Footy players added Chloe Pink to their group chat. Then the abuse started

Chloe Pink gazes off into the 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 colourful fluorescent 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.

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 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.

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