Bisexual former AFL star Mitch Brown shares exciting baby news
Mitch Brown (Getty Images)
Bisexual former AFL player Mitch Brown has announced the happy news that he and his partner Louisa Keck are expecting their first child together.
The couple shared the news by posting an Instagram Reel with the caption: “Something exciting coming October 2026.”
The reel, posted on 30 March, shows Brown and Keck smiling together in a photobooth before holding up a positive pregnancy test. Keck then stands and Brown kisses her stomach. The happy news was met with congratulatory comments from both friends and fans.
READ MORE: Former football pro Mitch Brown says he feels ‘at peace’ since coming out
Brown already has two children with his ex-wife, former Australian netball player Shae Bolton-Brown, who he co-parents with.
Mitch Brown made history in August last year when he became the first former Australian Football League player to come out as LGBTQ+, specifically bisexual.
The former sports star played for 94 games and ten seasons between 2007 and 2016 in the AFL, before stepping back from the sport at the age of 28 – and has since revealed that the pressure of hiding his sexuality contributed to that retirement.
Speaking to the Daily Aus on 27 August 2025, Brown remembered the “hyper-masculine” culture of the sport. He said: “I remember two people having a conversation around how they would feel having a shower next to a gay man, and one of the players said, ‘I’d rather be in a cage full of lions than have a shower next to a gay man’.”
He added: “I remember those comments, and the conversation in the locker room just exacerbated that fear even more if you’re a gay man or a bisexual man sitting in that locker room.”
Speaking about hiding his sexuality while in the AFL, Brown said the “fear was so strong” of someone discovering his sexuality, that he “projected [his] masculinity more.”
“The fear of being caught out. You don’t dare, scared of being outed or someone calling you gay. And then because I wasn’t ready, I wasn’t confident in my identity and who I was, my natural reaction would be to suppress that to project my masculinity even more.”
Brown’s historic coming out was recently followed by Leigh Ryswyk, who came out as gay on 25 March this year.
An active AFL player is yet to come out as LGBTQ+, but Ryswyk shared that he is hopeful for the future of the sport, and said that he thinks “the AFL, and the community, will wrap their arms around” the player that eventually does.
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