Tim Mathieson

Mathieson was born and raised in Shepparton, Victoria. After a hairdressing apprenticeship in suburban Melbourne, he first operated a Shepparton hair salon, then another on the Gold Coast, Queensland.[5] For much of the 1990s, Mathieson lived and worked in San Francisco in the United States.[6]

Mathieson returned to Australia in 2004, worked for one year as a hairdresser at Heading Out salon in Melbourne, where he met long-standing salon client, politician Julia Gillard. They began dating in March 2006.[1] With financial support from his father and brother, Mathieson established Tim Mathieson Hair in Shepparton but moved back to Melbourne later in 2006[7] as a sales representative for a hair products company.[6] From January to March 2010, Mathieson focused on the sale of high-rise apartments in Melbourne to international buyers on behalf of a local real estate agency.[3][8]

Once Gillard became prime minister in June 2010, Mathieson supported her by assuming an unpaid behind-the-scenes role.[9]

While in his late teens during the 1970s, Mathieson fathered a daughter with his girlfriend Pam Child.[14][15] In 1987, Mathieson married Diane Stark; they had a son and a daughter together[16] and divorced in 2003.[17] In March 2006, Mathieson started dating Julia Gillard.[1] When asked in 2010 about formal marriage to Gillard, he said that they had not discussed it at that stage.[18] Mathieson's relationship with Gillard ended in 2021.[19]

In July 2023, Mathieson pleaded guilty to a charge of sexual assault after non-consensually sucking the nipple of a sleeping woman and "latching onto her breast when she tried to fend him off" in March 2022.[20][21] Mathieson was convicted in October 2023 and fined $7000.[22]