When she won $250,000 on season three of the popular reality show in 2003, Tasmanians went crazy.

Cars were emblazoned with “Go Reggie” bumper stickers, a local bakery created biscuits decorated with Bird’s smiling face, and a huge crowd lined the streets of Hobart when Bird returned to her home state, for a parade akin to those usually reserved for Royal visits or medal-bearing Olympians.

One dedicated bunch of fans – 1000 of them – assembled on Hobart’s Regatta Ground, using their bodies to spell out the reality star’s name as a way to welcome her home as her flight detoured over Hobart.

Bird loved the attention and the chance to step away from the fish and chip shop fryers.

She moved to Sydney then Melbourne and landed her “dream job” as a Virgin Blue flight attendant. She made a TV pilot. She also appeared as a contestant on celebrity skating series Skating on Thin Ice. She had high hopes for her new life in the spotlight.

But it wasn’t all fun and games.

Bird’s first marriage, to Adrian Bird, ended.

She quit her flight attendant job after only six months saying at the time that the job “wasn’t what I expected … flying just didn’t suit my body and my health”. The TV pilot she made never went to air. She also got fleeced by a conman.

Things seemed to be on the rise when Bird found love and married her firefighter husband Dale Sorensen in 2007. The couple lived on Queensland’s Gold Coast and had two children together – daughter Mia, who was born a few months before the wedding, and son Lucas, who was born three years later.

But the fairytale was short-lived, as Bird was thrown a fresh set of challenges.

Around the time Mia was born, Bird discovered she was going blind after being diagnosed with rare and hereditary degenerative eye condition retinitis pigmentosa. When Mia was almost two, Bird underwent emergency surgery due to an ectopic pregnancy. Her son Lucas was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening genetic disorder which damages the lungs and digestive system. Then her marriage ended in 2012.

Bird and Sorensen share care of the children. Bird says being a single parent is made harder by the fact that she is legally blind – she has no night vision and no peripheral vision.

With such a long string of challenges thrown her way, some might expect Bird, now 48, would happily wind back the clock and erase her Big Brother experience, returning to her life serving fish and chips in Tasmania. But Bird confesses the opposite is true – she has nothing but praise for Big Brother and loved the 86 days she spent in the house in 2003 before being crowned as the winner.

Which is why she agreed to be a contestant on Big Brother Australia 2022, where 21 old and new housemates aged between 22 and 52 are coming together for a revamped season to mark Big Brother’s 21st birthday, spending up to 62 days locked away from the real world, in a house full of cameras and microphones, in a bid to win $250,000.

Bird has said many times in interviews over the years that she would love to appear on a Big Brother All Stars show.

And now it has finally happened, with Bird proud to be part of the “Big Brother royalty” – or “legendary contestants” as they’ve also been called – on the new season of the show now airing Monday to Thursday nights on Channel 7.

“It’s happened,” Bird says when we chat over the phone following her arrival in the Big Brother house.

“I’m so excited.

“This time around I wanted to do it for my kids (Mia, now 15, and Lucas, 12,) and show them that Mum can do anything.

“It’s also just the passion for Big Brother – I just love it so much. I’m just such a Big Brother fan. There was no way I could have said no, I would have regretted it.

“And I just wanted to go and have some fun again.”

Bird’s 2003 season of Big Brother was recorded live but the 2022 season has been prerecorded. However, the show’s contestants do not know the final outcome, with the final episode to be filmed live.

Contestants in the current season are also a lot more strategic and have to compete in a range of challenges, making it more like a game of Survivor. Housemates also have the ability to vote other housemates off the show, whereas in 2003 all results were based on public voting.

“It was exciting to go back into the house again,” Bird says.

“The house was huge compared to my house in 2003. I found it more luxurious. And it’s different, it’s definitely a lot harder now.”

While many of the newer, younger housemates have entered the house with the aim of bolstering their social media profiles, and seem to be taking a tactical approach to the game, Bird’s motivation is far simpler.

“I went in to just be me,” she says.

“After watching all the other housemates’ backstories I’m like ‘oh my god, they’re just so strategic, having all these plans,’.

“My plan, again, was just to go in and be myself and hope for the best. This may be a new game, but I’m still the same old Reggie.”

She hopes to teach her children – and the wider public – a valuable lesson in being authentic.

“Back then (in 2003) reality TV was so fresh, and now it’s all about social media,” she explains.

“People are out there to be influencers. I didn’t really think about it be honest, all that much, but once I got into the house I realised, a lot of (contestants) are right into Instagram and TikTok.

“I just want to spread the message to people to be yourself, that you can get places by being your authentic self, you don’t need to be fake.

“You get on Instagram and a lot of it is just not real. Social media is so brutal these days.

