In today’s day and age, couples generally meet on dating apps such as Tinder or Hinge.
But for former NRL star-turned-radio broadcaster Corey Oates it was a year of ghosting and a near arrest that led him to meeting his now-wife, Tegan Miles.
Tegan revealed the very creepy way that Corey, 30, pursued her to his new radio co-host Robin Bailey on Tuesday.
The former Broncos player officially joined the Robin and Kip KIIS 97.3 FM breakfast team for 2025, and to welcome him aboard host Robin and Kip Wightman paid his family a visit over the weekend.
Robin asked Corey’s wife of 10 years and the mother of their two young children how their romance got started — and was left in utter shock by her answer.
Tegan told how she first met then 19-year-old Corey in the yoghurt aisle at Ashgrove Woolworths, and the pair got to talking.
Corey Oates wife Tegan reveals the very creepy way he pursued her
The former Broncos player officially joined the Robin and Kip KIIS 97.3 FM breakfast team for 2025, and to welcome him aboard host Robin and Kip Wightman paid his family a visit over the weekend
‘He talked that much that I had to put my yogurt back on the shelf and grab a fresh one,’ she recalled.
‘He was playing football, but he was very young. He would have been nineteen, so very, very young.
The pair had been getting to know one another until Corey learned through a friend that Tegan’s dad was former Broncos legend Gene Miles and promptly stopped talking to her.
‘I didn’t hear from him after he worked that out for about twelve months. I think he found it out from someone. And then all of a sudden, he just stopped talking and I was like, “I didn’t know what happened.”
‘And then, yeah, twelve months later when he came back around…’ Tegan continued.
Robin interrupted her to ask for clarification. ‘So, what do you mean when he came back around? When you ran into him again?’
‘He actually started ringing my doorbell at 2am one morning,’ she revealed.
‘Rang me eight times. Messaged me six [times], sent me two Snapchats. And it was only because I opened a Snapchat that he knew that I was obviously on my phone, and then started yelling out to my window.’
‘Was he drunk?’ Robin asked.
‘He was definitely on his way home from a night out,’ she confirmed.
Oates ghosted his now-wife Tegan for one year before showing up at her house drunk at 2am after she’d missed eight calls from him
Tegan and Corey pictured with their two children at home in Brisbane
Robin asked if Tegan hadn’t heard from Corey at all in the previous 12 months, before he boldly yelled at her window under the cover of darkness and alcohol.
‘Every now and again we would speak, but it was nothing for longer than maybe like, two or three days,’ she explained. ‘He’d run away again. He’d get too scared.’
‘Did you let him in?’ Robin asked.
‘I did because I was like, “Someone’s going to call the police on this guy”,’ Tegan explained.
The petite blonde recalled thinking ‘This guy’s going to get a public nuisance warning soon.’
Tegan said she wasn’t prepared to ‘waste’ her time on Corey if he didn’t ‘commit to something’.
She issued him a ‘use by date’ of the 31st of March. Five days later he called her and told her, “Okay, we’ll give this a crack.”
‘Those were his exact words,’ she added.
Tegan’s father Gene only asked her one question about her Broncos winger boyfriend, ‘Is he a good guy?’
She said Corey was and her dad told her: ‘Okay, he’s got one chance.’
‘And we’ve been together for nearly ten years now,’ she concluded.
Corey has been a regular on the Brisbane radio show since October, starring in his own light-hearted ‘Find Corey a Job’ segment.
His surprise career move comes after the popular footy star announced he was retiring from the NRL after 216 games in October.
The owners of ARN announced that the footy champ will stay on the air for the rest of the year as part of the regular breakfast team, and the trio will return in 2025.
Meanwhile, the show has been rebranded as ‘Robin & Kip now with Corey Oates in the morning’.
Oates ‘work experience’ over the last few weeks, which he shared with listeners on the breakfast show’s ‘Find Corey a Job’ segment, included trying out gigs as an air traffic controller, real estate agent, counsellor and retail sales assistant.
The footy favourite is not the only high-profile NRL player to have scored a job with KIIS FM recently.
Former Sea Eagles champ Cooper Johns, 24, announced he was joining the station as part of The Kyle and Jackie O Show for 2024.
