Love Stories: Three unlikely words that began Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and fiancée Jodie Haydon's romance

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his now-fianceé Jodie Haydon's love story began with three unlikely words shouted across a room in 2020.

Those words, though it may be hard to believe, were, "Up the Rabbitohs".

Mr Albanese was speaking at an event in Melbourne that fateful day and had cheekily asked if there was anyone in the crowd who followed his NRL team, South Sydney.

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When Haydon spoke up, yelling that well-known Rabbitohs battle cry, Mr Albanese knew he had to introduce himself to her.

"We were at a conference and I said 'there's got to be one south-Sydney person' here and she yelled out," Mr Albanese told 60 Minutes in 2022.

"We met up for a drink... it's a nice relationship."

Haydon tells the story a little differently, claiming that she "slid into his DM's" in a 2022 interview.

Either way, there was a spark between them and they soon began dating, though they went to great lengths to keep the romance private.

Mr Albanese was the Opposition Leader at the time and would soon be gunning for the top job.

He wanted to protect Haydon, a financial services professional and women's advocate, from the media scrutiny that came with his political career.

For a few months, he was able to do just that.

Then paparazzi caught a kiss between the blossoming couple on camera in June 2020 and everything turned upside down.

"The first time our relationship was outed, it wasn't by choice. But I think, you know, we do have a relationship and it's something we're not shy about," the Prime Minister told the Australian Women's Weekly in 2022.

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Haydon entered a surreal world where the entire nation knew her new partner's name and life story, and she was just as likely to see him on the front page of the paper as she was to see him for coffee.

It was confronting at first and some Aussies would have shied away from being romantically linked to one of the biggest public figures in the country.

"It's something I'm protective of," he told 60 Minutes. 

"I'm the one running for public office. Jodie has to put up with, if we're out having dinner, put up with people coming up and photos and all that. But it's part of the deal. It's part of who I am."

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But Haydon knew she wasn't going anywhere when Mr Albanese was injured in a car crash just days into 2021.

The politician had been driving through his home suburb of Marrickville, New South Wales, when a Range Rover veered onto the wrong side of the road and struck his car.

Mr Albanese was seriously injured and when emergency workers arrived they told him that had the other car hit him just 30 centimetres either side of where it did, he would have died.

Haydon rushed to the scene as soon as she got the call that there had been an accident.

When she saw the wreck, she could hardly believe that her partner had survived. The moment she saw him alive, she knew he was the one.

"When I got to the accident and I saw the car before I saw Anthony, and I remember thinking at the time, 'this can't end well'," Haydon said in a rare TV interview in 2022.

"And that overwhelming sense of 'what if I lose him?' And I knew then that, yeah, I love him. And I love him deeply."

Since then, the couple have been each other's biggest fans and supporters.

Haydon was there every step of the way as Mr Albanese campaigned to become Australia's Prime Minister and was by his side when he won and took office.

She is also understood to have a great relationship with Mr Albanese's son, Nathan, from his first marriage to Carmel Tebbutt. They split in 2019.

And while Mr Albanese has been open about the fact that his divorce affected him, it certainly didn't turn him off marriage entirely.

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On Valentine's Day, 2024, he popped the question to Haydon after almost four years of dating. 

He announced her response on X, formerly Twitter, penning three special words: "She said yes".

The Prime Minister also shared a photo of him and Haydon beaming, his future wife flashing a stunning engagement ring on her left hand.