Among all the bitter tears, on some mezzanine floor in the many stages of grief, was this hardest of ironies: everyone who knew Jesse Baird knew one day he’d be a household name.
Just not like this.
Jesse Baird in the Network Ten newsroom in Sydney.
Jesse Baird was a ridiculous talent. He had a priceless gift for television, a sexy, effortless charm that flowed through all the cold mechanics of broadcasting to get you wherever you watched.
Old TV hands talk of those who “break through the glass”. With Jesse, there was no glass.
That his fame will not be crowned with a Gold Logie, or a Hollywood contract, but exists now in the cold processes of a prosecution brief, is just one of the many things stolen from Jesse and from those who loved him.
As a 63-year-old grandfather who last danced to Marvin Gaye on a turntable, I was not naturally in Jesse’s orbit. But Channel Ten’s Sydney newsroom is open plan, Jesse’s desk was three metres from mine, and he shone his light on everyone indiscriminately. He was humble, brilliant, mischievous. Utterly adored.
Jesse Baird (front row, left) with his Studio 10 colleagues in 2022.
He loved what he did. He loved life. He had the vibrating energy of a young and beautiful man, who lived without enemies or a care in the world. Except, of course, it will be alleged that he did have an enemy, a man so entranced by Jesse that he would rather kill him than let him live free.
Let the courts work all that out.
Age gives us no protection from grief, but it teaches us directly that life takes cruel and unexpected turns. We are not spared from shock, but we no longer face disbelief.
For Jesse’s young colleagues, those who partied with him, those who made television with him every day, Jesse’s death, and the manner of it has hit with nothing at all to baffle the pain. We can only imagine his family’s suffering, or that of Luke Davies’, taken every bit as cruelly.
At Ten, as the shock of the news hit, gaps opened across the desks as people felt unable to be at work. Others worked double shifts. Tears would come and consume colleagues. Hugs were shared. So many hugs. The yawning void that many felt would become permanent, the choking tumult, the unfairness, the horror, the unstoppable movies playing in the head, this was the darkness that fell across our team.
Some blamed themselves. Jesse had spoken of concerns. Why had they not taken them to police? Why had they not pushed him harder to do so?
An army officer told me that every time an Aussie soldier was killed in Afghanistan, at least 30 people felt they were personally and uniquely to blame. That such reactions are both futile and unfair on the person having them, is lost in the time of grief.
How to move forward?
Grief, especially in the face of malevolence, grief that comes so unbidden, so unjustly, hits with cyclonic force. But like a cyclone, the shape does shift. Old hands know this. That for years rain bands will still come, out of a blue sky. Sorrow will wash us again, drain us. Leave us.
The ache that comes with remembering Jesse. The missing him. The recognition that others will rise to their Gold Logies and their prime-time shows, and Jesse won’t be there to celebrate them, to shine his open delight on the success and achievements of others. Or to smile away the ovations that would inevitably have come his way.
I can’t speak of Luke. I never met him. I know from those who did that he was held in as high regard among his friends and colleagues as Jesse was with his. Two young men, who were thoroughly blessed, who were enjoying the discovery of each other, as youth has done through all of time.
But these ones were so golden.
Luke Davies (left) and Jesse Baird.
I seek comfort in this. On the afternoon before they were killed, Jesse and Luke were at the Beresford in Surry Hills. The Sunday sesh is an institution in the Sydney “gay-bourhood”. For a time, I lived a few streets away, where the summer sky throbbed with the sounds from its outside bar.
A safe place. On that Sunday, friends saw Jesse and Luke, exchanged a few words. Saw two men infatuated and at ease. Not a care in the world.
They went back to Jesse’s place in Paddington and awoke that Monday to a peerless late summer morning. Together. With each other. Happy.
Freeze the frame there.
Let the movie forever be stopped right there.
Hugh Riminton is Ten News First national affairs editor.
If you or anyone you know needs support: QLIFE - Anonymous and free peer support to LBTQ+ communities. 1800RESPECT - Confidential counselling and support services. Lifeline - 131 114. Beyond Blue - 1300 224 636
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