By her own admission, content creator Olivia Molly Rogers is a chronic over-sharer. These are just some of the topics the 34-year-old has spoken about publicly: battling an eating disorder, the dark side of modelling, her marriage breakdown, fertility struggles, and starting over in her 30s.
But life for the one-time Miss Universe Australia and host of health and relationships podcast Tell Me More is no trauma dump, though she loves a good deep-and-meaningful, she tells me over coffee in Melbourne’s leafy Armadale. This story has a fairytale ending: a second chance at love, a new home and a baby boy on the way, due around Mother’s Day.
Yet there was a time after Rogers’ first marriage ended in divorce after just seven months in 2022 when she struggled to see a happy future for herself. “I’d seen a lot of people around me end up with really good matches in couples, and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s so nice for them … but I don’t think that will ever be me,’” she recalls.
A self-described “serial monogamist”, Rogers felt somewhat pressured to live her best post-divorce single life, while her every dating move was reported in the tabloids.
In late 2023, following the end of a seven-month relationship, she was out with friends at a South Yarra nightspot when she met management consultant Hugo Breakey, 32. At first, he believed Rogers when she told him she was “just” a speech pathologist, her career before she became a full-time influencer.
Rogers was first to text after meeting that night. “I knew there was something really special about him, and I didn’t want him to get away,” she says. A coffee date followed, after which Rogers told her mum Breakey was the one. Still, the pressure to be single remained, something she said was aided by a lot of therapy.
“I was worried when I met Hugo that I hadn’t had enough time on my own … I’ve always had relationships, and I’ve been criticised a lot for that, but I think you learn something from every single one,” she says.
By the time Rogers shared the news of the romance with her 336,000 Instagram followers – Breakey has also been in the Tell Me More hot seat twice – she felt confident in the relationship. “Hugo has been so healing for me,” she says. “When I met him, he was so kind to me and showed up for me in ways that I hadn’t experienced before, that I actually believed that I was worthy of that.”
“I know how hard it is when you go through infertility, and … every baby announcement can feel like a kick in the guts.”
Olivia Molly Rogers on announcing her pregnancy.
Showing up for causes that impact women has been a core part of Rogers’ career since winning Miss Universe Australia in 2017. This marks her fourth year as an ambassador for Witchery’s White Shirt Campaign, which raises money for the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation, including the development of an early detection test, through sales of specially designed shirts. This year, the shirts are by Byron Bay brand St. Agni.
Hearing from women before they were taken by the “silent cancer” – the disease claims about 1000 lives each year in Australia – keeps Rogers committed. “Often by the time they find out that they’ve got it, it’s too late,” she says, wiping away tears with a cafe napkin.
She says her involvement feels more poignant as she approaches motherhood. “I’ve met young women who’ve had to have hysterectomies when they’re so young,” she says. “To go through that awful, traumatic thing [cancer], then also have the opportunity of becoming a mum basically stripped away from them makes me feel so sad.”
Rogers has had her own experience on the fertility frontline. She lives with a health condition, polyposis, and, during her first marriage, underwent assisted reproductive treatment (in 2023, after her divorce, Rogers also froze her eggs).
She says being so public about her personal battles – she once shared an edit of her wedding video that removed her ex-husband, to widespread praise – made sharing her pregnancy news last November, when she was 14 weeks, more daunting.
“I know how hard it is when you go through infertility, and … every baby announcement can feel like a kick in the guts. And I was conscious of that,” she says.
Needing advice, Rogers turned to good friends including Shameless Media’s co-founder and mother of one Michelle Andrews, who reassured her that she needn’t apologise for sharing good news. “I don’t think men ever have to do that,” Rogers adds, raising her perfectly groomed eyebrows.
Despite taking as much care as possible, Rogers says she was still accused of “flaunting” her pregnancy, or made to feel like she’s “betrayed [some fans] now I’ve got this healthy, happy relationship and I’m pregnant”.
Still, she believes becoming a first-time parent in her 30s has made her better able to deal with the constant opinions and occasional criticism, including whatever decision she and Breakey make about sharing images of their son online. And she knows she’ll never please everyone.
“If you only share [on social media] what you think is going to resonate well with everyone, you won’t share anything,” she says. “I’m just sharing my life, and hoping that it helps those who it resonates with. If people need to unfollow me to protect their own mental health, that’s fine.”
It’s terrain that Rogers knows well. After being scouted at 17, she battled an eating disorder, and used the Miss Universe Australia crown to highlight the toxic side of the modelling industry, topics she also covered in her 2021 book, Find Your Light.
She says the recent documentary about 2000s reality show America’s Next Top Model was a hard watch.
“A lot of TV shows at that time were really bad for vulnerable teenage girls, including myself, who were like, ‘Oh, OK, if this size 8 girl, who I think looks amazing, is being told by [former Top Model host] Tyra Banks that she needs to lose weight, then my body’s obviously not good enough,” says Rogers.
In one particularly bad incident, Rogers, then 19, was told that to win work in Japan, her hips needed to be a certain size. She lost the weight, but still missed out on the contract. “I was very, very skinny, and I couldn’t just snap my fingers and go back to what I was. It was too late.”
At first, her body-image issues made her reluctant to enter Miss Universe, but the competition “actually helped me to go the other way”, towards recovery. So, how has someone with her history adjusted to pregnancy, especially the constant body changes?
“Much better than I expected,” she says. “I found it harder in the first trimester and into the second, when your bump’s not really a bump, and it kind of just feels like you’re bloated or you’ve gained a bit of weight.
“I went to a fitting and they had these extra small clothes for me and I was 23 weeks’ pregnant. And I’m like, ‘This isn’t going to fit over my leg.’”
Some of that was triggering, Rogers admits, but, she says, “knowing that it’s happening for such a positive reason, and it’s something I wanted, I am just so amazed by the body. Like, I have two brains right now!”
Growing a human is enough to make any woman tired, but especially one as busy as Rogers, who was born in Adelaide and is close with her four siblings, two of whom have children of their own. After our meeting, there’s a physio appointment, a trip to Sydney for her Sunday Life cover shoot, hosting family from interstate and overseas (her brother lives in Japan), and, finally, a Queensland babymoon with Breakey.
While some might say it’s good practice for the pace of parenthood, Rogers is also battling intense nausea, which plagued her until 20 weeks and has returned in her third trimester. Sipping her decaf coffee, she says that after going through hell to get to where she is now, sickness feels like a small price to pay.
“All the time I’m just thinking about women who already have kids and then they go through pregnancy again with a toddler,” she says. “Women are just superheroes.
“Everyone said, ‘You’re never going to feel 100 per cent prepared.’ And even if you have been trying, you still might find out and be like, ‘Holy shit, am I ready for this?’ We took comfort in the fact that pregnancy is long. We’re like, ‘Oh, we’ve got nine months.’ But now it’s gone so fast.”
Butterfly Foundation 1800 33 46 73.
The Witchery White Shirt Campaign runs until May 8. ocrf.com.au.
Fashion editor: Penny McCarthy. Hair: Travis Balcke using Kevin Murphy. Make-up: Aimie Fiebig using Rare Beauty. Location hire: shayneallen.com (@shayneallen). Stockists: Aje; Alémais; Zimmermann.
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