Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
There’s no question that Kath Ebbs has had a rather eventful year. On a professional front, their prolific work ventures such as a new podcast with Carmen Azzopardi (that had politician Adam Bandt make an appearance), partnering with Nike and the AFLW, DJing and presenting at Mardi Gras have kept Kath busy and in the spotlight. Meanwhile, a rather public breakup thrust their personal life into the headlines as well. Throughout all of it, Kath has remained positive and committed to representing their community.
We sat down with Kath ahead of the launch of their new breakup toolkit with Normal to discuss all things queer visibility and heartbreak in the public eye.
MP: What is it like going through heartbreak in the public eye?
KE: Well, interestingly enough, I’ve been through technically two public breakups. Obviously, one was on a little bit of a bigger magnitude, and sort of absolutely spilled out of the four walls of my community online – that I’ve always been very l open and vulnerable with. I’ve shared all of my relationships ever since I’ve been on the internet, and I was on the internet from the ripe age of 18. So in a weird way, obviously, one of my most recent breakups was on a magnitude that was incredibly uncomfortable for me and quite distressing.
But it wasn’t the first time I felt like I’ve had to explain to strangers parts of my private life that someone else wouldn’t have to be perceived about, you know, but… it definitely makes a breakup feel more complicated than when you do it privately.
I think breakups feel like shit whether they’re public or private. So, there’s no real escaping the pain and I definitely think public breakups add an extra element. But they don’t make that core feeling of heartache any different than someone else. Heartbreak just sucks.
In your experience/opinion, do you think that people feel more entitled to the details of queer relationships than their straight peers?
Well, I came out online, so I was a creator for about four/five years – I’m gonna say four years to be safe – in the closet. I had a boyfriend, and then I came out publicly online, and later had a queer partner. I was public about both of those relationships. And although, when me and my ex-boyfriend broke up, there were like, a few DM slide-ins being like, “Are you with this man anymore?” because I was always with him. But, there wasn’t this [same] level of demanding answers, like I feel like I got when I was going through queer breakups.
My first big queer heartbreak – I think it inspired a lot of my work, because I was like, “Oh my god, does anyone else feel this horrible?” So maybe that was a little bit on me. I was a little bit more, maybe vulnerable, in those breakups compared to the ones before. But I’m not really sure, because I’ve moved around in the world so long now as a queer person that I don’t really know the difference. I think people are always a little bit nosy into other people’s private life, but I don’t really hold that against people.
I think that comes from everyone’s need or desire to feel seen and understood and validated in their own experiences, and I think that’s why we go digging for information on a stranger’s, in quotation marks, ‘private life’. I think it comes back to this idea that we actually all just want to feel like we belong and that our experiences are normal, and when you see someone like that, they seem maybe untouchable through a screen going through the same thing as you.
I think theflip side of that is it can make people feel self-righteous, and they can get a bit nasty. But I think on the other side, it creates this level of like, “Oh they’re someone that maybe someone has pedestalled, and they’re experiencing the same thing that I am. Maybe I’m going to be okay, or maybe like, you know what I mean, I’m normal in some sense, or whatever”. I don’t know. I feel like everyone just wants to feel like they belong in some sense.
What factors go into your decision to go public or Instagram official with a new relationship as someone in the public eye? And does being in a queer relationship impact your decision, given that queer joy and love are so often underrepresented or invisibilised?
Yeah, I’m terrible. Every time I’ve gone through a public breakup, which I’ve been through a few, I always say like, “My next relationship, I’m not gonna put online” And then I fall in love and I’m like, Fod damn it, here we are again! The whole world needs to know!” I’m such a queer person that I love so deeply.
But if I love someone, I love them fiercely, which I’m proud to say. I think what I always come back to again is that, when I was younger I never saw myself represented, and that was a huge hurdle into being closeted for so long and having a lot of shame about my sexuality. And I remember one of the pivotal moments for me on my coming out journey was literally being around queer people and queer couples in the flesh, like just being around them – just like being themselves and being in love or being, you know, existing genuinely. It made my brain start to tick over and be like, “Wait, like they seem happy, they seem unbothered, they seem so able to just live their life in this way, maybe that could be okay for me?”
