Leigh Sales reveals men need to be ‘confident’ to date her

Leigh Sales has opened up about her dating life since her divorce in 2016, saying she needs a ‘confident’ man who isn’t intimidated by her.

Speaking with Mia Freedman on the No Filter Podcast, the veteran journalist said men often feel like she’s out of their league.

“I think you need to be reasonably confident to [ask me out] but I also think most people once they meet me and kind of get to know me realise very rapidly I’m not really intimidating,” she said.

“I think what people find hard sometimes is the way other people interact with them.”

Sales gave an example that people often tell her suitors: “Wow you must have felt intimidated asking Leigh out.”

“So the message they’re getting is, ‘You’re punching above your weight’. And I think that’s a hard message for men to get. That’s not the message I give people I’m in a relationship with or dating, but sometimes you can feel very scrutinised,” Sales said.

“I know my ex-husband, we would be checking in somewhere and it would be ‘Mr and Mrs Sales’ or whatever, which isn’t his name.

“It’s the assumption that this person is just your kind of add-on, and sometimes they can be treated like that. And that can be confronting. Or people spotting me and then looking the person I’m with up and down. There’s not a lot you can do about that – it’s natural human curiosity. But I often feel sorry for people that I’m with in those situations.”

Sales revealed that she tries to keep her personal life “under the radar” to protect her friends and family, especially her sons.

“I do go to pains to not have details about my family and private life out there because I think it’s not fair on the people around me,” Sales said.

“I do work pretty hard to not be seen with people. To be honest, not that I date an endless parade of people, but I don’t want my kids ever Googling ‘oh there’s mum with that guy and that guy’. I would just rather keep all my private business private. I keep it under the radar.”

 

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The current affairs host’s decision to maintain a low profile, exasperated by online abuse which led to her quitting Twitter, “took a really hard toll on people close to [her]”.

In an interview with Stellar magazine, Sales said people thought she quit Twitter after she copped abuse from an interview she conducted with former Prime Minister, Scott Morrison.

“People have reported that I left because there was an interview with Scott Morrison and then I was abused,” she said.

“But I was abused all the time, so actually that had nothing to do with it.

“I just decided to jump off before the election because I thought the level of the trolling would ramp right up.”

Sales will conduct her final interview for ABC’s 7.30 tonight, June 30, after she announced her resignation on February 10 after more than a decade in the role.