“But, I keep reminding Mia, you don’t need to be a certain way or look a certain way, just be yourself and love who you are.”

Bird also hopes to break down some stereotypes and show people that having a disability doesn’t have to stop you from taking on challenges and achieving goals.

“I want to show people that going blind doesn’t mean you have to sit at home and not have a life – you can still do things,” Bird says.

“It’s an awesome opportunity as well to raise awareness for low vision. We just need to get it out there and try and educate people.

“Prior to going into (the Big Brother house) I was watching the Paralympics and I thought ‘these guys are just so inspiring’.

“You can still get out there and you can do anything.”

Sadly in the social media era, Bird has already been trolled about her eyesight, with some nasty comments saying her blindness is fake. While such comments are disappointing, Bird says she will not let trolls get her down.

“I would give anything not to have this eye disease,” Bird says.

“It’s frustrating (to have to deal with trolls) but it’s more about awareness … I want to be the voice, educating these people.”

Bird has nine degrees of central vision which she likens to tunnel vision.

“It’s just pinhole vision, like looking through a straw,” she says.

“I can see a pen across the other side of the room, and I can trip over 100 elephants to get to that pen.”

She says entering the Big Brother house, with unfamiliar surroundings and unfamiliar housemates, was difficult at first.

“It was very daunting, very challenging,” she says.

“I had to keep reminding housemates not to leave things lying around for me to trip over. Things like ‘shut the cupboard doors’, and ‘don’t leave the dishwasher open for me to bang into’.

“I just had to keep reminding them. It took a while, but they were good … as good as they could be.”

Bird also hopes to use her profile to raise awareness about cystic fibrosis.

Lucas spent a lot of time in hospital when he was younger, but after starting a new drug two years ago he has had no hospital admissions and he has even started playing basketball.

Bird is clearly very proud of her children and says they are her main motivation for going on the show. She says they’re enjoying seeing a different side to their mum on TV.

“Growing up through the years they’ve always seen people come up to me who wanted to say hello,” says Bird, who still gets stopped regularly by fans when out in public.

“But they’ve never really understood; they’ve never realised how popular I was with the Australian public.

“But now that this is happening and seeing me on TV they’re really surprised, they say ‘oh my god, Mum, wow, you’re just so funny’.

“It’s really hit them. Mia says ‘Mum, I’ve got so many friends texting me now, they’re just loving you’.”

Bird, who grew up on the Tasman Peninsula – where her parents still live – also wants to make her Tassie family proud.

She usually returns to her home state every Christmas, but hasn’t been home for three years due to Covid. However, various family members have been to Queensland to visit her during that time.

“They’re very excited, I’ll make ‘em proud,” Bird enthuses.

“I hope to make all of Australia proud.”

She has been bombarded by texts, emails and social media messages since the show began airing earlier this month, both from family and friends and long-serving fans.

“Big Brother fans are a different breed … they’re just so loyal and dedicated,” Bird says.

“So many people have messaged me, saying ‘we’re from Tassie, and we’re back following you again’.

“There’s been lots of support from down there.”

She still struggles to believe that 19 years have passed since she became a darling of Australian television.

Bird says she is older and wiser this time around and she hopes that life experience serves her well.

She says she doesn’t regret anything about her choices following her 2003 Big Brother win, but if she could go back in time she would definitely make different financial decisions so her $250,000 lasted longer. She finds it hard renting, especially on a disability pension. And she recently received a call from her real estate agent, letting her know that the owner plans to sell the unit she lives in, so she may soon be looking for a new home.

“I’ve learnt a lot,” Bird says.

“I’m definitely not going to make the same mistakes on this journey.

“I’ve got good people around me to give me good advice. Before, I was just so naive, I had no idea.”

She’s already got a few projects on her wishlist for after the show finishes.

“For years, since I got out of the Big Brother house last time, I’ve been saying I’ve got to write a book and l still haven’t written a book, so I’ve got to do it,” Bird says. “I’m glad I procrastinated for 19 years, because I’ve got so much to tell.”

She’d also love to spend some more time on TV. “I’d love to do something fun,” she says. “I’d love to go on that Travel Guides show, where you get to travel around the country.

“Or do Gogglebox, I’d love to get on Gogglebox. And I love cooking, so anything to do with cooking.”

But, perhaps most interesting of all, Bird mentions that fish and chips could even feature in her future if she wins the show’s prizemoney.

“There’s a business for sale down near me, a fish and chip shop,” she says.

“It would be good to do that … it would be good to have jobs for the kids.”

I ask her if she’s serious – surely she wouldn’t return to the very occupation that she was so desperate to leave all those years ago?

But with her trademark chuckle, Bird says you just never know where life might take you.

“You’ve just got to enjoy this crazy journey,” she says.•