Chloe Pink gazes off into this distance, twirling a glass of red wine in her fingertips before taking a gulp.“When your two-week wait ends with your period instead of a pregnancy test,” Pink posts on social media to her thousands of followers on TikTok, accompanied by a viral remix of Hannah Montana’s Best of Both Worlds.It’s this concoction of witty humour and vulnerability that has won Pink – a content creator and the wife of North Melbourne AFL player Toby Pink – a legion of fans and supercharged her to contemporary WAG-stardom within a year.When I meet Pink on a quiet afternoon in Melbourne’s CBD she’s as authentic and refreshingly honest as her TikTok persona suggests.For our lunch appointment, we meet at Yakimono, Chris Lucas’ Japanese street-food-inspired restaurant on Collins Street. Bathed in florescent colourful lights and futuristic globes, I feel like I’ve been instantly transported to one of Tokyo’s late-night izakayas or, alternatively, the film set of Blade Runner 2049. We are shown to our table, situated centimetres from the open charcoal-fired kitchen. The service and ambience is lovely, and the aroma wafting from roasted pork belly skewers is particularly divine. However, the music is loud. Very loud.No conversation topic is off the table with content creator Chloe Pink.Ruby Alexander I’ve set up two recording devices on the table, but I’m worried when I listen back to our 90-minute interview, all I’ll be able to hear is Kool & the Gang’s earworm Get Down on it. I don’t have to worry because it’s impossible to get forget what Pink says during our conversation.“I’m an open book,” she declares before we can even look at the menu. “You can honestly ask me anything.”I’m intrigued. As a sports reporter, I’ve grown accustomed to interviewing athletes who regurgitate PR-approved answers or sometimes try to skirt around uncomfortable or complex topics.But Pink is right.No topic is off the table whether it be her fertility journey, her recent ADHD diagnosis, fragile male egos, unexpected TikTok fame or the incessant bullying and trolling she’s received since marrying Toby, her childhood sweetheart, in 2025.Yakimono is one of Pink’s favourite restaurants and the gigantic A3 menu has overwhelmed me, so I place myself entirely in her hands.We decide on share plates and order the charcoal-roasted edamame with nori salt, the Pacific oysters (which Pink promises are the highlight) and the roasted scallops to start, followed by the Yaki mixed sashimi, the panko prawn hand roll, chicken karaage and the negi chicken skewers.Pink originally suggested we meet at Bossley Bar and Restaurant – where she and Toby had their wedding dinner, but it’s only open for dinner.The duo recently celebrated their one-year anniversary, so as our entrees arrive, it makes sense to start our conversation with their love story.The oysters at Yakimono are one of Pink’s favourite dishes.Ruby Alexander Pink can’t pinpoint the exact moment when she met Toby. The pair have always been in each other’s lives, growing up in Millicent, a small country town on South Australia’s limestone coast, almost 400 kilometres from Adelaide.Their families got along well and Toby regularly played baseball with Pink’s brother. Toby asked her out a few times before she finally agreed to a date and the rest is history. The couple dated for eight years and moved to Melbourne right before the pandemic and were engaged in 2024.Pink’s favourite thing about Toby is his gentleness, unexpected humour and of course, the surname.“Oh I hit the lotto with the last name,” she laughs. “But Toby is so warm, gentle and funny. People don’t realise because I’m the one in public that’s really loud and extroverted, but that’s actually what Toby’s like. He’s a bit shy, but once you get to know him, he’s louder than I am.”The couple opted for an intimate ceremony at the Victorian Marriage Registry and were surrounded by six people, their closest friends and family. Pink wore a custom-made d’Italia couture long-sleeved white dress and cried as Toby read his personal vows. It was the happiest moment of her life.What happened next has been well documented.Pink posted on social media a series of photos and videos of the wedding, which triggered an avalanche of vitriolic comments and derogatory remarks about her appearance and her weight. The comments – mostly made by men – flooded her social media page and private inbox.Pink says she read every single message.“I cried my eyes out for days,” she says. “It was actually a really deep, dark time looking back on it, and I didn’t know how to handle it, and I was basically begging for help, because I really needed support.”A week passed, and Pink decided to do something different. She screenshotted the awful Facebook comments people had left on an article about her wedding and made it into a video for TikTok. At the time, Pink said she rarely posted publicly and barely had any followers.“I think I posted it as a cry for help to my friends and family to let them know I was so embarrassed to tell them that I was being bullied,” Pink says during our lunch.The roasted scallops at Yakimono.Ruby AlexanderThe post went viral and was viewed by more than 3 million people, and suddenly interview requests from mainstream media outlets came in. Overwhelmed by the attention, Pink says she was embarrassed and wanted to hide away from the spotlight. It was Toby who encouraged her and gave her strength to do her first interview.Since then, Pink has consistently and fearlessly called out trolls and bullying on social media, and her following on social media has skyrocketed. She has more than 80,000 combined followers on Instagram and TikTok.She’s also taken steps to reclaim her narrative including writing an op-ed for Who Magazine, reshooting her wedding photos “to create new memories” and auctioning off her wedding dress at the 2025 TikTok awards, to raise money for Dolly’s Dream, a charity dedicated to preventing cyberbullying.In preparation for this interview, I spent a significant amount of time scrolling through Pink’s content and reading the comments she receives. Many comments are vicious and deeply personal, the type of stuff that makes my stomach churn.I ask Pink if she ever feels too exhausted to call out the trolls. Is there an element of grief or burnout that comes with consistently enduring online abuse?Pink says that a week before our interview, she was added into a group chat with eight men – members of a footy club in Canberra. She pulls out her phone to show me screenshots of the messages.