Two of my great passions are people and painting.
In this series, I get to enjoy both.
I meet extraordinary Australians, explore their stories...
I'm putting my hand up and saying I want to do something.
I want to be part of the solution.
See, I'm now crying now talking about crying.
What's happened to me?
..and paint their portraits.
It's theirs to keep, so I hope they like it.
Oh! (LAUGHS)
Wow! (GASPS)
Oh, my God! Holy mackerel!
That looks me! It's beautiful.
Mate, that's incredible.
That is gorgeous. That is absolutely amazing.
Welcome to Anh's Brush With Fame.
Champion basketballer Lauren Jackson is a force of nature
and one of Australia's most successful athletes.
COMMENTATOR: Jackson!
Spotted by national selectors at just 16
she went on to captain the national team.
Lauren dominated the game of basketball.
Jackson... Got it!
Three-pointer...
In America's WNBA, Lauren won an incredible three MVP titles.
Unfortunately injury forced her to retire from the game
at just 34 years of age.
Where did this country girl get her drive and determination?
I'm hoping to find out.
LAUREN JACKSON: I'm feeling a little bit nervous.
It's always a bit daunting having your painting done.
I'm a free spirit.
So I suppose if you can sort of encapture that in a painting
I'd be very impressed.
Lauren is outspoken and aggressive on the court
but she's notoriously private off it.
I'm hoping she'll let me in to find out what really makes her tick.
I want to capture her strength and a sense of power.
But she also has a lovely femininity and I don't want to lose that.
This is a tricky one.
Welcome, Lauren. G'day, thank you.
Thanks for coming on the show. Take a seat.
I heard that you... you do a little bit of painting yourself.
I'm actually terrible at it but I enjoy it.
That's the main thing.
Bit of a hobby. Bit of a hobby, yeah. Yeah.
Well, welcome.
Both your parents were basketball players who played for Australia.
Yep, they did.
I guess you could say I had pretty good genes for basketball.
My dad was very athletic and my mom was very tough.
So I got a bit of both of them. Good mixture, I suppose.
And you started playing at a very young age.
I think I started playing... Well, relatively competitively
when I was four.
So I started under-10s when I was four.
But I was a pretty big kid.
I mean, I probably looked like I was eight when I was four.
(LAUGHS) I was a big kid.
You played representative basketball from an early age.
Was it hard to be away from your parents?
My mum actually showed me a letter
from the coach of this Riverina team.
I think I would have only been, like, 10 years old.
And I was... in Port Macquarie... and miserable.
I was so sad.
This letter from the coach just said,
"I'm so sorry you had a hard time
"but you're going to be a great basketballer.
"But I know it was difficult for you but you got through it."
A lot of kids love that stuff and they thrive on it.
You know, a new place and everything.
But every time I had to go on a trip overseas I'd get so emotional.
I'd work myself up to the point where I'd hyperventilate
and I'd be crying getting on planes
and I can just imagine what the air hostesses would've been thinking.
You know, this giant kids getting on planes screaming our lungs out
just...
Oh, God, I was... I'd be a mess
if Mum wasn't close, if...
You know, I really struggled.
My mother is...
..still to this day, she's my best friend.
I can see how much she means to you. Oh, she's everything, yeah. And dad.
They're good people, really good people.
I can only hope that one day I turn out to be like... like them.
Lauren was offered a scholarship to the Australian Institute of Sport
when she was just 14,
but her parents thought she was too young.
They accepted the scholarship a year later.
Is that... hard to be 15, move out of home
and live with professional sort of sportspeople?
When you're visibly very different from a lot of other kids, it is...
It makes you an easy target to be picked on and stuff.
I never felt normal when I was a kid in Albury.
I really struggled with that.
So leaving home and going to the AIS,
where I was surrounded by other athletes, other tall athletes,
the minute I walked in there I felt like I was home.
I felt normal.
We'd all go to school together as athletes in tracksuits,
trained every day,
and it was just the coolest thing.
That first sort of week I really found myself
and my life changed forever going to the AIS.
Lauren became the youngest person to play for the Opals.
She hit the global stage at the World Champs and 2000 Olympics.
In 2001, Lauren was the first draft pick for the Seattle Storm.
At 19 she was playing in the toughest basketball league in the world.
Take me through that.
You're 19 and suddenly you move to the big US of A.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was pretty full-on. It was pretty hectic.
I didn't realise then
but the WNBA for me was...
