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Former NRL star Alex McKinnon has “hard launched” his new relationship by sharing a picture to Instagram with 22-year-old girlfriend Lily Malone, who is 10 years his junior.
The former Newcastle Knights player, who became a quadriplegic in 2014 after suffering a spinal cord injury during a game against the Melbourne Storm, split from his wife Teigan Power in 2022.
McKinnon and Malone each shared the same picture to Instagram on Sunday, showing McKinnon smiling at the camera with his arm around Malone, who was celebrating her 22nd birthday.
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In the photo, the glamorous brunette wears a low-cut pink ruffled dress, while McKinnon is wearing a matching pink T-shirt and denim shorts.
The picture has a pink loveheart superimposed over the top.
Malone is studying social work at the University of Newcastle.
It would seem the pair met at university, as McKinnon is also studying for a bachelor of psychology there.
On LinkedIn, Malone recently revealed that she would soon be a qualified social worker focusing on child protection and victims of family and domestic violence.
“In collaboration with a small, dedicated team, I’ve developed an eight-session program tailored to the unique needs of Parents of First Time Youth Offenders Within a Domestic Violence Context,” she wrote on the job networking site.
She currently works as a family contact worker at Life Without Barriers, an organisation that focuses on helping people in foster care, people with disabilities and people in aged in care.
McKinnon’s relationship reveal comes after ex-wife Teigan Power went public late last year with her new boyfriend, Jake Nelson.
On December 14, Power shared pictures of the pair attending a Christmas lights display in the Hunter Valley region along with her children.
The couple then spent a sun-drenched New Year along NSW’s Mid North Coast.
“Happy here with you,” Power wrote, posting pictures of the beach, loved-up selfies, sunbaking sessions and nighttime campfires, along with video of her holding a surfboard as she posed in a black bikini.
Shock split
McKinnon and Power, who have three children together, split in 2022.
The news that they were no longer together came just a day after they shared a photo online celebrating the first birthday of their twin daughters.
“At this time, Alex and I are navigating this period of change together privately,” Power wrote at the time.
“We are, together, concentrating on protecting our family and children.
“We have the utmost respect for each other, and are both very grateful for the people, as well as all of the support, that we have in our lives.”
McKinnon and Power had been high school sweethearts and were dating when, in 2014, the promising NRL player suffered a spinal cord injury during a game that left him a quadriplegic at 22.
Days later, he proposed to Power from his hospital bed, promising that he would rise from his wheelchair and stand up on their wedding day.
And, incredibly, he did.
At the time the couple married in the Hunter Valley on October 8, 2017, McKinnon was only able to stand up for 15 minute intervals.
But somehow he managed to stand up for the entire 45-minute ceremony, including the exchanging of wedding vows and rings.
It was the longest he had been able to stand since the devastating accident three years before.
And while the fairytale wedding didn’t have a fairytale ending, it seems followers of the former couple are glad they have gone on to find new happiness.
After Power posted pictures with her new partner, many fans commented on how content she looked.
“Teigan I don’t know you from a bar of soap, but OMG I’ve never seen you look so happy,” a follower wrote beneath one loved-up snap.
“Wow, gorgeous”, wrote another.
“How life moves … Wishing you a wonderful life.”