‘Difference in fate’: Mick Fanning opens up about the night he cheated death at 17

Mick Fanning’s life has been marked by frightening near misses – not just in the water.

Now aged 45, it’s something he reflects on with gratitude. But he is also haunted by them.

The first came at just 17, and it gave the teenager a lesson in just how cruel life is sometimes.

Mick is the youngest of five kids – four boys and an older sister, but he was always tightest with his closest brother in age, 20-year-old Sean.

One night in 1998, as they often did, Mick and Sean were at a party together on the Gold Coast before Sean decided to get a lift home with friends.

Tragically he was one of two passengers killed when the car hit a tree.

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Mick had been invited to join him in the car but decided on a different route home.

“Yeah, Sean jumped in the car and I walked – and that was the difference in fate,” he told 60 Minutes.

Mick was still walking when police and friends stopped him to break the devastating news.

"I was the first one to find out and so I felt like it was my burden to tell [the family]," he said.

“You don’t wish it upon anyone, it’s not fun but I realised that I had to sort of step in and grow up.”

Mick's mum, Liz Osbourne, described the pair as "two little peas in the pod".

“One would always go where the other one was but Sean was always the boss,” she told 60 Minutes.

Mick recalled in the days that followed Sean’s death, he was constantly told to “be strong”, something he still doesn’t understand.

The surfer said he thought he needed to bury all his emotions to be the rock for the rest of his family and friends.

"It's something that I still to this day, I would never utter those words to someone if they've lost someone," he said.

Almost overnight, Sean’s death transformed Mick from grommet to would-be god of the waves.

His determination paid off with his three world titles in 2007, 2009 and 2013.

Two horrors in one year

Another Fanning near-miss came in 2025 and it was witnessed by a horrified global audience.

At Jeffery’s Bay in South Africa, Mick was competing for his fourth title when a 3.5-metre great white shark attacked.

The three-time champ ended up punching the shark and getting to safety, but the attack still impacts him 11 years later.

“Even still to this day, like, I have PTSD, if I hear a splash behind me,” he said.

A year later, he got back in the water at the same competition, in what was a significant step in his healing.

“I think that event, going back was, for me, my proudest event that I ever did,” he said.

But 2015 turned out to be a shocking year, when just six months after the shark attack, he faced another devastating loss.

Mick’s eldest brother, 43-year-old Peter, died in his sleep due to an enlarged heart.

Then, in March 2024, again came unthinkable news, when a third brother died unexpectedly. This time it was 48-year-old Edward.

He suffered a major infection after cutting his foot while working at a surf camp in Madagascar and didn’t get to the hospital in time.

Life and death is the driving beat of Mick’s most recent project, his autobiography.

Alongside his brothers, Mick also writes about losing his elderly dad, John Fanning, earlier this year.

Light in the darkness

But helping to counterbalance the sadness is Mick’s pride and joy - his son, Xander, 6, and daughter, Lyla, 2, whom he shares with wife Breeana Randall. They met in Las Vegas in 2017.

Mick’s contentment with life is clear, but his one regret is that his brothers aren’t here to witness it.

Sean, Peter and Ed are never far from his thoughts, though it’s undeniable their sudden deaths have shaped Mick in many ways, including an elevated fear around his own mortality.

But what’s driving him most these days is a desire to see his kids grow up and to be around to protect them for a long time yet.