Tamara Kingsley
Tamara Kingsley (2012-2014)
Kelly Paterniti
Episodes: 5616–5618; 5645–5968
Parents: Patrick & Joanne Kingsley
Sibling: Pete Kingsley (deceased)
Occupation: Waitress, Student
Tamara stumbled across Casey Braxton after his half-brother Kyle had left him chained to a rusty car in the middle of the desert. She gave him water and tried to help him but then Kyle came back and took them both prisoner, driving them off in his truck. Tamara persuaded Casey to make a run for it as a distraction, then threw an improvised petrol bomb at Kyle, injuring him, although Casey talked her out of shooting him. She ran off before Brax and Natalie turned up, but revisited Casey when he was alone and convinced him to return to Summer Bay to face trial for killing his father Danny, rather than go on the run. Since no-one else had seen her, Brax and Natalie originally believed Casey had imagined Tamara and even Casey believed that was the case until some months later when Kyle confirmed she existed.
Adam Sharpe tracked Tamara down and forcibly brought her to Summer Bay to testify at Casey’s trial. Her mood was not improved when she found out Casey was dating Sasha, prompting her to punch him on sight, and that Kyle was now living with the family, prompting her to attack him on sight. Brax visited her at her motel and tried to convince her to help Casey but soon after their lawyer, Craig Stanley, reported that Tamara had disappeared. However, she turned up at court where she testified about what she witnessed in the desert, clearing Casey of skipping bail and helping him get acquitted of murder and be given periodic detention for armed robbery.
Afterwards, Sasha encouraged Tamara to leave town but Casey brought Tamara back when she admitted she couldn’t go home. She revealed her parents hated her because her brother Pete tried to get her away from her abusive boyfriend Nelson Gregory, who beat him up, causing him to die in a car crash. Casey begged her to stay despite Sasha’s hostility, leaving both girls confused as to where they stood. Casey got her a shift as a waitress at Angelo’s for Roo and Harvey’s wedding reception. When she saw him comforting Sasha, she walked out feeling jealous. Casey went after her and she kissed him. Before he left for his first period of detention, Casey got Sasha and Tamara together and told them he couldn’t be with either of them but also asked Tamara not to leave town.
Tamara began looking for work in town and convinced Brax to give her some more shifts at Angelo’s. She refused to give up on Casey and challenged him to look her in the eye and tell her he didn’t want to be with her. He convinced her to go and rebuild bridges with her parents instead but she returned soon after, saying they still hated her and also that Nelson was looking for her. She was frustrated when Brax and Casey tried to take charge of the situation and Sasha continued to encourage her to leave town. Casey let her sleep in his room at Leah’s, the intention being that he would sleep on the couch but instead they slept together, establishing them as a couple. April saw them together and told Casey to be straight with Sasha.
Tamara got a text from Nelson, which she initially hid from Casey until after he came back from a period of detention. Kyle warned them that Nelson was in town looking for her but they rejected his help. Nelson turned up at the house and nearly forced Tamara to go away with him, with Casey failing to stop her, until Kyle arrived and knocked him out. They took Nelson to the police station where Tamara made a statement implicating Nelson in Pete’s death. She thanked Sasha, who had tipped Kyle off to the fact Nelson was on his way to the house, before she and Casey told each other they loved each other.
Natalie wasn’t happy about Tamara’s presence at the house so she and Casey started looking for their own place. April helped Tamara move into her old room at Irene’s while Heath gave her a job as a waitress at Angelo’s, which meant working with Kyle. Her stay at Irene’s didn’t last long when April moved back in, so Brax offered to let her sleep on the Braxtons’ couch. Instead, Kyle offered her his room while he took the couch. She walked in on an altercation between Kyle and Liam at Angelo’s and, on learning Liam had been stealing from the till and Kyle had kept quiet, accused him of not understanding the family code, nearly causing Kyle to leave town. She tried to visit Casey in prison but he turned her away.
Then Casey was stabbed by prison bully Courtney Freeman while trying to protect Jamie Sharpe and Tamara spent the night by his hospital bed. She encouraged Casey to take a deal to testify against Courtney in order to be released from prison, going as far as telling him they’d be over if he didn’t. When she learned of Kyle’s attempt to leave, she confronted him and he responded by accusing her of walking away from Casey. She went back to Casey to find he had already agreed to the deal. When it looked like he would have to go back to prison anyway, she joined Brax in encouraging him to go on the run but he refused and Zac got the release papers at the last minute.
