Fiona O’Loughlin reveals booze battle while on reality TV
With millions of Australians watching her every move, Fiona O’Loughlin managed to keep her very public relapse a private affair. The comedian fell off the wagon while competing on the reality show I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!
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With millions of Australians watching her every move, Fiona O’Loughlin managed to keep her very public relapse a private affair.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal the comedian — who has battled alcoholism for many years — fell off the wagon while competing on the reality show I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!
There was no booze available so O’Loughlin took the dramatic step of drinking hand sanitiser in the South African jungle camp where cameras monitored contestants 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“I dropped my bundle emotionally but that is not the reason I did it,” O’Loughlin said.
“My mind started playing games with me. It felt so real, and it is so nonsensical now, but I felt that I was the schmuck and everyone in Australia was laughing at me and that was why I was so close to winning. I didn’t know what was being edited and what was out there.”
O’Loughlin, 57, won the series in 2018, ahead of runner-up Shannon Noll and Danny Green in third place.
Her spiral pushed her over the edge when close friend in the jungle, fellow comedian Peter Rowsthorn, exited in the sixth and final week.
The ordeal will be detailed in her explosive autobiography, Truths From An Unreliable Witness – Finding Darkness In the Darkest Of Places, that is released next month.
“All of these deathly awful secrets that I have got are in the book, I feared them coming out of the jungle and if anyone went looking for dirt on me, there was too much,” she said.
“I think it was probably reckless of me (to do the show). That is the problem with addicts, we think we do but we don’t have our own best interests at heart.”
O’Loughlin has been sober now for almost a year. Her last relapse was while shooting Channel 7 TV special, The All New Monty: Guys & Gals.
In the jungle, she recalled a fellow patient from a previous stint in rehab had drunk hand sanitiser, which was freely available to contestants on the show.
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“I freaked and planned to do it,” she said. “In the middle of the night I just f**king did it. I waited until everyone was asleep and I drank hand sanitiser. It was disappointing because it kind of gives you … first the taste is so vile, it takes so long to get the taste out of your mouth, and then I think you get about 10 minutes of numbness, which is what I was after and then you sleep. I wish I could say it only happened once but that would not be the truth.”
Producers worked out what was going on a few days short of O’Loughlin being crowned winner – securing $100,000 for her chosen charity, Angel Flight – as she started slurring her speech and stumbling around camp.
Instead of removing her from the jungle, it was decided to treat her in the medical hut so she was able to function through the final days.
“If they’d pulled me out of the jungle and I’d had to explain why, I don’t know that I was well enough at that point,” she said.
“That would have retreated me to going back to round the clock drinking. The shame of that would have been very dangerous.”
O’Loughlin has shared her story in the hope it will help others suffering with similar issues.
“There is no point painting a picture if you are not going to paint the whole picture,” she said. “That is how far it took me, how desperate I became. It is a mental disease. When you are in active addiction, it is the most desperate place to be to pull yourself out of.”
The mother of five and grandmother of one has been open about her alcoholism throughout her career.
Prior to entering the jungle, she said she used to hide small bottles of vodka in her bra and cut a hole in the lining of her handbag to hide booze.
“It is a deadly serious disease. Most alcoholics drink it out … never get better. The statistics are one out of 10 get sober,” she said at the time. “I have an alcoholic mind, I will always have an alcoholic mind. And that alcoholic mind will at times tell me that it is a good idea to have a drink. It is a cunning, powerful and baffling disease. What I do every single day is just not have that first drink. You can’t get drunk if you don’t have the first drink.”
As for the future, O’Loughlin is feeling positive and is looking forward to marking one year sober in the coming weeks.
“I’m so excited by my future even though I’m unsure what all of it will look like,” she said. “All I hope for really is to live in the peace that I have already found. As soon as the world heals from Covid my suitcase is on stand by to hit the festival circuits again both in Australia and internationally. None of how the rest of how my life plays out personally or professionally for the rest of my days really matters nor is in my control. I was given the gift of being able to connect with people and it comes very easy to me now. Now that I understand that we all have one thing or more to be endured in life we also all have our own particular original talents and skills to add to the world and give us all purpose. I am so glad to have survived all my nonsense, for want of a better word, because when I exchanged it all for sobriety, what I will have forever more because of it all.”