Watch: Cody Simpson Reacts to Making First Senior Australian Squad

In a candid video posted on Instagram, pop star Cody Simpson shared the moment he got the text confirming his selection for Australia’s 2022 Commonwealth Games roster headed to Birmingham, England, in July.

Upon seeing the news of his first senior Australian team berth, a visibly-emotional Simpson clasped his hand over his mouth before receiving a hug from Australian Olympic champion Emma McKeon.

Simpson earned his spot with a third-place finish in the 100-meter butterfly finals that equaled the qualifying time of 51.96, slightly slower than his personal best of 51.79 set in the prelims. The 25-year-old Simpson, who has been training for less than two years following a decade-long hiatus from competitive swimming, has already shaved a second off his 52.94 from last year’s Olympic Trials.

“I was holding my breath all week after the 100m fly final and this is the moment I found out,” Simpson wrote. “If you’d have told me 2 years ago when I had started training in a backyard pool during lockdown that I’d be here today, I don’t know if I’d have believed you.”

With Olympic gold medalist Kyle Chalmers initially planning to sit out next month’s World Championships, Simpson’s third-place showing was thought to have been just enough to book him a ticket to Budapest, Hungary. Then Chalmers finished second behind Matt Temple in the 100 fly final, apparently surprising himself in the wake of shoulder surgery this past December and convincing him to reverse course. Chalmers’ decision to compete at World Championships after all meant that Simpson would be left off the team since only the top two advance.

Simpson said he “absolutely” understood Chalmers’ decision, but the situation spiraled into a media controversy featuring one of the wildest headlines you’ll ever come across due to Simpson’s relationship with McKeon. A tabloid narrative emerged alleging a “love triangle” as motivation for Chalmers’ reconsideration of his decision to swim at the World Championships. McKeon, who didn’t swim at last week’s Australian Swimming Championships because her Tokyo Olympics success gave her automatic qualification, called the narrative “strange.”

“That is my personal life and I am quite a private person so, yeah, I don’t really like having it as news,” McKeon said at Sunday’s team presentation. “I just block it out. As I said, I am a private person and I think I will always be that way. I am close to my family, close to my friends, and … they’re the ones I open up with.”

Simpson similarly put to rest any talk of a romantic rivalry.

“People like to spin a story and find a story out of something,” Simpson said. “He (Chalmers), considering the limited prep he has had, got up and gave an incredible effort so nothing but respect to him for doing that.

“And he’s well within his rights to decide to swim,” he added. ” … If the tables were turned and I was in that position and I said I wanted to swim, I’d hope people would understand and respect that I had earned that place.”

The controversy, manufactured as it may be, appeared to take a real toll on Chalmers. He didn’t attend Sunday night’s team announcement, saying he was “taking some time for me and my mental health.”

“The negative media attention surrounding my decision to compete at worlds and the made up storylines surrounding my personal life have been more than I can handle,” Chalmers wrote. “After giving my all to the sport and being so welcoming to the media all my career, it’s a shame to see them publishing storyline’s questioning my integrity all for the sake of extra clicks and money.”