the baby back if he’s crying and she’ll just give him a bath without being asked.’
The controversial mum won’t be skipping off to bond with other women at mother’s groups though.
‘I think women have a preconceived idea of what I’ll be like,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to feel judged and I’d probably just say something stupid!’
Anyway, she’s got her hands full with seven kids, a new book and clothing range launches.
‘I make it work,’ she shrugs. ‘F*** the housework. You realise what’s important [with a new baby]. For the books and clothes the energy comes. It’s my ‘me time’. I don’t do stuff like yoga. I couldn’t think of anything worse.’
Initially, her time was taken up worrying about how the already blended family would bond around another baby.
‘It’s a stumbling block,’ Constance tells New Idea. ‘Denim’s kids are used to having him 100 per cent. Same with my kids. Now there’s this unit of three of us in the middle.’
It hit Constance’s six-yearold, Arlo, particularly hard.
‘Arlo’s teacher told me he was a bit sad,’ Constance remembers. ‘He’s usually so independent and it made me burst into tears.’
But now, seven weeks on and a family road trip up the WA coast, things are under control again.
‘Things are constantly evolving and what was a worry last week isn’t a worry now,’ Constance laughs. ‘The baby’s become part of the pack and my worry at the moment is the 2cm splinter stuck in Rumi’s foot. There’s always something.’
She jokes that instead of having one particular ‘problem child’ she has four.
‘Arlo’s the worst behaved, but the biggest mummy’s boy, Billie-violet is such a pre-teen. She looks at me and says: “Wow, mum, just wow.” Rumi’s a bruiser and Snow has a speech delay, so she can be a bit sooky because she can’t verbalise.’
It must make having a newborn seem like a breeze and Constance agrees she’s a very different mum this time around.
‘I can take a step back and enjoy it,’ she says. ‘I’ve done it four times so there’s no stress. I’m just appreciating how lucky I am. We’re co-sleeping, which feels so natural. There’s no getting up and rocking like I did before. As long as you aren’t drinking [alcohol], it’s fine,’ she shrugs, saying they’ve stopped using the co-sleeping aid as it gets in the way. ‘It’s different parenting techniques this time around. We followed all the ‘rules’ before, but I’m able to function like a normal human
this time!’ On holiday she even let a stranger hold Raja. ‘She approached Denim and asked him if she could help,’ Constance says. ‘I’d have probably been the typical over-capable mum and said no, but he was like: “Hell yeah.”’ They got to eat a meal together for the first time since Raja was born and Constance posted a photo, which received over 32,000 likes on social media.
‘People love love,’ Constance smiles. ‘They like hearing about women being kind to women.’
The post she remembers having the most likes was nothing to do with her though.
‘A child therapist told me that it’s not the loud, badly behaved kids we have to worry about, it’s the silent ones. Kids who are in trouble withdraw. It took a weight off my shoulders and when I wrote about it I got 500,000 likes,’ she says. ‘Everyone whose kids had played up that day were just relieved they were well adjusted!’
So what’s next for Constance. More kids? More books?
‘No more babies,’ Constance shudders. ‘I’m not letting him anywhere near me,’ she nods towards Denim.
But no doubt her empire will continue to grow and, despite the haters, or perhaps because of them, Constance’s brand of straight-talking, drama-creating blogging will keep her and her family firmly in the spotlight.