“They added me to their group chat and said, ‘Hey porky’, basically calling me a pig, and tried to bully me,” she says. “I could read all of their previous messages and it was revolting, some of the most homophobic, sexist, disgusting, putrid things I’ve ever read.“I was so angry that I wanted to call them out and call that behaviour out and educate them on [the impacts of] that behaviour.“So I drafted up all these posts and started to post it on Instagram stories. After five minutes, I had comments like, ‘Why are you sharing this?’ In that moment, I didn’t have the mental capacity to fight it, so I deleted it.”The next day, Pink says, she chose to address the matter privately and approached the football club. She recently received a personal apology from the club’s president, who said the players were sanctioned and had to attend respect training workshops and completed learning modules.Pink says she will “never shut up” about calling out misogynistic behaviour and bullying online, but admits she sometimes needs to take a step back to protect her mental health.Pink uses social media to tackle taboo topics while also making room for humour.Ruby Alexander She sees a psychologist through the AFL Players Association, a group she says has been incredibly supportive since the trolling began in 2025.People commenting on AFL player’s partners and their appearance is nothing new. Bodies were and remain readily dissected on Brownlow red carpets and while most newspapers have retired the snide “hot or not” list, social media has opened a new venue for people to share their opinions.As to what motivates of some of the faceless trolls – Pink has an idea.“It’s not about me, or about women in general, it’s about that person and their own insecurity,” she says.“I knew I was beautiful on my wedding day. I am confident in myself and I’m comfortable within myself. But that doesn’t mean I want to stop talking about these behaviours being inappropriate.”Pink takes that confident and candid approach to her job as a resource co-ordinator in the energy sector and also to her content creation job. She jokes she doesn’t want to juggle two personalities, the real Chloe and the social media Chloe.“I guess it’s not very curated, but I’m just a very honest and open person,” she says.“I share everything in my life. I’m not reserved, I don’t feel like I need to hide who I am or my feelings or what’s going on in my life, even if it’s taboo or if it’s a bit sensitive.”This year, Pink has posted frequently and candidly about her fertility journey, which she describes as “an all-consuming process” of non-stop appointments, acupuncture and medication.While tackling tricky topics, Pink also makes room for lightness and humour.In March, she posted a video of Toby playing footy on the TV (with his permission) with the caption, “He doesn’t know it yet, but I’m in my peak fertile window, so when he gets home, he’s not getting any rest”.The video went viral and prompted another wave of hate comments, but Chloe also had significant support from her fan base.I tell Pink I thought the video was hilarious and she grins.“I share what’s real and I share what’s going on in my life,” she says. “When you’re in the fertility window, anyone who’s trying for a baby knows it’s very short window ... so [we] thought we’d put a funny twist on it.“Like, 99 per cent of people thought it was hilarious, and there were so many people that related to it. I think people love that I am honest.”Pink has six siblings, or as she calls them, built-in best friends. Her mum and dad were also foster care parents to other children, so Pink grew up in a chaotic home. She jokes they often fought over leftovers and favourite spots at the dinner table.“I can’t wait to be a mum. I understand that the world that we’re living in can be really scary ... but at the same time, I want to raise a child that challenges that stereotype and we need good in this world to counteract it,” she says.As Pink and I scrape the last morsels of karaage chicken off the plate, our conversation turns to the evolution of the WAG, a term used to describe the partners of high-profile athletes.Toby Pink flying high for North Melbourne in an AFL game last year.Getty ImagesPreviously sidelined to red carpet appearances, the modern-day WAG has transformed into a powerful influencer with a growing and often lucrative presence on social media.Following her high-profile split from Brisbane Lions midfielder Lachie Neale, Jules Neale’s following skyrocketed, and she now has more than 159,000 followers on Instagram.As Pink notes, WAGs, and women in general, are finding their voices and pushing back against a narrative that historically reduced them to a man’s accessory.“I think we’re kind of getting to a point where we feel comfortable enough to be ourselves and show up online and push back on that, like we aren’t just wives,” she says. “We have personalities, we have jobs, we have careers, we have fun, we have social media.“I love when WAGs post. I love when any woman posts. I love when anyone gets the confidence to post online and share their life or share their outfits.”Pink cites Alexandra Merrett – the wife of Essendon star Zach– who caused a stir on social media when she posted a tongue-in-cheek TikTok with the caption, “When your husband’s team is losing by 50 points at half-time so you go to Gimlet instead.”The bill at Yakimono.“She’s having fun, that’s her personality showing through,” Pink says.“I understand how it’s come off the wrong way for some people, but she doesn’t deserve to be in the media or be getting in trouble, because it’s her social media.“I think that’s what I’m loving about social media, it’s just women … not being quiet and not being reserved, they’re allowed to be themselves and show their personalities and show who they really are.”News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.