If I hadn't been put in a position to be successful
by going to Seattle...
Perfect city, perfect team.
It really gave me what I needed to become who I was as a player.
I'm so thankful that I got drafted there.
It was hard the first year being so far away from home.
But, you know, it just it was all a growing, learning experience.
And Seattle became my home away from home.
Take me back to that first year. What's that first year like?
It was hard because I was so far away from home
and I did have a bit of a chip on my shoulder.
So we'd just come out of the 2000 Olympics
and we've lost to America in Sydney
and I guess being the new kid on the block, foreigner...
All of those things definitely did make me feel very confident
going over there and playing.
I just felt like people were going to play harder
and maybe more physical.
Did they play more physical? Oh, yeah.
"19-year-old, coming from Australia into our league.
"Let's make sure that she's... you know..."
"We're going to show her the ropes," you know?
Yeah. And they did.
I think in my first season I had 14 technical fouls.
It's like a record. Oh, you had that?
Yes, 'cause I was fighting the whole time.
If I got hit I would hit back.
Like, I wasn't going to let anybody have it over me.
You dished it out.
Bloody oath.
I was scared most of the time. Were you really?
Yeah, but you put this face on and you become somebody else.
And that's what I have always done.
Wow! So, on court, that big, confident Lauren...
Oh, yeah. It's funny.
I have this face...
People talk about the stare, you know,
like, my stare was so scary.
That stare was probably me going,
"Just breathe. You're going to be OK. Just breathe..." Like...
But I look really ferocious,
and I look at these pictures and I'm like...
If people actually knew what was going through my head
they'd think I was a bloody pussy cat.
When you were playing for Seattle,
you one of the best players in the world
and you were getting paid nothing like what people thought.
No, not in America.
The top contracts when I was playing over there
were six figure, US$100...$110,000.
Wow. Yeah.
You're one of the best players in the world and you're on 100 grand?
Only in America, though.
I mean, I was getting paid more than that to play here in Australia.
What would one of the top American men be getting?
Oh... LeBron would be...
$10, 20 million. More.
Yeah. It's crazy.
Huge, huge difference.
Nothing in the world can highlight their gender pay gap as sport.
You've played in lots of different countries.
What's it like to play and not really understand
what everyone is sort of saying, the language barrier?
South Korea was probably my favourite experience.
None of my team-mates spoke a lick of English.
My coach didn't speak a lick of English,
which was awesome because that meant
that I could just do whatever I want.
It was ignorance. (LAUGHS)
It meant that I could play however I want to play.
I could train however I wanted to train.
Whenever I wanted... It was brilliant.
And I played the best basketball I've ever played.
Your coach couldn't even give you advice or, "Do this, do this"?
No. What did you do?
Just sort of, "Yep got it." "Sure, mate."
"Absolutely. I'll get out there and do that."
Not.
Look, I had the time of my life over there
and I really did play great basketball.
Every night after every game, we would...
All the foreigners would meet up
and we would go out to five or six in the morning.
It was awesome.
I was 26.
I was at the height of, you know, enjoying basketball and life.
It was just a brilliant experience. I really enjoyed it.
What would that be like to walk around in Seoul,
this 6-foot-6 blond woman?
(LAUGHS) Well it's funny.
It was the same in China.
Every time I'd get in the elevator after a game
there'd be drunk men in there with their cameras like this in my face,
and I swear to God I used to get so mad.
I'd just be like, "Please get that camera out of my face.
"You're being so obvious right now and it's rude."
I definitely did stand out a bit,
being so tall and being so blonde, yes.
(LAUGHS)
In 2007 Lauren signed a deal to play for Spartak Moscow in Russia
on a multimillion-dollar contract.
To the team owner, she was like part of his family.
"I love you as a player, as a daughter."
She called me Papa. I called her my Australian daughter.
Tell you about your boss, the team boss.
Shabtai.
He had a chequered background.
Ex-KGB spy.
Had been in prison in Israel for espionage.
I remember walking into his office the first time
and he was opening up...
This was like a portrait-sized thing like that.
He opened it up and it was a bank.
It had every denomination of money in there
and he would just pull out wads of cash
and put them in bags, give them to people.
Like, this was the man. I mean, it was just...
His office just had gold, paintings and pictures of Putin and...
Wow.
This man was larger than life.
Frightening, frightening as hell.
But he... I called him Poppa.
He treated me like his daughter.
He gave me everything to make my time over there comfortable,
and it's hard in Russia.