With Casey studying, Tamara decided to go back to school, even though it meant sharing classes with students two years younger than her. She made a fuss about wearing uniform and quit on being told it was compulsory, but afterwards admitted to Casey she hadn’t fit in. She went back and shocked Sasha by not being interested in her campaign to change the uniform. She started to warm towards Kyle when he offered to tutor her and did a good job running the restaurant, and decided not to testify against him over the kidnapping. Brax helped her and Casey move into the annexe at the Braxton house but then she realised Kyle was attracted to her. She kept it from Casey, who unknowingly tried to smooth things over between them, and told Kyle she didn’t have feelings for him.
April gave her a makeover prior to Heath and Bianca’s engagement party, where she met the Braxtons’ mother Cheryl for the first time and got on well with her. However, Cheryl noticed Kyle’s attraction to Tamara and told Casey, prompting Casey to punch Kyle. After arguing with Casey and finding Kyle sleeping at the restaurant, she spent the night on the beach. She and Casey made up the next morning when Kyle told him Tamara had done nothing wrong. She joined Sasha in trying to get Rosie Cartwright to distance herself from Alexander Mullens. When she learned that Mullens had raped Rosie and charged Sasha with assault, Kyle had to stop her confronting him in public, then privately threatened him into dropping the charges and moving away. Tamara was initially annoyed but realised he was just trying to help. She shared a pizza with him but was shocked when he kissed her, running out. She initially kept the kiss from Casey but after Brax had overheard her arguing with Kyle and she had spoken to April, she told him but asked him not to do anything. Brax forced Kyle to move out of the house but Tamara was furious when Casey tried to resign from Angelo’s on her behalf to stop her working with Kyle. When Casey took Kyle off into the bush without telling anyone, she worried about them both and Brax had to talk her out of leaving town. When they turned up safe and well, she told Kyle to stay away from her.
She worried that Casey was doing too much at the gym after Romeo’s disappearance and talked to Indi about it against his wishes. She was more understanding after April pointed out Casey was just trying to help others but was concerned about him not having enough time to do assignments. She filled Heath and Bianca in on what happened between Kyle and Mullens, before joining Sasha and Rosie at the self-defence classes that Zac was putting on.
When a feud broke out between Brax and Heath, after someone transferred money from the Angelo’s account to Darcy’s grandmother Connie, Tamara suspected that Kyle had done it in order to cause trouble and be left looking like the good brother. She saw Kyle putting money in the till and he told her Brax had money troubles and he was helping her out. She wanted to tell Brax but Ricky talked her out of it. Casey was then arrested for armed robbery after money and a gun were planted in their flat. She again suspected Kyle and was convinced to keep quiet by Ricky, while Casey refused to see her. She was angry to learn that Kyle and Ricky had been tricked into setting Casey up and punched Kyle. April and Dexter found her in tears about being unable to see Casey and Dexter convinced Casey to let her see him before he was transferred. However, as Tamara was on her way to the police station, she was knocked unconscious and kidnapped by two men.
She was imprisoned with Ricky who she quickly realised knew more about who was after the Braxtons than she had initially claimed, especially when the person behind it all turned out to be Adam, Ricky’s brother. Tamara and Ricky tried to convince Adam that Brax had believed he was already dead, rather than leaving him to die as Adam thought, but Adam refused to listen and took them to a warehouse. The prolonged captivity and lack of water left Tamara in a bad way, both physically and mentally, and Ricky tried to convince Adam to release her. Soon after, Brax and Kyle found her dumped unconscious in the road. Brax and Heath took her to hospital where it was discovered she had amnesia and couldn’t remember anything since when she was hiding out in the desert. Despite being wanted by the police, Kyle insisted on visiting her to reassure her and fill in some of the blanks of the last few months.
