One was an Australian Olympic swimmer, the other an international pop star.

Five years ago, the overlapping area of a Venn diagram representing fans of Cody Simpson and Emma McKeon would have been, to put it lightly, pretty small.

On the surface, most of us could have been forgiven for thinking they had very little in common, save for their impeccable body tone.

How wrong we would have been.

It turns out they have so much in common that they have sustained a healthy romantic relationship for more than two years, in the face of unprecedented public interest and highly-stressful athletic endeavours.

With Simpson and McKeon both gunning for Olympic qualification at the upcoming Australian Swimming Trials in Brisbane, we take a look at their life stories, their successes in the pool, and the relationship that has managed to unite sports fans and pop music fans like no other.

Who is Cody Simpson?

We’re quite sure Cody Simpson is the only person described by Wikipedia as “an Australian singer, actor and swimmer”.

Born on the Gold Coast in 1997, Simpson was a promising swimmer who trained at the Miami Swimming Club, whose alumni includes Olympic legends like Grant Hackett, Giaan Rooney and Daniel Kowalski. In 2009 Simpson won the 100m butterfly and 200m individual medley in the under-12 age group at the Queensland Swimming Championships, but for a long time that looked like it would be the high point of his swimming career.

That’s because less than a year later he released his first single, “iYiYi”, featuring American rapper Flo Rida, and within months he and his family had moved to Los Angeles to continue pursuing his musical career.

His combination of clean-cut good looks, pop sensibilities and musical talent saw him catapulted from recording YouTube videos in his bedroom to signing with Atlantic Records and touring across the United States in the space of a few short years.

By the end of 2013 he had an album in the Billboard top 10, had performed on national TV in the US and Australia, and supported Justin Bieber on tour – all before he had turned 18.

His most popular song from that era, “La De Dee”, has been streamed more than 200 million times on Spotify.

After releasing another successful album in 2015, Simpson took a brief hiatus before starting a band called ‘Cody Simpson and the Tide’ which, on reflection, should have been taken as a hint of his yearning to return to aquatic endeavours, given the band released an EP called “Wave One” and songs such as “Underwater”.

Towards the end of this period he started dating Miley Cyrus, having previously been in relationships with other high-profile celebrities such as Gigi Hadid and Kylie Jenner.

In 2019, he stunned his legions of young fans by announcing he was taking a break from music to return to the pool. This was the point at which most Australian sport fans, particularly those born last millennium, became aware of Cody Simpson.

His announcement was greeted with a mixture of intrigue and derision but, unlike other failed athletic pursuits such as Usain Bolt’s football career or Mark Zuckerberg’s dabbling in UFC, Simpson had genuine swimming pedigree. What’s more, at the age of 22 he had time on his side.

Simpson showed impressive dedication to his training regime, initially in the US under former Aussie Olympian Brett Hawke, and after just five months of training the former pop star shared the news with his millions of Instagram followers that he had qualified for the Australian Olympic trials.

He didn’t quite complete the fairytale, just missing out on the team for the Tokyo Games. He finished eighth in his pet race, the 100m butterfly. He also competed in the 100m freestyle, but couldn’t make it through to the final.

However, Simpson had done enough to prove to himself and the world that he had what it took to compete at an extremely high level and, with a few more years of training under his belt as an adult, could potentially take himself to the very highest level.

His times have continued to improve since then, finishing third in the 100m butterfly at the national championships in 2022, which could have been enough to qualify for the world championships if Kyle Chalmers had opted out of that race to focus on freestyle (he didn’t – more on that later). Most impressive, though, was the fact Simpson had swum more than a second faster than he did at the Olympic trials less than a year earlier.

This helped him earn selection for the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, where he finished a very creditable fifth in the 100m butterfly and reached the semi-finals of the 50m butterfly. Most significantly, he won a gold medal as part of the 4x100m freestyle relay team and a silver with the 4x100m medley relay team.

Any thoughts about this being a publicity stunt had been well and truly quashed by this stage, and Simpson is now considered a strong chance of qualifying for the Paris 2024 Olympics, if not as an individual then as part of one of the relay squads.

Who is Emma McKeon?

Emma McKeon is Australia’s most successful Olympian. Ever. 

While Ian Thorpe also won five gold medals, McKeon’s two silvers and four bronzes tip the scales in her favour.

She was more likely than most to achieve this feat given her father was an Olympic swimmer and Commonwealth Games gold medallist, her mum swam at the Commonwealth Games, and her uncle was also a two-time Olympian.

Born in Wollongong in 1994, McKeon wasn’t a teenage sensation like Thorpe and many other swimming legends. 

Her rise up the youth ranks in Australian swimming was slow and steady, catching the eye in the 100m freestyle as well as being a particularly strong relay swimmer.

