Reformed AFL star Ben Cousins has been spotted rubbing shoulders with adoring footy fans in Perth, as his former agent Ricky Nixon vows to expose the sordid details of the former West Coast great’s crippling drug addiction.
The former methamphetamine addict has made efforts to turn his life around in the past seven months, after multiple run-ins with the law, stints behind bars, and a drug addiction that cost him his career.
West Coast Eagles fans have been thrilled to spot their beloved hero looking sober and healthy, most recently at Perth’s Optus Stadium when Cousins brought his nine-year-old son Bobby to a game in June.
The 43-year-old, who is recovering from a hamstring injury, had plenty of time for fans as he stood on the sideline with his father Bryan watching his suburban club Queen’s Park Bulldogs play in Perth on Sunday.
Cousins held a cup of coffee as he shook one young supporter’s hand, before signing a woman’s jacket and posing for photos with others who approached him as he watched his new team take on ladder-leaders Koongamia.
Fans were quick to comment on how happy and at-peace Cousins looked, despite news that his disgraced long-time AFL agent Ricky Nixon is due to release a new tell-all docuseries detailing the footy star’s downward spiral.
Comeback king: Ben Cousins shook a young fan’s hand as he watched his new team play park footy in Perth on Sunday
The 43-year-old looked healthy and happy as he mingled with fans and chatted with his father Bryan (right)
Fans flocked to the fallen footy legend at Queen’s Park Reserve, with one woman asking Cousins to sign her jacket
Reformed AFL star Ben Cousins glowed as he flashed a happy grin while posing for photos with fans at the game
The series titled White Line Fever is set to go into depth about a host of high-profile incidents which have tarnished the game in recent years.
The exposé promises to give fans the sordid details of Cousins storied battle with drug addiction and track the rise and fall of the premiership player.
The behind-the-scenes eight-part tell-all will also delve into the Essendon doping saga which saw the club fined $2million and resulted in 34 players being suspended for two years.
Nixon has said the highly-anticipated series is going to make a lot of people ‘very nervous’.
The 58-year-old Nixon, who played for St Kilda and Hawthorn, went on to become the most powerful player agent in the game through the 1990s into the 2000s, representing the code’s most elite talent.
But in 2011 Nixon’s career fell apart after photos were leaked showing him in his underwear in a Melbourne hotel room with the 17-year-old Kim Duthie, known as the ‘St Kilda schoolgirl’ after her relationships with Saints players became public.
Cousins (pictured leaving court in 2016) has had multiple run-ins with the law, a crippling drug addiction and jail stints
Cousins’ latest appearance comes as his disgraced long-time AFL agent Ricky Nixon (pictured) has promised a new tell-all docuseries
Cousins, who made his football comeback in May, was forced to watch on from the sidelines as he nurses a hamstring injury
Nixon told the Herald Sun the docuseries is going to shock footy fans as he compared it to a fictional TV series about a Mexican drug lord.
‘White Line Fever will have everything Queen of the South does, without the murder,’ Nixon said.
‘It’s going to make a lot of people in the industry very nervous,’ the 58 year-old said.
Meanwhile, fans on the West Coast Eagles For Life Facebook page shared photos of Cousins after the Richmond game and said they were encouraged that he seems to be turning his life around after a long battle with drugs.
‘My husband had a great chat to him. He was so happy to talk. Gave him a hug too I think he was just really appreciative that after everything has happened, people still care about him,’ one woman commented.
The former West Coast Eagles star (pictured leaving court in 2017) has made efforts to turn his life around after his latest stint in jail which ended in November 2020
A relaxed Ben Cousins (middle) posed for dozens of photos with West Coast Eagles fans at an AFL game in Perth last month
A clean cut and happy Ben Cousins was spotted by fans at Perth’s Optus Oval, who attended the game with his nine-year-old son Bobby
Another added: ‘Was very happy to have a chat and a photo. Good to see him with his son looking so happy.’
‘He is looking gorgeous like our old Ben. I hope you’re doing well Ben, you certainly look well,’ the page moderator commented.
Cousins has been spotted at several West Coast Eagles games so far this season, after being released from Hakea Prison in late November.
The fan-favourite has come a long way in the 15 months since he spoke publicly for the first time in 10 years about his downward spiral in the Ben Cousins: Coming Clean documentary.
