Arabella Del Busso: Ex-girlfriend of Wests Tigers’ Josh Reynolds was ‘girl next door’ Donna Preueska

As a teenager Donna Preueska, aka Josh Reynolds’ ex-girlfriend Arabella Del Busso, was pretty and confident even though she wore braces. This is the story of how she changed her look and name while breaking hearts along the way.

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Donna Preueska was once just the girl next door who dreamed of becoming a sporting masseuse.

Friends and footballers now know her as the buxom brunette – named Arabella Del Busso – who teeters around in vertiginous heels and designer threads and who, until recently, dated NRL star Wests Tigers’ Josh Reynolds.

Yet, 13 years ago, a throwback snap of the teenager as an AFL intern reveals an awkward looking young woman, meticulously groomed, making her foray into the world of sport.

Donna Preueska wore braces as a teenager in 2007.

Arabella Del Busso. Picture: Supplied

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The photograph of the 17-year-old Traralgon College graduate, whom Reynolds is charged with assaulting and who has faced claims from Reynolds’ defence team she faked pregnancies and cancer, shows her complete with braces, a Lonsdale top, tousled hair and carefully-applied make up.

In an article in the Churchill and District News 2008 she talks of her ambitions to work in sport or to become a masseuse.

But just months later, it is alleged, she feigned brain cancer and seizures to con then boyfriend Brendan Van Slageren and their friends out of almost $10,000 to pay for surgery on the incurable disease she claimed had given her just 18 months to live.

Wests Tigers NRL player Josh Reynolds leaves Sutherland Local Court earlier this month. Picture: AAP

Ms Preueska has never been charged with any criminal offence.

“People put their hands in their pockets when she would cry about the cancer, friends, me, and friends of friends, we were all shocked when she said she said she only had 18 months,” Mr Van Slageren, 34, said.

“She told me in a text message that she had been diagnosed with a brain tumour, she said she only had a 50-50 per cent chance of survival if it was operated on, she wanted to split up, she said, because her hair would fall out with chemo and she didn’t want me to see her like that.

“I told her I’d stand by her, we’d get through it together but the lies came in thick and fast, things started not to add up. One day she turned up with bruises and said her flatmate attacked her. It was all lies.”

Mr Van Slageren said people raised a lot of money for her after she put out Facebook request for donations to help pay for surgery.

“She even had a massive seizure on the floor of my lounge, I remember thinking they looked fake but I didn’t dare believe they were,” he said. “She never had cancer … I feel so dumb, I can’t believe I fell for it.”

Reynolds with Del Busso before their break-up. Picture: Facebook

Reynolds’ former partner, who has posed scantily-clad under the alias Arabella Del Busso in Maxim magazine, has a history of deception and has accused former boyfriend Reynolds of assault.

He maintains he was the subject of a calculated plot by his ex who faked multiple pregnancies and even lied about suffering from cancer — claims she vehemently rejects.

Reynolds’ defence also claims she digitally manipulated images to give the illusion she was pregnant.

A witness has also provided a statement to Reynolds’ legal team alleging Ms Preueska, a former receptionist at a Melbourne IVF clinic, asked them to help her inject fertility drugs to bloat her stomach so she appeared pregnant.

The couple in a social media post announcing twins.

The Telegraph revealed last week she manipulated $10,000 from former lover Michael Hayes by faking four funerals — including her mother’s — and feigning poverty for loans she never repaid.

Mr Hayes, a 36-year-old father from Sanctuary Cove in Queensland, successfully sued Ms Del Busso for fraud and obtaining money by deception and was awarded $7866 via a Queensland tribunal in 2019.

Father-of-two Mr Van Slageren says he regrets falling for Ms Preueska when she was a trainee at AFL Sports Ready at Kurmai Precinct Campus.

“We dated for four months but after that I didn’t trust women and didn’t seriously date for seven years,” he said. “It’s amazing what a good-looking girl can get away with. I actually feel sorry for her.” Ms Preueska was contacted for comment.

Originally published as Arabella Del Busso: Ex-girlfriend of Wests Tigers’ Josh Reynolds was ‘girl next door’ Donna Preueska