She was confused to witness Adam’s arrest and began to become attached to Kyle. April and Kyle took her home and tried to acclimatise her, showing her the flat she’d shared with Casey. When Casey came home after being released from jail, she failed to recognise him and felt uncomfortable around him, refusing to share the flat with him even in separate beds and prompting him to move out. While visiting Kyle at Leah’s place, she found the house familiar and moved into Kyle’s room while he slept on the sofa. During the night, she went to see Kyle and kissed him but he pulled away, thinking what she was feeling wasn’t real. He decided to move back in with his family while she stayed at the house. After Casey had turned up drunk and she found herself in the crossfire between him and Kyle, she decided to leave town but Kyle went running after her and kissed her. They slept together, establishing themselves as a couple. They initially tried to keep it secret from Casey but Kyle ended up having to tell him. Casey went to Tamara in a frantic mood, begging her to remember her true feelings, but only succeeded in scaring her. Kyle admitted the truth about their first meeting and Tamara gave Casey one day to remind her of her old feelings. His tour of romantic moments and playing her an old phone message she had left him failed to jog any memories and she told Kyle she wanted to be with him.
Tamara’s parents, Patrick and Joanne, then turned up, having been contacted by Casey. Tamara spent time with them and they managed to rebuild their relationship, before they asked her to move back home with them. With Kyle leaving the choice to her, she decided to go with them but after Kyle told her he loved her she changed her mind at the last minute and decided to stay with him. She started back work at Angelo’s but had an encounter with an angry Casey, prompting her to tell him to move on. She asked Kyle if he was serious about her and was disappointed when he couldn’t answer, but eventually he told her she was more important than keeping peace with Casey. While chatting with Ricky, she had a flashback of Ricky and Adam arguing at the warehouse and told April that she was scared of losing Kyle if her memory came back.
Tamara was subpoenaed to give evidence at Ricky’s trial, with the prosecution intending to use her memory loss to demonstrate the damage Ricky had caused. She admitted to Ricky that she was starting to remember things and was overheard by Kyle, who was annoyed that she’d kept it from him. She admitted to him that she couldn’t promise her feelings wouldn’t change if she got her memories back but they decided to think positively about the future. They worried about Casey finding out about her memory recovery if she had to mention it in court but, in her testimony, she stated that she now remembered Ricky helping her and, as she was talking, had a brief flash of being with Casey. The next day, she told Casey she remembered their relationship and understood what she’d given up. However, when he realised she’d slept with Kyle after remembering, he told her it was over.
She began attending school again and asked Sally to help tutor her. When she saw Casey collapsed on the beach, in a similar state to when she first saw him, her memories began flooding back and Leah found her collapsed at home, overwhelmed. She admitted to Bianca that she loved both Casey and Kyle, and admitted to Kyle that she now remembered Casey. She tried to talk to April about it but April abruptly told her to stop stringing them both along. She told Kyle it was him she wanted to be with and also informed Casey of her choice.
When Cheryl turned up for Heath and Bianca’s wedding, she was furious to find Tamara and Kyle together. She had a go at Tamara at the reception, prompting her and Kyle to leave early. Then Casey was in a car crash and Tamara rushed to his bedside and began spending a lot of time with him, including spending the night by his side. She upset Kyle by admitting she still had feelings for Casey, prompting him to break up with her. She turned her attention to Casey, convincing him to do his physio. She was with him when he regained feeling in his legs and, after accompanying him to a physio session, kissed him on impulse. Casey told her he’d learned to live without her and couldn’t go back.
After initial awkwardness, she managed to clear the air with Kyle and settle for being friends. There continued to be tension between her and Casey as they spent time together. She was kept out of the loop when Brax turned himself in for killing Johnny Barrett, eventually finding out from Jett. She offered to support Kyle but instead he asked her to look after Angelo’s while he went off with Robyn Sullivan. Finding the situation with Casey difficult, she decided to go away for a bit but instead he turned up and kissed her. They spent the night together and reunited, with her supporting him at Brax’s sentencing.
She arranged a romantic evening in with Casey at home and a picnic on the wharf. She discovered Bianca trying to find out about Heath’s secret personal trainer course and convinced Bianca to help Casey get his HSC work officially recognised. Soon after, she and Casey began to drift apart as Heath suggested they didn’t know what to do if they weren’t in a crisis. They decided to split up, only for April and Dexter to ask them to be best man and matron of honour at their wedding, on the grounds they were the most inspirational couple they knew. They decided to pretend to still be a couple so as not to let them down, although Kyle noticed what was going on, allowing Bianca to comfort her. Spending time together prompted her to suggest she and Casey really should get back together, but he helped her realise they weren’t able to make the commitment April and Dexter were making. They made it through the service and shared a last dance together at the reception.
