As a model, reality star and influencer, Mia Fevola doesn’t often get the chance to switch off from the chaotic world. But the 26-year-old admits the best part of being in the I’m A Celebrity.. Get Me Out of Here! jungle was the “grounding experience” of going back to basics.
“I feel like I really have come back a different person – I know everyone says that and it’s such a cliche thing to say – but it’s just a different perspective on life that I really think I’ll carry with me forever,” Mia tells Woman’s Day.
“This experience made me want to live a more simplistic life. Honestly, I’ve never been so peaceful and so happy than when I was in the jungle.”
As a self-confessed introvert, Mia admits being stuck with a mixed bag of strangers for days on end could have been a disastrous move, but she’s grateful for such an “amazing” group of camp mates.
“You have so many different personalities in there and I’m definitely not the loudest person on the planet, [but] I found myself connecting with everyone in a different way,” she says.
“Nathan (Valvo) and Chet (Concetta Caristo), are two people I absolutely adore, I probably spent the most amount of time with them and Rachel [Hunter] as well, gave me such a different perspective on life.
“She’s so down-to-earth and grounded and spiritual and I really feel I learnt so much from her.”
Given all the attention surrounding her dad, former Carlton footballer Brendan, over the years, it’s not surprising that Mia found herself sharing some of her family’s past struggles with her jungle mates.
She says the conversation around her dad’s former gambling problem came up “organically” in the jungle, and she was happy to share her personal experience as a family member of an ex-addict.
“I promised myself that I was really going to be honest and authentic, and I think it was important to shed light on the effects on loved ones surrounding a gambling addict,” she says.
“It’s not something that’s often spoken about, and it’s something my dad has been very, very open about. And he’s really changed his life in so many ways and really owned up to his mistakes.”
Mia was only 10 when her dad’s football career came crashing down around him, and recounted how he “gambled $363, 000 in a day”. Though she says her mum, Alex, tried hard to shield her from all the negativity, she ultimately found out when she heard whispers at school about her dad’s antics.
“That was quite a common theme over my life – my parents were very good at protecting us kids from a lot of the drama in the media, and it was often through peers that I would figure out what was going on,” Mia says, though they’ve been open about discussing things as she’s grown older.
“There’s been lots of things that have come out about our family, we sit down, we discuss the details of what went down. I think my brain blocks a lot of it out as a defence mechanism – it doesn’t want to process or comprehend those difficult times.”
What she has processed is how far her former bad-boy dad, 45, has come in turning his life around.
“I’m so proud of my dad, he’s made his mistakes as everyone does and unfortunately they were publicised from a very young age for him, “ Mia says of Brendan’s scandalous past, which included an infamous 2006 affair with Lara Bingle, gambling away $1 million and struggling with depression to being sacked from AFL.
“For him to have overcome that and done the work within our family but also with the general public as well, he really changed the perception of him – he was a bit of a clown and people didn’t really take him too seriously.
“When he went on [I’m A Celebrity…], that really changed his life and everyone’s perception of him. They saw how much of a family man he is – who he is at home and how we know him.”
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