Like, in the middle of winter. No family.
It was really difficult, and he was very, very good to me.
I was a bit conflicted too
because you know about his history and some of the things he's done.
He was a spy.
My... my "poppa" was a spy.
Yeah. It's so weird.
We were in this shopping mall and this guy was following us.
Big black coat, things that you would see in movies.
We got a bit scared and called Shabtai,
like, "There's this bloke following us."
(LAUGHS) And Shabtai's like, "Oh, no. He's one of my men."
And it was just like, "Why have we got..."
He put that guy to look after you? Yes.
So there was, like...
There was a couple of weird things that were happening
in the lead-up to that.
But unfortunately... he was murdered.
He was assassinated in his car on his way to his office
in a seat which I had been in a hundred times before.
It was bullet-proof car,
but there's, like, a vulnerable part of the car
which is in the window,
and there was just rounds of bullets
right through this one part of the window.
And he was just shot just on the street.
Wow.
I still have dreams about that man.
You know, he was a big part of my life
for a fair... like, a few years.
Like, a lot of years.
And he... yeah just such a larger-than-life man and...
(SIGHS) I do love him.
I did. I do love him still.
Lauren was clearly destined for greatness.
But it's fascinating to find out what really goes
into raising a champion.
This is kind of a difficult one.
I want her strong.
But there is a lovely gentleness about Lauren
that I want in there also.
You built your dream home a few years ago.
Is it true you made some of the benches higher?
Of course, so my parents actually...
Because they've, you know, built and sold a few times.
So in all of the houses the benches have always been higher.
No matter where I live now I have to try that.
These things we don't consider.
Us short people of the world.
I bought a house four years ago
and it was built by two people who were about six five.
Oh really? So the benches are really high.
Sure it's not my parents? Because it might have been my parents.
(LAUGHS)
My little Vietnamese mother, she's about this tall.
She stands on a footstool to cook. Oh, gorgeous!
Every time she has to climb up on it.
(LAUGHS) That's funny.
Yeah, but that's... that's similar.
Like, shorter people coming into my house, definitely.
I'm like, "Well, this is funny."
I've got a tall friend who's a girl.
And she says it's really hard to date and meet partners and that.
Yeah. Is that the case?
I fall in love with who I fall in love with
and I've fallen in love with short men.
I've fallen in love with tall men.
I've fallen in love with short women.
I've fallen in love with tall women.
Like, it's just, like, I love who I love.
So long as you're in love...
Like I can't imagine being with somebody that I did not care about.
Anybody that knows me will tell you that heart on my sleeve.
I just go with whatever feels right.
London Olympics, you're the flag-bearer.
That was just one of the greatest moments in my career.
Being honoured like that.
To be able to, yeah, walk out in front of your country and...
..wave the flag.
It was very special.
How did you feel when they told you?
The Chef de Mission, Nick, came in and...
Well, someone actually invited me to his office and I thought...
When that happened I thought, "Oh, God, I'm in trouble."
Like, my immediate reaction was, "I'm in trouble."
"I haven't been wearing the right shorts today."
He said, "How would you feel," you know, "being the flag-bearer?"
And I looked at him and I was like... confused.
I just thought, "How...
"There's so many other people more qualified for this role.
"But, sure, I would love to do it."
Yeah, that's something that I never thought
that I'd have the opportunity to do.
Well, I'll tell you right now
when I found out that you were the flag-bearer I went, "Yeah!"
Really?
I reckon there are millions of Australians felt the same.
Oh, thank you.
No, it was a real special moment.
The one thing I do remember
was actually walking out there with the flag
and something happen and the flags started wrapping around the pole
and I was like, "You... Oh, God, don't do this to me now."
I was, like, shaking it.
You had to unwind it.
I was looking at it going, "Please don't do this to me now."
Like, I was so mad.
Yeah. It was unreal.
And, you know, the Boomers guys and the Opals,
a lot of them I've grown up with and played with,
and it was unreal to be able to represent them.
And my parents and just people that have supported me, you know?
Yeah. What was it like for your parents?
Oh, my gosh.
They were on an aeroplane when it was announced, over to London.
They announced it on the plane and brought Mum and Dad champagne.
Apparently Mum started crying. (GASPS)
Yeah, I know. It's so crazy.
How awesome. I know.
My mom actually missed out on the Olympics
because she had me and my brother.
So to be able to do what I've done,
you know, to be able to give back to them and...
