What do Tom Burgess and Tahlia Giumelli have in common with Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban? They don’t show their kid’s faces on social media.
The NRL star and his partner are among a whole host of Aussie celebs who have opted out of posting photos of their children online, or at least keep their kids’ faces hidden.
From Hollywood stars, to iconic Aussie models and sporting legends we’ve grown to love on and off the field, plenty of famous parents have already made a similar choice.
Tahlia and Tom announced they’ll no longer be sharing photos of their children online.
(Credit: Instagram)Some simply hide their children’s faces in social media posts, while others share only glimpses of their kids’ hands or feet, and others refuse to post any snaps that their kids appear in at all.
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How parents choose to handle social media is a very personal choice, and one famous mums and dads clearly don’t take lightly.
We’ve looked at some of the Australian celebrities who choose not to post their children online and why they like to keep family life private.
Elyse Knowles
Though the model and former Block star has been known to share her son Sunny’s face on Instagram, she has some clear “boundaries” about photos of her little boy, whom she shares with fiancé Josh Barker. She included Sunny in a series of campaign photos for her new Fisher Price x Elyse Knowles Collection, but chose to keep her bub’s face hidden.
“He is a part of it [but] I didn’t include him fully,” she told the Daily Telegraph. “We put some boundaries around using Sunny’s face and things like that. It is not about him but obviously he is my son so he is a part of it.”
Kat Stewart
The Offspring and Five Bedrooms star is a mum-of-two, but chooses not to show her kids’ faces online, only ever posting snaps of them from behind. In the past, Kat confessed she’s not big on social media in general.
“I am quite clueless,” she told the Daily Telegraph in 2017. “It is like ponces that don’t have a mobile phone. My kids will be on it one day. I don’t know what people are talking about half the time.”
Tahlia Giumelli and Tom Burgess
Tom and Tahlia reignited the conversation around children and social media on Tuesday when they announced they’d no longer be showing their children’s faces on social media. The model mum shared this snap with an emotional caption about their choice.
“One thing Tom and I discussed recently is that going forward we have made the decision to avoid sharing our children’s faces on social media,” she wrote.
“I know this is a big change and that doesn’t mean we won’t be showing what we do as a family but as our babies grow and turn into little girls we want to try and protect them as much as possible. They didn’t ask for any of this and and at the end of the day I have to trust my mum instincts and know I’m making the best decision for them right now.”
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban
Hollywood legend Nicole Kidman and her country musician husband Keith Urban have only ever shown rare, one-off photos of their two daughters Sunday and Faith.
“They don’t have a phone and I don’t allow them to have an Instagram. I try to keep some sort of boundaries,” Nicole told Vanity Fair in 2019.
Sam and Lara Worthington
This Aussie actor and model duo have chosen to keep their kids off social media for years now. The pair share three sons, Rocket, Racer and River, and Lara has only ever shown brief glimpses of them online, and never includes their faces.
“At this stage of my life, with my sons as the total priority, I’m focused on wellbeing, motherhood and taking care of my family,” she once told Body + Soul.
AFL legend Buddy Franklin and his wife Jesinta are fiercely private with their two young children, Tullulah and Rocky. They never show their children’s faces on their Instagram pages, mum Jesinta saying she wants to wait until her kids are old enough to decide if they want to appear online.
“We both try to limit their presence on social media, protecting their privacy is important to Jes and I. But each to their own, we don’t judge,” Buddy told Now To Love.
Jesinta recently told Marie Claire: “It is a bit about privacy but for us it is not about hiding them… We share photos with our family and friends all of the time. It is just about being respectful to their privacy and if they get to 13 or 14 and don’t care if we show their faces, great.”
Miranda Kerr
This Aussie model has chosen to keep her children from both of her marriages off social media entirely, and their fathers are on board with her choice. Miranda shares sons Myles and Hart with husband Evan Spiegel, and son Flynn with ex Orlando Bloom.
She hasn’t spoken much about the decision to keep her kids off Instagram, but told the Today show that she and Spiegel are “so strict in our home about screen time and computer time” when it comes to their kids.
Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky
The Aussie acting heavyweight and his wife may share snaps of their kids online pretty regularly, but they’re always careful to keep their children’s faces obscured. Marvel star Chris once said that he’s wary of his kids being exploited online.
“The exploitation is something I’m very wary of. We’ve been offered things like, ‘advertise such-and-such and have dinner with your family,” he told GQ magazine in 2018. “There’s no way.”
Dannii Minogue
Aussie songstress Dannii and her former partner Kris Smith don’t post any photos on social media of their son Ethan, whom they co-parent. It’s understood they made the choice at Dannii’s request, as she wants her son to be able to live a normal life.
While Kris does share pictures of his two daughters with current partner Sarah Boulazeris online, he’s kept photos of his son with Dannii private.
Daniel MacPherson and Zoe Ventoura
Daniel MacPherson and Zoe Ventoura
The actors may have split, but they’ve remained united in their choice to keep son Austin’s face off the internet. Both stars share photos of their son on Instagram, but make sure his face is never visible, often posting snaps that only show the back of his head.
“In terms of my privacy, it’s something I have been very protective about from the start. It’s just always felt like it needs to be protected as much as possible to keep a sense of normalcy,” Zoe told Who.