Sporting long hair in a ponytail and a scruffy beard at the time, Cousins admitted he’d ‘stuffed things up royally’ and that it was time to put things right.
‘I hope people can see I’m having a crack at turning it around,’ he said in March 2020.
Ben Cousins’ (pictured) downward spiral into drugs is also penciled in as a topic in the tell-all eight-part series as well as the Essendon doping scandal
He was arrested in Perth a month later after he allegedly being caught with 2.5grams of methamphetamine while asleep beside his car and spent the next seven months behind bars.
On his release, Cousins has returned to the footy field playing for the Queens Park Bulldogs in Perth’s Metro Football League.
Cousins played 238 games and booted 205 goals for the West Coast Eagles, where he won a premiership with the club in 2006.
He was later sacked by the club and copped a one year ban from the AFL.
The Richmond Tigers gave Cousins a second chance in 2009, where he played 32 more games and 12 more goals before he retired in 2010.
THE TROUBLED LIFE AND TIMES OF BEN COUSINS:
1996 – Makes AFL debut with West Coast and is named the league’s Rising Star
2001 – Named club captain of West Coast at age 23
2002 – Breaks his arm falling down a flight of stairs at a nightclub months after punching his teammate Daniel Kerr
2005 – (May) Is quizzed by police about association with underworld identities
– (September) Wins Brownlow medal as the AFL’s best and fairest player
Cousins after the 2006 AFL Grand Final
2006 – (February) Swims across a Perth river to escape a booze bus
– (September) Wins AFL premiership with the Eagles
– (December) Is arrested after passing out in front of Melbourne’s Crown Casino and spends four hours in jail
2007 – (March) Suspended by West Coast after missing training session
– (April) Goes to a drug rehabilitation facility in the US
– (October) Revealed to have visited fellow Eagles legend Chris Mainwaring twice on the night he died of a drug overdose
– (October) Arrested and charged with drug offences that are later dropped
– (November) Eventually sacked by West Coast and banned from the AFL for one year
2008 – AFL re-registers Cousins and he is signed by Richmond
2010 – Retires from the AFL but releases autobiography and documentary
Cousins has been charged with drug possession and refusing a drug test in 2007, but the charges were later dropped
2015 – Arrested three times before leading police on a slow-speed car chase
2016 – (June) Spotted behaving erratically and directing traffic on a highway
– (October) In and out of court over drug offences and breaches a restraining order taken out by his ex-partner
2018 – (January) Released from jail on parole just 10 months into his sentence
He takes up a community support role with the West Coast Eagles – a requirement of his parole conditions
– (May): Reports emerge he hasn’t been seen at the club for a month
The club confirms the he told officials in April he no longer wanted the job
– (August) Arrested and charged with drug possession and breaching a restraining order
2019 – (February) He was fined $1,750 for possessing meth and hiding it up his anus while in jail
(March) Cousins pleaded not guilty to 14 offences in court, including breaching a family violence restraining order and a count each of aggravated stalking and threatening to injure, endanger or harm
(April) Cousins is arrested in Perth with a Cousins is released from jail on bail after eight months inside.
2020 – (March) Tell-all documentary Coming Clean goes to air – Cousins opens up about his meth addiction and time behind bars.
(April) Cousins is arrested in Perth after allegedly being caught with 2.5grams of methamphetamine while asleep beside his car.
He is remanded in custody after pleading guilty to possessing methamphetamine and incurring a $1500 fine.
He is also charged with aggravated stalking of his ex-partner, Maylea Tinecheff.
(October) Cousins pleads not guilty to aggravated stalking and 20 counts of breaching a family violence restraining order relating to his ex-partner.
(November) He is convicted of stalking his ex-partner but acquitted by a Perth court of restraining order breaches. He is sentenced to seven months jail, which is backdated to April.
He is released from Hakea prison in late November.
2021 – Cousins returns to the footy field playing for the Queens Park Bulldogs in Perth’s Metro Football League
Nixon (pictured at a a memorial service for late AFL star Danny Frawley in Melbourne in September 2019) says a new AFL docuseries is going to make ‘a lot of people nervous’
Ricky Nixon was caught with his pants off during a disgraceful incident in 2011 that ruined his career as a player agent