“It’s so liberating, so exciting. I am the happiest I’ve been in such a long time.”
Deborah Hutton kicks off her sandals and steps into a tiny, south-coast beachside cottage. It’s filled with the sound of the surf, the smell of salty air and memories of archetypal Aussie summers whiled away in fibro holiday houses by the sea. In the kitchen, a kettle is on the boil. Also in the kitchen is the salty-haired boyfriend, Andrew Marsh (AKA Marshy), a surfer and meditation teacher.
Deborah looks relaxed, settled, happy – many miles, metaphorically and geographically, from the hum and whirl of activity that consumed her day-to-day life in Sydney. She settles on the couch cradling a mug of tea, and the woman who has sprinted from one project to the next since leaving both school and home to launch her modelling career at 16, explains why, last year, she opted for a sea change and a calmer, more contemplative pace.
“A couple of things coincided. One was the fact that I was feeling very exposed in Bronte,” she admits.
There was the awful incident in which an ex-boyfriend stalked her and staged a break-in at her home in 2018, and media reports all but included a map of the location. Then there were the paparazzi. “It was a beautiful house,”
