FACT CHECK Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster’s Sydney trip is getting plenty of attention, but there’s one detail that doesn’t stack up

It’s no secret that Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster have been making their way around Sydney this week. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, Bondi appears to be very much the centre of operations.

So Sydney! has photographed the pair around the eastern suburbs during the trip, including stops at Bills and Gertrude & Alice. And of course, it wouldn’t be a true Jackman-Down-Under trip without a rather glorious morning frolic at Bondi Beach.

It marks Foster’s first reported trip to Australia with Jackman, so naturally the visit has attracted plenty of attention.

But there is one part of the coverage that doesn’t quite stack up.

A number of reports have described Jackman’s North Bondi penthouse as the former “marital home” he shared with ex-wife Deborra-Lee Furness, framing Foster’s stay there as a particularly loaded development in the aftermath of their divorce.

And alas, we may be here to fact check some things.

Jackman bought the North Bondi penthouse in 2015 for $5.925 million and certainly used it during his marriage. But contemporary property reporting described it as a Sydney “bolthole” used by the family when they were in Australia, while their principal family life was based in the United States.

The apartment has also been used far more broadly than some of the current coverage suggests. It was listed for long-term rent at $10,000 a week in 2022 and later appeared on high-end short-term rental platforms for around $2,400 a night.

In other words, this was not a continuously occupied family residence that’s suddenly being repurposed for a new relationship.

And once the wording of “marital home” is removed, the story becomes considerably less dramatic. Jackman has brought his current partner to an apartment he owns in Bondi and uses as an Australian base. That is all.

Sometimes two words really do change the whole story.