Welcome to The Group Chat with Lucy Manly, where Australia’s most trusted society insider shares the hottest gossip BEFORE it makes the news.
Flown the coop
Rumours are swirling that Roger Zraika, the soon-to-be ex-husband of chicken heiress Jessica Ingham, has wasted no time moving on after his separation.
A week after I exclusively revealed that Jess and Roger – who share a two-year-old son – had quietly split after four years of marriage, a well-placed source told me the property tycoon had a new romantic interest.
Who is the lucky lady?
Well, I can tell you she is a prominent Sydney woman with a familiar surname – but she is not keen for her relationship with Roger to become public knowledge. At least, not yet.
Rumours are swirling that Roger Zraika, soon-to-be ex-husband of Jess Ingham, has wasted no time moving on after his separation (The former couple is seen together in happier times)
She went so far as to engage a lawyer to protect her reputation after enquiries were made about her relationship status.
We felt it was quite the overreaction. What’s defamatory in suggesting that two otherwise unattached people are enjoying one another’s company?
But that’s just us!
Whispers of a rift between Jess and Roger began swirling after the mother-of-two didn’t post about her husband on Father’s Day.
Two sources later confirmed to the Daily Mail that the pair had ‘amicably separated’.
Jess has since wiped almost all traces of her ex from social media.
Love is in the air
The Hywood family rarely do things by halves – not in business, and certainly not when it comes to weddings.
Media scion Tom Hywood, son of former Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood and acclaimed journalist Kate Legge, tied the knot with Colombian beauty Jenny Matiz (the newlyweds are pictured)
Media scion Tom Hywood – son of former Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood and award-winning journalist Kate Legge – tied the knot with Colombian beauty Jenny Matiz in a glamorous ceremony at Raes on Wategos, Byron Bay last week.
‘It was such a beautiful wedding,’ one guest confided.
The 33-year-old Melbourne Grammar old boy – who shares a son with his ex-fiancée, Melbourne psychotherapist Elizabeth Anile – previously attracted attention for a first-person piece he wrote for a Nine masthead in 2020 after testing positive for Covid upon his return from Hong Kong.
His call for calm during the early days of the pandemic drew both praise and criticism at the time.
Tom’s parents, who separated after nearly three decades of marriage, remain two of the most recognisable names in Australian media.
The bride opted for a ‘business at the front, party at the back’ style gown
Tom and Jenny Matiz said ‘I do’ at Raes on Wategos in Byron Bay last week
Greg, famed for his no-nonsense style and love of fast cars, is no stranger to headlines. Who could forget his $140,000 blue Maserati bought at the height of Fairfax’s job cuts?
Or that awkward moment in 2021 when he sheepishly admitted (to me) to using Tinder ‘on and off for years’?
Tom’s mother, meanwhile, famously released a memoir in 2023 reflecting on love, betrayal and the breakdown of her marriage – widely understood to be inspired by her ex-husband’s infidelity.
A promotional event for Legge’s memoir included this striking line: ‘Discovering that betrayal has been a recurring pattern in [Hywood’s] family going back generations, she wonders: is unfaithfulness a predisposition or a learned behaviour?’
We have every faith in young Tom that he’ll break the generational curse.
Greg Hywood (left, with then-Nine CEO Hugh Marks in July 2018) sheepishly admitted to using Tinder ‘on and off for years’ when I discovered his dating app profile back in 2020
Vanessa’s soft launch
After last year’s driving debacle – in which she was arrested after crashing her SUV in Bellevue Hill and refusing a breath test – you’d think Vanessa Jacobs Fennell might steer clear of the spotlight.
Instead, it seems she’s leaning into it with a Gen Z-coded ‘soft launch’.
The Sydney socialite recently set group chats aflutter after surfacing in Hong Kong with two male companions, one conspicuously emoji-faced.
For the uninitiated, that’s 20-something shorthand for: he’s my new boyfriend, but you don’t get to know who he is yet.
Earlier this year, Jacobs Fennell was romantically linked to prominent Melbourne businessman Nathan Sable. The duo were said to be joined at the hip – until just before Valentine’s Day, when things suddenly cooled.
The mother-of-two stepped out at charity gala Soiree by the Sea last Friday
The Sydney socialite recently set group chats aflutter after surfacing in Hong Kong with two male companions, one conspicuously emoji-faced. A new boyfriend, perhaps?
Before Sable, she was married to private equity banker – and legendary eastern suburbs tomcat – Tom Fennell, who, as fate would have it, lives spitting distance from the Bellevue Hill crash site where she was arrested in March.
That unfortunate episode ended with her pleading guilty to four charges – among them, refusing a breath test.
In August, Waverley Local Court handed down a $1,300 fine and a six-month licence suspension.
Outside court, Jacobs Fennell said she was ‘profoundly remorseful and regretful’ but added, ‘Every human being should be allowed to make a mistake.’
And finally… guess who, don’t sue
Whispers are swirling through Sydney’s east about a certain party prince whose wild lifestyle has finally caught up with him.
The golden boy, once known for his swagger and legendary late-night antics, is now ageing in fast-forward.
He has been hospitalised six times this year alone – each time after overdoing it on his poison of choice: so-called ‘liquid ecstasy’, or GHB.
He may still strut around the Emerald City like he’s invincible, but even his inner circle is starting to worry.
Friends are whispering that he’s becoming a liability – and privately fear it’s only a matter of time before the notorious night owl crashes for good.
- The subject of this blind item is not named or pictured elsewhere in this article.