As a 17-year-old she narrowly missed out on selection for the London 2012 Olympics, but it was a different story four years later as McKeon qualified for Rio 2016 in the 100m butterfly and 200m freestyle, as well as in three relay teams (4x100m freestyle, 4x200m freestyle, 4x100m medley).

By this stage she had already won a world championship gold medal in the 4x100m freestyle relay, and together with teammates Brittany Elmslie and sister Bronte and Cate Campbell, repeated the feat at the Rio Olympics.

McKeon also won two silvers as part of the 4x200m relay team and 4x100m medley relay team, to go with an individual gold in the 200m freestyle, making her Australia’s most successful swimmer at the Rio Games.

This was just a preview of what was to come at the Tokyo Olympics, where she took the pool by storm, claiming individual gold in the 50m freestyle and 100m freestyle, as well as being part of the winning team in the 4x100m freestyle relay and 4x100m medley relay.

Just for good measure, she also won bronze in the 100m freestyle, 4x200m freestyle and 4x100m freestyle, meaning she had won more medals in Tokyo than any other athlete – male or female, from any country. She also broke the record for most medals at a single Olympics by a female swimmer, and most medals by an Australian athlete at a single Olympic Games. 

Now aged 30 and a bona fide veteran, McKeon has clearly stated that Paris will be her Olympic swansong, and she intends on going out with a bang by growing her medal collection beyond its current tally of 11.

Are Cody Simpson and Emma McKeon dating?

Yes, Cody and Emma are very much still together. They went public with their relationship in mid-2022, having kept it a secret for the previous two months, and recently celebrated their two-year anniversary.

Sparks flew shortly after the pair started training together under the tutelage of Michael Bohl, the hugely successful Gold Coast swim coach who has also worked with Olympic medallists Stephanie Rice, Kaylee McKeown and Brendan Smith. 

Rumours of their relationship quickly began swirling in Australian swimming circles, before reaching the public consciousness around the time of the trials for the 2022 world championships – more on that in the section below.

They became ‘Insta-official’ in July 2022 with this post, and Simpson’s social media feeds have since turned into something of a shrine to his love for McKeon, putting his creative talents to good use by conjuring up new ways to profess his admiration for the 30-year-old ‘Queen of the Pool’.

What is so controversial about Cody Simpson and Emma McKeon being in a relationship?

These days, the answer is “not much”, but back in 2022 the gossip magazines and newspaper sport pages were aligned in their fascination with an alleged love-triangle between Simpson, McKeon and fellow Olympic gold medallist Kyle Chalmers.

As we mentioned earlier, Simpson very nearly made it to the world championships that year, finishing third in the 100m butterfly at the trials, just behind Chalmers.

At the time, many assumed Chalmers would opt out of competing in the butterfly in Budapest to focus on his preferred freestyle events, meaning Simpson would take his spot. But Chalmers sprung a surprise by electing to compete in the butterfly, saying it was always his intention to do so.

This might not have been so controversial were it not for the fact that Chalmers and McKeon had reportedly been in a relationship, albeit briefly, less than a year earlier. 

Cue outrage as conspiracy theorists surmised that Chalmers had elected to swim in the butterfly just to stop Simpson from achieving his dream. 

Chalmers came out swinging in, and against, the media, labelling reports of a rift within the famously tight Dolphins team “fake news”. After racing alongside Simpson in the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay team, which went on to win gold, and winning gold with McKeon in the mixed 4x100m freestyle relay, countless column inches and social media real estate was taken up by people speculating that Chalmers had ‘snubbed’ both while celebrating the victories.

He doubled down on his earlier denials and criticisms of the media, saying “It’s all just false news that’s actually crap. It’s a load of sh-t that’s not true.”

Simpson and McKeon also denied any talk of a rift, though in much less-strongly-worded terms.

After all that fuss, Chalmers bombed out in the heats of the 100m butterfly at the 2022 World Championships, and he looks unlikely to compete in the event at the upcoming Olympic trials.

Will Emma McKeon and Cody Simpson compete at the Paris Olympics?

We will find out if Cody Simpson can achieve his Olympic dream after the Australian trials are held from June 10 to 15 in Brisbane.

He will compete in the 50m freestyle and 100m freestyle, but his best hopes of qualification will be in the 100m butterfly, where he will race in heat 3, lane 5 – one lane over from Kyle Chalmers.

If Simpson can finish in the top two in the finals of any of these events, he is just about guaranteed a spot in the Dolphins team for the Olympics. If not, his best chance of making it onto the plane to Paris will be as part of a relay team – likely either the men’s 4×100 freestyle relay or men’s 4×100 medley relay – which would probably require a top six finish at the trials in the 100m freestyle, or a top three finish in the 100m butterfly. 

For Emma McKeon, you could just about bet your house on her making it onto the team for the Paris Olympics.

She’ll once again be competing in the 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle and 100m butterfly at the Olympic trials, and has a very strong chance of qualifying for Paris in all three events, as well as several relay teams.