I... I don't know.
I'm just so lucky that they're my parents
Without them,
there's no way I would have achieved what I have in the sport.
They've been my rock emotionally.
Mum has, on many occasions,
dropped everything and flown halfway across the world
just to be there to support me
through injuries and all sorts of things,
and... gosh, they've seen me at my very worst
and they've seen me at my very best
and they've loved me exactly the same.
What's it like to be at the very top of your game?
When I was in it I didn't know I was in it.
People say to me all the time, "How does it feel to have been
"the best in the world for so long?"
and I was like, "Well, I wasn't. I don't think I was."
Looking back over it
I honestly find it hard to believe that that was my career.
It doesn't feel like I did what I did
or travelled where I travelled or any of it.
It doesn't even feel like it happened now.
You had many injuries that were difficult to recover from.
In women's basketball to make enough money to earn a living
and then have, you know, be able to just retire and live
you had to play year-round.
The toll on your body just becomes so much that...
..you don't even think about it because you're in this cycle
and you do have pressure on you
from the clubs and the teams that you committed to
to get back and play for them.
So I was really trying to do that.
And to play on you have to take painkillers...
Yes. Yeah. Because I had to.
I was playing on broken bones.
My back was broken. I was playing on that.
I'd played on broken ankles, broken fingers, broken everything,
but it was... necessary for what I was going through.
I wouldn't have been able to play.
I should have taken a season or two off during my career
to really focus on rehabbing.
But when you're in it you don't want to take any time off
and you're making money, like, it was fun.
I wanted to do it.
There are lessons that I've taken out
and then if I can talk about them
and help other kids going through that stuff,
then hopefully they'll have longer careers than what I did.
In 2016, due to injury,
Lauren was forced to retire
from a game she had been involved in her entire life
and from a career that lasted close to 20 years.
How hard was it to retire?
I tore my ACL in 2015 in December.
I had surgery on it and then six weeks later,
I went got a leg wax, right?
Huh!
And I got an infection in my knee joint.
I think one of my scars hadn't completely healed up
or something happened...
Anyway something got into my knee joint
and because my knee had been operated on so much
and had been through so much
I didn't deal with it well.
The doctors and my physio and my trainer and my coaches
sat down with me
and the doctors just said, "You're done.
"There's no coming back from this."
And there was, like, this momentary relief.
It was like, "Thank you.
"Thank God I don't have to go to the gym.
"Thank God... like, I can't do this anymore."
But then reality set in, which was I will never play again,
and that was pretty devastating.
To say goodbye to my love,
what was my life,
my identity, which is so heavily wrapped up in basketball.
You know, this hurts. It hurts a lot.
Take me to that period just after retirement.
You know, they've just told you, "That's it."
That day was definitely my worst day.
I remember walking out of the gym.
All my team-mates that I'd grown up with
were warming up behind me, getting ready for training,
and that was the moment where I was like, "Oh, my God."
Like, I just wanted to cry.
What does it feel like to have your whole life up to then sort of end?
I found nothing more amazing
than putting on the green and gold, representing this country,
because it's such a great country.
Oh, God, it was awesome. It was so much fun. It really was.
So, you know, when retirement happened
and when I couldn't do that anymore
it was kind of like, "Well, how...
"Where am I going to get my kicks from now?"
If you're a professional athlete your entire life,
if you focused on nothing more than being an athlete,
and then all of a sudden it's gone
and you've got to reinvent yourself at 35, 36, 37 or whenever it is,
it's not easy.
But you're talking about almost middle aged people moving into life.
I never thought I was going to be anything but a basketball player.
And when people used to say to me,
"Well, it's going to finish it's going to end,"
I never believed them.
I didn't care.
I always thought that I'd be playing until I was 40 or 45
and you have this really idyllic career
but it wasn't like that
and it did end quite prematurely.
The follow-up for that was actually coming down off all the medicine
that I've been on like during this period,
trying to get off all of that stuff, trying to figure out how...
..like, what to get up out of bed for.
Did you ever just stay in bed?
Oh, yeah. For a while.
To be honest, I did that first month really struggle.
That cyclical pill taking getting through...
..being injured, all of these things.
If I didn't have something to get me out of what I was in
I could have been one of those people.
I could have been a statistic. I could have died.
It's unfortunate but it's true.
That's something to live for was a son called Harry.
Lauren was pregnant two months after retiring
and Harry was born in early 2017.