And it took a few years after that, but genuinely, it was being around queer couples and seeing it that I then started to come to a sense of peace with my own sexuality, which then led to eventually coming out. So every time I get a little bit trepidatious, I think, I “Okay, worst comes to worst this relationship doesn’t work out”. Like, okay, that also happens, and it’s important for people to see that and that it’s okay to love, and love deeply. Sometimes those things don’t work out, but that doesn’t take away from the experience that you had with that person.
And I think even more so as a queer person, it’s important to see queer love anywhere we can. I know that I have a platform, so it makes me really happy and it brings me a lot of joy sharing my relationship – my relationship now that I’m in – especially now my partner’s non-binary, and they’re trans, and I think even more so in the media, it’s important to see love like that, and I feel very proud of them as well as a person.
So you know, I maybe had a day or two where I thought maybe I wouldn’t, and then I looked at the person that my partner is, and I went, “Why? Why would I not, as long as they’re comfortable, they’re happy and they understand what they’re getting into? We’re both public figures, then why not?”
I think queer love is loving loudly, and I think that’s what’s so beautiful about queer people.t’s their capacity to love so deeply, and the care that we have for each other as a community, as well as for the people that we do fall in love with. I think that’s what makes queer love really special, and I think it’s important, especially in 2025, to love loudly.
That made me really happy hearing that answer and actually leads into one of my other questions. According to a recent Where We Are On TV report from GLAAD, almost half of the queer television characters from 2024-25 will not be on screens again. There has also been a decrease in pride and Mardi Gras campaigns in recent years. What do we lose as a culture when pride is being silenced?
I’ve been online for a long time, and definitely when World Pride was here in Australia, my paycheck skyrocketed for like, two years, and I felt like all my conversations that I was having at that time were about tokenism –ecause I remember feeling this like. Obviously when you’re part of the pink dollar, it’s a weird thing because you’re like, “Well, obviously I’m going to say yes to opportunity because I mean, I’ve got bills to pay, but also representation”. And you feel like this thing of like, “Well, is it going to run out? Like, are we going to get to where we are now?”
I remember really focusing on that time when it felt like everyone wanted to be part of the conversation, and everyone wanted to celebrate queer people, and everyone was so, “Mardi Gras, pride, this and that”. I felt this feeling of like,tokenism is step one, but are we actually understanding the full picture so then something doesn’t happen like it is now, where culture shifts and then everything goes silent. And that’s kind of, I feel, like exactly what’s happened, it’s interesting.
Again, working on the back-end, I work with brands and that’s a big part of what I do. tThe times that I’ve been hired as, like, the token queer person, non-binary lesbian person, has absolutely wilted to the point where this year there was not one Mardi Gras pride campaign, which sounds frivolous on paper, but it isn’t at all. For me, it’s not about the money. I have many jobs, it’s not about that. For me, it showed me exactly where we’re at, where we’re not even willing to commercialise it, and that I feel like queer people are constantly screaming out that our existence only feels like it has sort of validity and power when it is being capitalised on. And then as soon as there’s no money in it… no one cares. No one. No one wants a bar of it.
And it’s really scary being in that pendulum swing. When I saw that report by GLAAD, I wasn’t surprised. Was I disheartened? Yes, but I was not shocked. I felt that as a queer person, moving around in the world – and I think it’s a really dangerous place to be – because also representation in the arts, when it comes to fashion or acting, musicians, artists, or like the arts, that sort of like baseline for queer, that’s usually where queer people find solace and find safety. It’s the queer kid living in rural New South Wales that has never seen a queer person in their life and is around MAGA conservatism and can’t see themselves represented anywhere that I worry about.
I think again, going back to your question before… , to be thrust into that arena earlier this year, and then the level of homophobia that I faced on the back-end of that, the reason why I’m still here, being online, creating a product, like having these conversations… the thing that keeps me going and keeps me using my voice and creating stuff for the community is knowing that this is the era that we’re in, and I know that I have a lot of privilege within my queerness. I’m white, I’m able-bodied, like I can move around, I can shape shift in certain spaces. And I think at this moment in history, it’s really important for someone like me to continue to use my voice in order to stand up to where we’re at culturally. And [stand up] not for, you know, people like me that, yeah, lose some jobs, and people don’t want to hire me because I’m queer. But it’s for like, the queer kids in the middle of nowhere that now are losing that representation that they once had, which was few and far between anyway, but is now decimated. They’re the ones. They’re the kids that are going to suffer. Everyone’s losing out at the end of the day.
