Rob Astbury

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Rob Astbury is a former Australian television sports journalist who was once Australia's highest paid TV sport's presenter and is more recently famous for being the ex-lover of variety show legend Graham Kennedy. During a media career spanning 21 years he won an unprecedented 10 VFL/AFL awards, two national Penguin awards and was twice nominated for the Logie awards for the Best News Story of the year.

After an early career in Melbourne radio, Astbury made a successful jump to television - firstly for the often-struggling Channel 0/10 network before accepting a lucrative offer to work for the pre-eminant Channel 9 network.

Following a motoring accident whilst on a sports assignment at the height of his career he was badly injured and subsequently became addicted to painkillers and his career collapsed. Astbury sued an insurance company but lost the court case and was financially broken by legal fees. He took a temporary job in Queensland's booming Gold Coast property market and within three years was the state's top saleman after introducing marketing ideas gained from his TV career. Astbury was then offered a job selling real estate in the Thailand resort of Pattaya where he has become a highly successful property developer and now owns several homes and a model dairy farm in Northern Thailand where he produces beef similar in quality to Australia and the US for the local market. His company has embarked on a 91 level project which will be the tallest residential building in the world : www.Ocean1tower

He also regularly files news reports for the internet site crikey.com.au, detailing his eyewitness report on the Tsunami that devastated Phuket whilst Astbury was holidaying there, and the recent army coup and tours and lectures on the Australian speaker's circuit.

In 2005, after Graham Kennedy died, Melbourne talk back host Derryn Hinch publicly outed Astbury as being gay, reported that Astbury was Kennedy’s lover for 20 years, and revealed that Astbury was HIV positive. Hinch also claimed that Graham Kennedy had died of AIDS but eventually withdrew this claim and publicly apologised. The public indignation motivated Astbury to openly campaign for gay rights and AIDS education.

In October 2006 he published a book King and I: My Life With Graham Kennedy, which has infuriated former friends and colleagues of Kennedy^{[citation needed]} for revealing intimate details of their sex life^{[citation needed]}.

At the launch of his book "King & I" in Melbourne in October 2006 Astbury announced he would be standing for the Australian Senate on a platform of equal rights for gay couples and HIV/AIDS education in the next General Election due in 2007.

[edit] References

• The Age