Fallen footy superstar Ben Barba has revealed how his glittering career unravelled in a boozed-up suicide bid amid allegations of domestic violence after a two-day bender.
The full dramatic details of his shocking fall from grace in 2013 have been laid bare for the first time as he admits he tried to strangle himself in a drunken stupor.
And only the intervention of his partner and mother of his four daughters, aged five to 13, saved his life.
The troubled one-time Canterbury Bulldogs hero – who was forced to find work as a scaffolder after his footy career ended – was once the toast of the NRL as the top try scorer of 2012, with a Dally M Medal in his back pocket.
But that all came tumbling down after a February 2013 Friday night pre-season match against the Canberra Raiders in Goulburn.
Ben Barba (pictured with partner Ainslie Currie) has revealed how his glittering career unravelled in a boozed-up suicide bid amid allegations of wife-bashing after a two-day bender
After the team bus returned to the club’s Belmore HQ in Sydney’s south-west, he joined a gang of team-mates dubbed the Epic Bender Crew for a 36-hour drinking session.
In the early hours of the following Sunday morning, Bulldogs CEO Todd Greenberg got a frantic phone call from mum of four Ainslie Currie, Barba’s long-term girlfriend until their recent split.
She reportedly told Greenberg that Barba had turned up at their Caringbah apartment and had a ‘heated row’ with her – and she was terrified the star was about to self-harm.
But Barba has now revealed he had already tried.
‘I haven’t told too many people this, but that day I tried to take my own life,’ Barba, 32, told the Sydney Morning Herald.
‘That’s when Ainslie ran in and tried to stop me from strangling myself. I owe my life to her for reacting like that.’
It sparked a cascading series of controversies for Barba and the club after Currie met with Greenberg and Bulldogs coach Des Hasler later that day.
In the early hours of the following Sunday morning, then-Bulldogs CEO Todd Greenberg (pictured) got a frantic phone call from mum of four Ainslie Currie, Barba’s long-term girlfriend until their recent split
Ainslie Currie (pictured with Barba) said he had turned up at their apartment and she was terrified the star was about to self-harm – but Barba has now revealed he had already tried
An NRL investigation by Tony Bannon reportedly said Greenberg allegedly noticed a mark on Currie’s mouth and encouraged her to go to the police ‘to the point where she felt bullied and harassed.’
She said the the injury had happened while Ms Currie tried to prevent Barba from self-harming but there were fears it was the result of a domestic violence incident.
Ms Currie was treated by the club doctor before the Bulldogs organised for her to be driven to Bankstown Police Station to make a statement.
But before she left, it’s claimed a third party persuaded her to consider the impact it would have on Barba’s career and income, which is said to have changed her mind.
Greenberg told the SMH: ‘I was always accused of a cover-up. But I stand by trying to provide support for Ainslie through the entire period.
‘You have to remember the whole reason she rang me wasn’t because she felt in danger, it was because she was scared Ben was going to harm himself.’
When she returned home she found Barba asleep, slumped on their couch. He was reportedly shaking and unable to hold himself upright when he later met with club officials.
It sparked a cascading series of controversies for Barba and the club after Currie met with Greenberg and club coach Des Hasler (pictured) later that day
The club put Barba into a rehab clinic on Sydney’s Northern Beaches and then tried to get him to play on through the controversy.
But his team-mates and their families rebelled, turning on him over the domestic violence allegations, and tearing the team apart.
Barba revealed he had been working up to the bender with a series of drinking sessions in 2012 where he would wake up without knowing where he was.
‘My partner would ring me and ask, ‘Where are you?” Barba revealed. ‘I wouldn’t even know.
‘The temptations outside of footy were out of this world. I wasn’t ready to deal with that. The women, the parties, the drugs, the alcohol; everyone wanted to be around Benny Barba.
‘The fame got to me. I was just on such a high that the repercussions of what I was doing never even crossed my mind.’
But now he admits: ‘Sometimes I just sit back and wish I never played rugby league.’
Barba left the Bulldogs at the end of the 2013 season to spend a year with the Brisbane Broncos before a two-year stint with the Cronulla Sharks, but tested positive for cocaine in 2016 and was released by the club.
He later switched codes to rugby union in France before he was sacked after just four games and then moved to the UK to play for St Helens before later switching codes again to soccer and later still to Aussie Rules.
Ben Barba (pictured with his Dally M Medal in 2012) revealed he had been working up to the bender with a series of drinking sessions in 2012 where he would wake up without knowing where he was
In December 2021, Barba was convicted of assault after his brother-in-law Adrian Currie called him a ‘wife basher’.
Barba told him to ‘f*** off’ before punching him in the face several times after barging into his estranged partner’s home in East Mackay, Queensland, on December 1.
The attack came after Ms Currie had taken out a domestic violence order against Barba that prevented him from visiting the property without written consent.
‘I punched the c***sucker in the face because he doesn’t like me and called me a wife basher,’ he later told police, Mackay Magistrates Court heard.
Barba pleaded guilty to assault occasioning bodily harm in a domestic setting and three counts of contravening a domestic violence order.
He was sentenced to two years probation and a conviction recorded.
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