Amongst other things, the new breakup toolkit features a journal and more than 50 cards to pair with it. In what ways has journalling your emotions helped you?
It’s literally life-changing. I was first actually introduced to journalling when I was like 11 years old. I remember I had a friend Georgia, and I went away with her for like two nights and we woke up in the morning and she was journaling. I was like, “What do you mean?” And she was like, “Yeah, I just, like, write down what I’ve done in a day”. And I was like, “That’s a really cool idea. I just really would love to be able to look back on this time.” And that’s how it started originally. I was like, I want to be able to have this for myself, because I’m a very sentimental, like, a melancholic person. So, I was imagining if I could just look back on this time. So that’s how it started.
Then I reaped the benefits of journalling. I was like, “Wait, this actually really helps me process things and understand what I’m thinking and feeling about a situation”. And yes, you can talk to your friends and your family, but this, like unfiltered thought, where you can say whatever the fuck you want (like you’re not filtering yourself at all), is such an such an incredible tool.
I just have kind of like, never stopped. It’s something I always come back to. Sometimes I fall off the bandwagon for like, a month, but I always come back to it, and I always know that it will be there to catch me. So it only made sense to incorporate it in with the cards. It wasn’t the original thing, and then as I was riding the deck, it just made sense becausewhen I think about big moments of grief or heartbreak or relationship turmoil, the journal has been there for me. It has been such an amazing tool to emotionally regulate. I also think in many breakups that I’ve gone through, I’ve been blindsided a few times. In breakups and in the confusion of how the fuck did this happen, my journal has also been a great source of understanding, because I will read throughwhen I was getting with the person, for example, and I’d be like, “Oh I wrote down all the red flags right here. I just chose to ignore them”.
I love journaling. I don’t think I’ll ever stop. It was a really important thing, in the end, to incorporate into this deck because if I think back to advice I would give to someone going through a breakup, it would be like, “Fucking write it down, whip out a journal, and just like, let your unconscious run. And you will feel a big sigh of relief after you do that.” And so I was like, well, if that’s like, one of my biggest tips I would give to someone going through a breakup, why would I not like to deck around that?
As an asexual girlie with no interest in dating, is this toolkit applicable to other types of breakups that are not romantic such as friendship breakups?
Absolutely! I think a lot of the time, again, we live in a very cis-centric hetero world, right? You would experience this a lot, where everyone’s talking about heartbreak, and you’re like, “Well…” But when, and you would know that, like when some of my worst heartbreaks have been my fucking friendship breakups, like it ruins your life and your brain. I don’t think we talk about it enough, and some of my worst heartbreaks have been friendship breakups, and so yes, I think the cards that are in the sections in the middle, like the learn and the grow, they could be applied to any sort of relationship, whether it be with a friend or a family member.
I also think these cards are just great questions to answer about all your relationships. And I was even saying when I was doing a bunch of the press and stuff for the cards, G Spot, who’s also partnered on these cards… we were using the cards originally to take photos and we’re like, “We need to make it look natural”, so we’re just like, pulling cards and talking about them. And then we realised in this that like oh, these are great conversation starters.
Exploring those connections and potentially the breakdown of those connections, and extracting the wisdom from the breakdowns of those relationships, I think, is how you get to know yourself more as a person – because it’s so easy if you’re if you’ve got no one bothering you. You’re like, “I’m healed. I don’t have a problem”until you’re confronted with someone and then all your stuff comes up, right? So I think it’s important, no matter what kind of relationship we’re talking about, to explore those dynamics within yourself and to get to know yourself better, so you can call in better friendships, both, yeah, romantic, platonic, family, whatever it is, work relationships, too. They’re difficult as well. Sometimes, it’s for any kind of relationship, for sure. We just made every one, because everyone loves to talk about romance. I’m sure you’d know as an ace girl.
Make sure to grab your own Normal x Kath Ebbs breakup toolkit if you want to find a greater understanding of yourself, and your relationships.
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Top photo: Pictured – Kath Ebbs, Source: Supplied/@xingerxanger (with additional design by Missing Perspectives)