She saw Heath on the beach, allowing her to provide him with an alibi when Jade Montgomery tried to frame him for assault. She became frustrated at the rift between the Summer Bay and Mangrove River students at school and tried to find a way to bring them together. After failing to get a school concert organised, she and Kyle began organising a music festival instead, and she managed to persuade several locals to act as sponsors and provide help. Hanging out at the Braxton house resulted in her learning about Ricky’s pregnancy. She was shocked when Phoebe Nicholson, a girl in town for the festival, turned out to be an old girlfriend of Kyle’s and was frustrated when Kyle gave Phoebe’s band first slot at the festival and joined them on stage, spending time reminiscing with her instead of helping with the organising. When Kyle disappeared, she initially believed he was with Phoebe, until Casey told her Kyle had turned Phoebe down and she found Phoebe with Chris. Her worries increased when she found Kyle’s car abandoned with the keys inside and Zac told her that Oscar and Evelyn were missing too. She managed to convince Zac and Casey to take her seriously and, with Hannah, they worked out the trio were being held in a shipping crate and rescued them.
She then had to put up with Phoebe accusing her of messing with Kyle’s head, after Kyle had rejected Phoebe’s advances. She comforted Kyle after Ricky had a miscarriage but felt unhappy that he didn’t want her to stay with him. Leah pointed out that she didn’t have any friends outside the Braxtons. She tried to stay out of their dramas but Phoebe still blamed her for Kyle’s behaviour so she decided to resign from Angelo’s. However, while working out her notice she covered for Kyle so he could spend the day with Phoebe. Kyle let her out of her last shift so she could join Roo, Marilyn, Maddy and Sasha for a girls’ night.
When Sasha decided to stand for school captain, Tamara volunteered to be her campaign manager. However, they clashed when Tamara was in favour of more integration with the Mangrove River students while Sasha wanted to keep them separate. Tamara tried to defend Sasha when Matt heckled her during her campaign launch but this resulted in Matt calling for Tamara to stand instead. After another argument with Sasha, Tamara announced she would campaign against her, prompting another argument in Angelo’s, and also warned Phoebe when she got back together with Kyle that she’d have to deal with all the Braxtons. She gave a heartfelt election speech, which prompted Sasha to endorse her captaincy, and was elected. She was shocked when Irene and Leah tried to set her up with Chris and made it clear to him she wasn’t interested.
She was frustrated when fellow captain Matt left her to do all the work. When Jett wanted to have a memorial for Gina, she convinced Kyle to do a concert to raise money and told him not to lose the energy he got from playing. When she learned the rest of the Braxtons had disappeared and left Kyle to run all the businesses, Tamara took charge of Angelo’s so he could concentrate on the gym and encouraged him to track down Phoebe. She narrowly avoided eating the poisoned risotto that Chris had prepared. She found Zac passed out drunk on the beach and took him home. When Kyle told her that Phoebe working at Angelo’s wasn’t working out, Tamara suggested he make things difficult for her so she quit.
She involved Matt in the launch of the writing competition remembering Gina but was standoffish towards Chris. When Darcy and Harley went missing, Chris insisted on being paired up with her in the search parties. Although she softened towards him slightly, she was quick to suggest they split up to explore the back roads but was run over. She was found by Alf and taken to hospital where she quickly recovered but couldn’t remember what happened. She was released and returned to school. When she saw Zac’s car, she had a flashback of it driving off after she was hit and fainted. She spoke to Zac, who admitted he’d got drunk and couldn’t remember how he got home, and he went to the police. When she started having headaches, Nate took her for a scan and discovered bleeding behind the optic nerve which could send her blind. She kept it quiet from Leah and everyone else but ended up confiding in Oscar. Nate booked her in for an emergency operation. Then Sasha told her that Oscar had been driving and she angrily confronted him, before admitting the truth of her condition to Leah and Matt. She phoned her parents and told them she wanted to come home. She said her goodbyes to Leah, Casey and Sasha and met with Zac and Oscar on the beach to clear the air, with him explaining he didn’t know he’d hit her, before leaving to have the operation and then rejoin her parents. Casey later reported that the operation had gone well.