AFL players' partners divulge ‘lifelong body dysmorphia’ from online trolling

Two weeks ago Paris Tier, the partner of GWS defender Conor Stone, found herself in her GP's office asking to go on Ozempic after receiving online hate comments about her weight.

The comments were along the vein of: "I thought WAGs were supposed to be skinny."

Similarly, Tiffany Wood, wife of former Western Bulldogs premiership captain Easton Wood, told ABC Sport that comments made about her during her husband's playing career "fuelled a lifelong sense of body dysmorphia." 

"I'm in my mid 30s now and I'm still battling with body dysmorphia because people told me that I was too big to be a partner," Wood said.

"I'd post something and it was just like 'She's not pretty enough to be with him'. 'Why do they always choose girls like this?' Or 'She must have a great personality'."

'No-one deserves to be criticised like that'

Both Tier and Wood said there was an unhealthy expectation placed on women who date elite male footballers to look a certain way. They said this included being a size six, neither of which they were.

Last year Lauren Fryer, the partner of England and Arsenal footballer Declan Rice, deleted all her social media photos after an onslaught of vitriol about her appearance. Rice also deleted all photos of her from his Instagram.

Fryer's friend Dani Dyer, who is the fiancee of West Ham footballer Jarrod Bowen, said the trolling was difficult for Fryer, who started dating Rice when they were just 17 and was not used to being in the public eye.

"I think it's harder when you are not in [the celebrity world] and you are being personally attacked. I found that hard. She is a really good mum, who keeps to herself. No one deserves to be criticised like that," Dyer told Fabulous magazine.

Wood said she could be having a normal day when someone's comment would cut so deeply.

"And I know it shouldn't matter that much but one comment in particular - I can't even remember the DM(direct message) because I made myself delete it — but it was so upsetting that I shut Instagram down for six months and just went on private," she said.

Worst at the end of the season

The negative comments about her body were always at their worst at the end of the season, coinciding with AFL finals, award nights and the Brownlow, Wood said. 

She would skip the red carpet at the best and fairests, hoping to avoid online 'hot or not' articles or listicles that rated players' partners.

"I just didn't want a part of it… It fuelled a pretty bad eating disorder in me from August to October every year. I called it my 'seasonal ED' (eating disorder), and it was f**king taking the piss out of something much more serious than I later learned in life," Wood said.

"Come August every year, I would starve myself and drop at least, I don't know, eight kilos. We (other partners of players) called it 'the shred'."

The expectation was also coming from inside the industry.

"If you needed a dress to wear (by a stylist), you had to get photographed in it and you had to be a sample size to fit the dress," she said.

Sample sizes are the standardised measurements used by designers to create prototypes of their designs. Historically, these sizes have been limited, often catering to a narrow range of body types.

"And if I didn't go on those diets, I couldn't go in those showrooms and I couldn't fit in those dresses. So, yeah, it was an annual shredding," Wood said.

'I don't fit, I guess, the WAG criteria'

Similar to Tiffany and Easton, Paris met Conor organically; the pair bonding over their shared love of football.

She started posting on social media about their lives as a creative outlet just over a year ago, particularly on TikTok.

While she has always received hate comments, they have intensified of late and become harder to ignore.

"I thought it depends whether Conor was playing well or if Conor was playing average … but this season, it's just been like balls to the wall, just bots and trolls, just picking on my weight," Tier said.

"I would get hate comments last year being like, 'oh, you look like a frog' and I'd be like, 'whatever, you're just a loser sitting behind the screen'.

"It wasn't until maybe about three, four months ago, I actually made a video and before I posted it, I was like, 'oh, I actually feel fat in this, I don't want to post this'.

"[But] I posted it, and within minutes of it being up, I got like five comments … so I clicked on the review comment section and it's just filled with people calling me fat and saying I don't fit, I guess, the WAG ('wives and girlfriends') criteria.

"I feel like everyone is a lot prettier that I am and this feeling is heavily driven by comments."

However, sitting in the doctor's office, Tier thought back to a photo of herself as a confident, happy young girl in a pink tutu. It made her get in her car and drive home.

Similarly, Wood reflects back to her younger self. And now with the hindsight and wisdom of being out of the AFL world for a few years, as well as the help of therapy, wishes she could just go back "and give that girl a hug".