Laura Byrne has publicly reprimanded her husband Matty ‘J’ Johnson after he claimed they were drowning in a ‘mountain of debt’ and forced to rent out their dream home Chante Mer, in Ulladulla on the South Coast, during a recent interview.
Appearing on Laura’s Life Uncut podcast, Laura, 40, told her reality TV star hubby off for publicly making the admission.
‘Recently Matt did a podcast, Home Beautiful, and talked about the renovation we did at our south coast home,’ Laura began.
She said Matty, 39, was not media-savvy enough to realise what he said would be picked up by mainstream publications.
‘You have to be careful with how you word things, knowing there are going to be articles about it. I had no idea. You sometimes go for the joke, but don’t care about the consequences,’ Laura told Matty.
‘You will always go for the humour, and then deal with the consequences. You made the joke on there, “Yeah, we are drowning in a mountain of debt”
Laura Byrne has publicly reprimanded her husband Matty ‘J’ Johnson after he claimed they were drowning in a ‘mountain of debt’ and forced to rent out their dream home Chante Mer, in Ulladulla on the South Coast, during a recent interview
During his interview on Home Beautiful’s The Edit podcast recently, Matty admitted their renovation on the South Coast property ran wildly out of control
Appearing on Laura’s Life Uncut podcast, Laura, 40, told her reality TV star hubby off for publicly making the admission
‘You were like, “Yeah, we had to rent out the house, we have to get some people in there to pay off the mortgage”. That is not the case!’
However, Matty said he was simply telling the truth about their financial situation and not trying to make light of it.
‘It wasn’t that bad. I was like, “We’re in a lot of debt right now.” The house cost a lot of money, as did the reno,’ he said.
‘We could do with a life raft though. If someone could throw one at us, please.’
Laura finished by admitting that they were able to keep up with their mortgage repayments and keep their heads above water.
Yeah, we are in debt… but it is debt we can handle! We’re not drowning in debt, everyone!’ Laura retorted.
‘The way in which you said it in this f***ing podcast interview. So the Daily Mail writes this absolute dream of a headline: Matty J and Laura Byrne forced to rent out Dream Home amid mountain of debt.
‘And that it’s an entire article which is just talking about us drowning in debt. It makes it sound like we’re going bankrupt. We are so fine, everyone. No one’s worried about us, I know, but I just wanted to put it out there.’
She said Matty, 39, was not media-savvy enough to realise what he said would be picked up by mainstream publications
During his interview on Home Beautiful’s The Edit podcast recently, Matty admitted their renovation on the South Coast property ran wildly out of control.
‘We thought we were just going to, you know, make it watertight and put a lick of paint on, and we got sucked into the renovation and made it a lot bigger than we originally planned,’ he explained.
‘We were like, we need help paying off this mortgage! So, we decided we would start renting it out.
‘We are in a mountain of debt, and we will be paying off this house for a very, very, very long time.’
‘Chante Mer’ is currently listed on Airbnb with nightly rates ranging from a staggering $740 to $1,600, with a minimum three-night stay.
The reality television stars currently live in a four-bedroom semi in North Bondi, which they purchased for $5.2million in 2023.
They also boast a stunning $1.8million holiday home in Bangalow, near Byron Bay.
After getting engaged in Fiji in April 2018, Laura and Matty finally tied the knot on the south coast in November 2022, five years after meeting on The Bachelor.
They are one of the most successful couples to come out of the show, having welcomed their daughter Marlie-Mae in 2019, followed by Lola in February 2021 and Poppy in September 2025.
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