Almost a decade after they first met, radio and Nine star Andy Lee and his long-term girlfriend Rebecca Harding are still going strong.
And while the couple has so far resisted the urge to tie the knot or have kids, that doesn’t mean they are not committed to each other, with the pair sharing multiple homes and adorable pet dog Henrietta.
But while others seem in a hurry for Lee to finally put a ring on it, according to the host of The Hundred with Andy Lee, the couple is in no hurry to make it official or hear the pitter patter of little feet.
And he says that far from clashing over the future, he and Harding are very much on the same page.
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October 19, 2014 – First meeting
Much has been written about the couple’s first meeting back when Lee was a radio star and Harding was a little known student and model working in a Richmond cafe.
In an interview for the Sydney Morning Herald “Two of Us” column in 2022, Lee said he was writing jokes for that year’s Logie Awards when the waitress caught his eye.
“She was attractive, but it was more her bubbly personality and how she wasn’t good at her job,” he said. “She’d leave a table knowing about the person’s grandchildren or dog, but forget their order.
“I ordered cups of tea I never drank and eventually left a note on a napkin.”
He told another media outlet in 2015 that Harding was initially annoyed that he left his personal email address and not a phone number, but after she emailed him, he rang her straight away.
“She was very surprised; she was used to people texting, not calling,” he said.
“She told me she was two weeks away from finishing her master’s degree for the year. I said, ‘That’s a Tuesday. I’ll call you on the Saturday and tell you where I’m going to take you,’ and we went out Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday.”
For her part, Harding once said during an interview for 60 Minutes, that she wasn’t initially interested in Lee. “He hadn’t had a girlfriend in a while, he was Cleo Bachelor of the Year, I thought he was a bit of a sleazebag, maybe.” But she soon realised there was more to him than met the eye.
“He’s a bit sweeter than I actually was picturing. He’s a really sweet, kind, generous person.”
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January 27, 2015 – Trip to the tennis
After a period dating out of the public eye, Lee asked his girlfriend to accompany him to Day 9 of the 2015 Australian Open in Melbourne, where they were photographed watching the match.
He said he tried to warn her that going public could be challenging, but she was still unprepared for the attention and “immense pressure” that followed.
August 2016 – Lee announced the couple had split
After starting the year with another Australian Open date, Lee shocked listeners during a segment on his radio show when he mentioned to co-host Hamish Blake that he and Bec “broke up a little while ago.”
Lee later said life in the public eye took its toll on Harding, who found herself wondering if she got a job or made friends simply because of who she was dating.
Lee described their time apart as a “really sad, tough time” for him, while she appeared to get “her spark back” quickly after the split.
Late 2016-early 2017 – The couple reunite
Still pining for his former girlfriend six months later, and following “a fair bit of stalking,” Lee decided to try to win back Harding. And it worked!
By the time the Logies rolled around in April 2017, Lee took Harding as his date.
November 6, 2018 – Attending the the Melbourne Cup
By 2018, the couple was a fixture on the social scene, photographed at everything from the tennis, to the Logies, to concerts and the races.
August 25, 2019 – Perth Airport
In 2019, they were snapped together at Perth Airport.
Having moved in together in 2017, the couple travelled often, with Lee admitting in an interview that Harding liked them to go overseas so that fans didn’t know who he was.
2020 – Beach house unveiled
While it is unclear exactly when the home was purchased or when they moved in, 2020 was the year Lee and Harding unveiled their Mornington Peninsula beach house to the world.
Appearing to sit on a big lot of land, they began posting photos and videos from the pad in 2020, with Lee even broadcasting his radio show from the home’s golf simulator.
The home boasts a large pool surrounded by a deck which houses a pop-up TV.
By 2021, Harding opened the doors of the renovated home as part of Fletchers Real Estate “My Home” series.
In the accompanying article, she talked about the renovations, including an edible garden, and the addition of a new member of the family, a Welsh terrier called Henrietta.
March 24, 2021 – New home
2021 saw the couple provide support to each other at the funerals of Bert Newton and music promoter Michael Gudinski. They also attended Gudinski’s state memorial service together.
Later that year, they paid $8.5 million for an almost derelict 1876-built Italianate mansion in Hawthorn.
Lee mentioned the purchase in a Sydney Morning Herald interview the following year, joking, “We’ve just bought a house, an 1876 house in Hawthorn with no running water, no bathroom, no kitchen. It’s one hell of an undertaking, but renovations are good for relationships, right?”
As at 2024, the home remains untouched, but served as a backdrop for a glamorous photo shoot featuring the pair, and also has its own Instagram page, which will document its eventual restoration.
2022
In the 2022 interview for the Sydney Morning Herald “Two of Us” column, Harding said Lee was her “best friend.”
“We complement each other. I watch him love what he does every day. He is inspirational,” she said.
“He may work ridiculous hours, but seeing how much joy it brings has made me realise I should work towards creating a life doing what I want to do.
“He shows me that if you work hard and you’re a nice person, you can chase those dreams.”
2023
When asked by 9Entertainment what annoys Lee about Harding, he said it was the way she reads out her phone number.
“She says it not in the ‘four, three, three’ number sequence,” he revealed. “She says three numbers, then two, then two, then three. It really annoys me.”
That same year, Lee attracted plenty of unwanted attention after posting two photos of he and Harding, taken nine years apart, in New York.
Many asked, or even demanded, he finally propose to Harding.
He said at the time neither of them thought marriage was “super important” and spoke of the “unfair pressure” placed on them to have kids.
“I’ve gone through times where I thought I would, and then I’ve definitely gone through patches of feeling ‘I don’t think I want this at all’. We’ll see,” he said at the time.
They finished the year on the front cover of Australian Women’s Weekly’s digital Christmas edition, revealing the photo shoot took place on the ninth anniversary of the day they met.
January 2024
In January he posted a photo of a smiling Harding, whom he called his ‘favourite human’, during a lunch date.
February 2024
Lee told listeners on Mamamia’s No Filter podcast that he and Harding were constantly asked when they were going to have kids, with his parents even chiming in.
“My mum, dad and I were down at the beach house the other day and they said, ‘When are you going to start a family?’ And I said, ‘You realise, you wouldn’t be here in this beach house if I’ve had my own family and kids.’ I think I spend so much time with them because of that [being child-free].”
And while he admitted he thought Harding would be “an amazing mum” if the time ever came, he said they were in no hurry to make a decision, and that they were on the same page.
“There’s no rub between Bec and I on that front. Because she also doesn’t want them right now. This is the misconception.”
February 14
Lee posted a video to his Instagram story of him arriving home with a bunch of flowers.
“Valentine’s Day, so I thought I’d better get some flowers for my true love,” Lee said to camera, before turning his phone around to show pet dog, Henrietta, running to meet him.
The video then showed him walking towards the breathtaking Mornington Peninsula home and into the kitchen, where he surprised Harding.
“Are they for me?” she asked, before the funnyman replied, “No, they’re for my true love. Here you go Henri,” he said as he bent down and handed the flowers to the dog, leaving Harding looking disappointed.
But it all worked out in the end, with Harding posting a photo of the colourful bouquet on her Instagram stories that evening, which she captioned “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
