Why Big Brother contestant Sara-Marie Fedele disappeared

Big Brother star Sara-Marie Fedele was a household name – then she disappeared from the public eye. Now, she’s revealing what happened.

Former Big Brother contestant Sara-Marie Fedele’s public reappearance this week is a reminder of the brief time, more than 20 years ago now, when she was one of the most famous faces on Australian television.

Fedele, now 44, appeared on the first season of Big Brother Australia back in 2001, placing third in the competition but becoming a breakout star thanks to her bunny ears, pyjamas and ‘bum dance’.

In the months after the season finished, she released her own single – a top 20 hit – a book of humour, and sleepwear line.

One of our OG reality TV stars.

After her eviction.

But while other Big Brother contestants – among them Chrissie Swan, Ryan Fitzgerald and Fedele’s season one housemate Blair McDonough – went on to lasting careers in media and entertainment, Fedele instead faded from the public eye and now lives a quiet life in her hometown of Bunbury, WA. She’d moved back home after 10 years spent living in Sydney.

Speaking to Hit’s Allan & Carly on Tuesday, Fedele explained part of the reason she’s seen so rarely nowadays is that she doesn’t have any social media accounts.

Sara-Marie was briefly very, very famous.

Now she lives a quiet life in her hometown of Bunbury.

“I’ve never had anything, ever. I have never had Facebook, I have never had Instagram … I am just really lazy. If I’m out with someone, I’d rather be with that person,” she said of her disdain for social media.

The hosts offered to set her up with an Instagram account, which she politely but firmly refused.

“I feel like I am very confident in front of small groups of people, and on Big Brother you had no idea how well known it was going to be,” she explained.

“There’s two sides to me: I know I look like a show off, I’m not. There is a shy side to me, of not wanting to do social media. I don’t judge anyone who has it, I’m just too lazy for it.”

Sara Marie Fedele and Blair McDonough recently reunited on the Gold Coast.

Fedele also revealed that she hasn’t kept in touch with any of her Big Brother housemates, noting that it’s hard to stay connected without social media.

Her recent Gold Coast reunion with McDonough – the pair met up to promote Jetstar’s Fly A Friend For Free holiday packages sale – was the first time they’d seen or spoken to each other since 2007. She revealed they phoned season one winner Ben Collins to say hello while they were together.

Fedele previously spoke about her decision to retreat from the public eye in a 2020 interview with MamaMia.

“I haven’t been in hibernation, I just didn’t care to be known,” she said.

“I’m still the same person before, but a grown-up version. I did what I did and then I was happy to go.”

In fact, Fedele revealed to Hit’s Allan & Carly that she came close to a big TV gig just a few years ago, sharing that she was enlisted to appear on the controversial 2021 series Big Brother VIP, the celebrity edition of the rebooted reality show.

“I signed up for that – well, they asked me to it and I agreed – and then a few weeks before it was due to start, they canned me,” she said with a laugh. She insisted she wasn’t too fussed: “I do things if they’re fun, rather than to stay in the media.”

Big Brother season two contestant Nathan Morris.

Meanwhile, another early Big Brother contestant has given some insight into just how big the show was in its heyday in a new interview with news.com.au.

Season two contestant Nathan Morris revealed that as he travelled the country on his post-Big Brother publicity rounds, fans of the show would regularly gain access to his hotel rooms.

“I had people rocking up to my hotel and asking for a key – and strangely enough, on a few occasions, the staff would give it to them,” Morris told news.com.au.

“I was on the Gold Coast, or in Sydney or Melbourne or Cairns – it happened at all these different places. I would go back to my room after doing a gig somewhere and there were strangers in my lounge room.”