Veteran journalist Liz Hayes and her rarely-seen long-time partner Ben Crane appear to have spent their festive season going on a romantic trip together.
The happy couple, who have been together for more than 20 years, were spotted in a very rare sighting at Sydney Airport just before Christmas.
Carrying their baggage through the terminal, the pair went incognito with the 60 Minutes star hiding her eyes behind a pair of dark shades.
Liz, 68, looked chic in a casual, layered ensemble which featured a cropped blue jean jacket pulled on over a white button-down.
Opting for a comfortable flight, the reporter slipped into a pair of black trackpants and matching sneakers as she pulled her blonde tresses back into an up-do.
With a cross-body handbag strapped across her torso, Liz didn’t have a single hand free as she carried a silver carry-on duffel and an M.J. Bale garment bag.
Meanwhile, Ben, a sound recordist Liz met while working on 60 Minutes together, stepped out in a smart casual look for their trip.
Tucking his reading frames into the collar of his black T-shirt, Ben pulled on a pair of blue jeans and a navy sports coat.
He finished off his look with a pair of white Adidas sneakers as he also carried handfuls of baggage through the airport.
Despite kicking off their relationship in the early 2000s when they met on 60 Minutes, Liz has kept her love life with Ben away from the public eye.
Liz has been divorced three times, with each of her relationships playing out on the public stage in a spectacle she once told Stellar magazine was ‘soul destroying’.
The TV journalist met and married her first husband, builder Brian Hayes, in her home town of Taree in the late ’70s when she was just 21.
They split in the mid ’80s at about the same time she landed a gig as co-host on the Today breakfast show in 1986 and her public profile skyrocketed.
Following their separation, Liz later struck up a very publicised romance with advertising millionaire John Singleton.
They tied the knot in February 1991 but were only married for ten months before divorcing that same year around Christmas.
Liz was the fourth of his six wives over the years, though they remained friends following their split.
A few years later, in 1994, she was spotted on the arm of Sydney doctor Stephen Coogan, with the pair having a three-year marriage which ended in 1997.
Liz opened up about having three divorces by age 40 in her memoir I’m Liz Hayes in 2023.
She told Stellar at the time that she struggled to see her face in the headlines as her love life was dissected by the public eye.
‘It was a crap time. Let’s face it, these things are not great. And it’s magnified. It becomes bigger than Ben-Hur,’ she said to the publication.
‘You’re looking at yourself. You’re reading about yourself. You’re noting that the view of you is pretty grim, so you come away thinking I am pretty grim.’
She added that the public scrutiny of her failed marriages made her feel like a ‘failure’ on the romantic front.
‘Frankly, it’s a bit soul-destroying to have seemingly the world telling you, “Yep, you’re a dud,”‘ she added.