Take me right back to when you were pregnant.
Yeah.
Well, the pregnancy was hard. I'm not going to lie.
Like, so I went from, you know, being sort of
recently retired athlete to being pregnant.
I was really excited about being pregnant.
But I was also a little bit hesitant
because I'd had a miscarriage a few years before.
A lot of women go through it.
People don't talk about it for whatever reason.
I don't know why women don't talk about them
because it is really, really difficult.
You get really excited about the prospect of being a parent
and then going through this life-changing experience,
and then all of a sudden it's gone, you know?
When I got pregnant this time
I was really hesitant to get excited quick.
I was just trying to play it cool.
And I didn't tell anyone
I had my retirement ceremony over in America.
And the following day I was at my friend's house
and I started bleeding
and I thought, "Oh, my God. I'm having another miscarriage."
It was horrible.
I remember the car trip to the clinic
and I was just wondering if this is going to be the day.
It was a scary time because I bled for quite a long time
and they said to me, "You know, well, it could go either way.
"You could lose him and you could you might keep him."
He... when he came it was the greatest moment of my life.
Greatest moment of my life.
Just absolutely fell in love.
That kid is just...
Oh, my God. Such a gift. He's my pride and joy. And I...
How was the first time you held him? Oh!
It was...
Oh, look, he was beautiful.
He is beautiful and he was so tiny.
And I just kept him on my chest,
you know, my whole time in hospital,
and then when it came out I just didn't move him off my chest,
I just had him there, and, um...
He's... Oh, God! Such a...
He's a gift. He's a gift. Yeah.
For a long time, Lauren, winning was the point of everything.
Yep.
So what what's the point of life now that it's no longer...
Him. My baby.
Your son? Yeah. Him. He's everything.
I went from being this self-obsessed athlete
who, like, things that I worried about
and focused on and...
..had just gone out the window.
Like, now it's all about him
and it's just such a beautiful thing to love something that much
or someone that much,
and I never thought I could feel this way about any human being ever.
It's the best thing I've ever done in my whole life.
I love hearing about Harry.
He's a pretty cool cat. (LAUGHS)
Alright, Lauren, I'm nearly done... OK.
..and I'm actually pretty happy with it.
I've got your beautiful hair in there.
I just need another 10, 15 minutes to finish off.
So take a little break. I can't wait to show you.
Alright. (LAUGHS)
What I really enjoyed was just having a chat with him,
just talking about stuff and being fairly jovial about my life.
It's actually quite nice.
It was... It's lovely.
He got a fairly good glimpse into who I am as a person.
He makes you feel really comfortable sitting there
and just chatting like you're old mates.
It was really good.
Lauren is so happy when she talks about her son, Harry,
and although retirement has been difficult
I wanted this portrait to convey
a deep sense of optimism for the future.
I've pushed the composition up to get a sense of the height.
I hope she likes it. Let's get her in.
Alright, Lauren. How'd you go?
I'm actually quite happy with it.
Oh, good! (LAUGHS)
That's exciting.
You've shared so much with us.
Thank you for being so generous. No worries.
And even though there has been some dark times
there is so much joy when you talk about your son...
Mmm.
And so I've painted you looking forward to the future
with a bright optimism.
Lovely. (LAUGHS)
I look forward to seeing it. So close your eyes.
OK. Here we go. Keep them closed.
OK, Lauren. Open your eyes.
(GASPS) I love it!
It's lovely.
You're very good. Oh, thank you.
It's beautiful.
You kind of have a really strong inner sort of glow and energy and...
I wanted to capture that.
It's.
It's magic. It's beautiful.
I couldn't get all your hair in there otherwise I'd need a bigger canvas.
(LAUGHS) No. It's good. It's perfect.
Thank you. Thanks for coming on the show.
You're amazing. It's been... Mwah!
It's been a lot of fun chatting to you.
Yeah, it has been fun. Yeah, it's lovely.
He is amazing. That's a beautiful painting.
And because of the artist that he is
and also having those conversations
and talking about my career and my life,
he was able to encapture that in the painting.
Lauren Jackson.
Wow. Such a great Australian and what an extraordinary life.
Next time, Dr Karl Kruszelnicki
has brought science to a broad and diverse audience.
He shares his fascinating life story...
I started in radio because NASA rejected me as an astronaut.
..as I tried to reflect his natural curiosity in the portrait.
Oh, my God! I'm happy!
(LAUGHS) Look at that happy person!