‘I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!’ contestant Paulini Curuenavuli has said she supports co-star Abbie Chatfield’s campaign to make her Australia’s next ‘Bachelorette’.
The 38-year-old singer said appearing on the dating show would “definitely be pushing me into areas” she’s not familiar with as she’s “quite reserved and shy”, but it could be an opportunity to help better represent multicultural Australia on TV.
“I’ve never watched it but if I was the first person of colour to be on there, then bring it on,” Paulini told HuffPost Australia.
“I would love that. It would just be fun, but like I said before, I’m quite reserved and shy so let’s just see.”
The former ‘Australian Idol’ contestant’s co-star Abbie, who placed second on ‘The Bachelor’ in 2019, recently called for Paulini to be the next ‘Bachelorette’ star.
“Beautiful inside and out, my campaign remains for Bachelorette 2021 pls @paulini_curuenavuli,” Abbie wrote on her Instagram story earlier this month.
Driving Scandal
During Monday night’s episode of ‘I’m A Celeb’, Paulini opened up more about her personal life, particularly shedding light on the time she pleaded guilty in September 2017 to bribing a government official to unlawfully obtain a driver’s licence.
The singer, who admitted to giving a Roads and Maritime Service (RMS) customer service staffer $850 for the licence, was given a six-month suspended sentence and had to show good behaviour till mid June 2018.
“I did something really silly. I bribed a government official... I bought a fake licence,” she told her campmates on Monday.
“I was on my Ls... And I just didn’t want to wait, so I bought a licence. It was soul breaking and spirit breaking because I was thinking about my family and how I made my family look, how I made myself look. I just made a really bad decision and I absolutely regret it. So I got a criminal record.”
Paulini said she “got a massive fine” and that her career subsequently took a hit.
“I lost work, like, that whole year after,” she said.
Racism Battle
The singer recently opened up about the racism she faced as a child, saying the experiences had her thinking she was “not good enough” in adulthood.
She admitted it wasn’t until she began “breaking down” a few years ago that she sought professional help to unpack the trauma of being “bullied so badly in primary school”.
“I’ve just started dealing with that stuff maybe two or three years ago. You don’t realise that it affects you, that it absolutely shatters your confidence,” Paulini told HuffPost Australia last week.
“Growing up I kind of always knew that there was something there [that wasn’t right] because your thoughts are very important and what set you up for everything.”
From a classmate spitting in her lunchbox at primary school to being called derogatory names or told she didn’t fit in, Paulini said those past experiences made her feel “self doubt” and that she “wasn’t worthy enough to be there” whenever she would walk on stage as a professional singer.
“I had that throughout most of my life until two or three years ago when I found myself breaking down, and it was like, ‘What is going on? There’s something that’s not right’,” she said.
“Growing up in a Christian family, going to see someone to talk to like a counsellor or psychiatrist, you just don’t do that,” she then explained.
The pop star tried writing songs about her experiences but eventually ignored the stigma around seeking professional help.
“It wasn’t until I actually started seeing a psychiatrist and a counsellor that I started dealing with stuff,” she said.
“Not a lot of people know that I did have to get professional help because I just wasn’t comfortable talking about it with my friends or my family. I needed to find that person who was totally different, who’d not known me at all and could help me get through it.”
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