No, Mary Fowler Isn’t Dating Nathan Cleary But It Doesn’t Mean She’ll Date You Either

Dating rumours of Matildas superstar Mary Fowler and Penrith Panthers captain Nathan Cleary have sent sports fans into a frenzy this week. And, now that I’m a newly minted sports girly, I am one of those people. But the moment I heard this claim made by a podcast called Hello Sport on Tuesday, I called bullshit.

Since then, I’ve been trying to see where on earth this claim came from and if there was any validity to this claim. And while Fowler and Cleary’s potential union was a deliciously juicy concept that both lovers and haters clung on to, it turns out, there is sadly no truth to it.

I first came across the tea while I was mindlessly scrolling on TikTok via a snippet of the Hello Sport podcast. In the vid, co-host Thomas Birmingham said that he read “again in the paper” that the sporty pair were spotted enjoying ice cream together.

“They’re both sponsored by Adidas and could’ve been doing a function together but if you have an ice cream with someone, that’s saying something,” he said.

“Unless they’re doing an ice cream commercial, they’re essentially dating,” co-host Eddy Simpson chimed in.

With this logic, I’d be scared to tell these blokes that I used to get ice cream with my brother all the time.

You can have a geez at the clip below.

I tried to find where these claims came from but to no avail. And as the media – I’m talking Daily Mail, News.com and even Perth Now – jumped on the ice cream date rumour with no pics or proof, citing Hello Sports as their source, I felt like the fellas at the poddy had pulled off a cheeky bit, completely fabricating a rumour for content a lá Woman’s Day.

But in response to a tweet that basically called them out for pulling tea out of thin air, they claimed that the ice cream date was reported in The Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday.

While there’s no trace of it online, often the tea in the printed paper is so fast-moving it doesn’t make it to the digital world so I’m giving them a pass.

Since then, there have been more developments.

According to the Daily Telegraph, a source from Cleary’s camp has denied reports that the sports stars are dating. Instead, they said the incident they spotted was “just ice cream.”

Can’t two hot, talented, top-of-their-game sports stars enjoy a cheeky lick of dairy together after an Adidas event without the rumour mill going wild? Apparently not.

Anyway, now that we’ve put this rumour to bed, I’m going to go back to pretending Mary Fowler is single and willing to date me when I drift off to sleep at night. You know, just like the rest of the country.