Sunday Telegraph’s Miranda Wood on interviewing Schapelle Corby
It is the interview all of Australia’s media had been chasing — the first sit-down with Schapelle Corby. The Sunday Telegraph’s Miranda Wood this week got the scoop, with the pair bonding over Cher lyrics.
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I’m sitting opposite Australia’s most famous drug smuggler when she mentions another woman known by just one name.
“What’s that Cher quote?” Schapelle Corby says. “It resonates with my life.”
Not knowing the answer, I say I can only think of her song lyrics.
Without missing a beat, Corby belts out: “If I could turn back time.”
She quickly returns to the point she was making, referencing the US star’s quote: “If grass can grow through cement, love can find you at every time in your life.”
Corby is describing how lucky she was to find boyfriend Ben Panangian during her time in Bali’s Kerobokan prison.
The 42-year-old agreed to be interviewed by The Sunday Telegraph this week to promote her revised autobiography, My Story.
It’s a big deal for Corby — she distrusts the media.
The same media who covered every detail of her case after she was arrested in Bali with marijuana in her boogie board bag, turning her into a household name.
Within minutes of meeting at a restaurant in Brisbane’s south, Corby is checking everything around her.
Paparazzi pictures and shots snapped by people on their mobile phones are just part of her life.
“Every person knows my face,” she says.
And it’s a face I can’t stop looking at. Right there, across the table, is a woman who hasn’t been out of the headlines for 15 years.
No wonder people, as she says, “stop, stare, whisper” when they see her.
Dressed in jeans, a pretty blue top and sneakers, Corby is perfectly groomed.
As we talk, she bounces from sweet-natured to no-nonsense but it’s clear notoriety has taken a toll.
“I’m constantly monitoring my brain and I think I’m going to have to do that my entire life,” she says.