Before Mia Fevola‘s identity was revealed on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here, she was teased as a “jungle princess”. It was a title that caused the fans of the show to scratch their heads with confusion. But as her identity was revealed, it all made sense.
As the daughter of former NRL player and 2016 I’m A Celeb winner, Brendan Fevola, Mia truly was a jungle princess. In fact, she’d even been to the set before to support her dad. So, as she prepared to don the red and khaki for the wildest experience of her life, her dad gave her a rundown of what to expect. Although, if you ask the 24-year-old, he didn’t say a lot.
“He didn’t give me much. He did warn me about the boredom being the most challenging part of it,” Mia told TV WEEK.
“The show looks so go-go-go as a viewer but the reality is you’re just sitting there for days on end, not leaving camp. It’s about passing time. It’s why you get so close with people so quickly because all you have is each other.
“But there’s nothing that can really prepare you for an experience like this.”
While Mia admitted she was a lot more fearful than her dad was going into the show, she feels really blessed that they now have a shared experience to bond over.
“For him, it was a bit of fun. It’s challenging but he doesn’t really have fears. Whereas for me, I was very scared going into the experience,” she admitted.
“I think the benefit of it was that there’s not that many people who can relate or understand what you’ve been through and I feel really lucky that my dad is one of those people that can. He was able to support me through it because he knew exactly what the experience was.”
Out of all the celebrities in the jungle this season, Mia’s fears were well and truly tested. And, from the very first episode when she was put in a challenge involving ice-cold water, she was expected to confront them head. Despite the challenge bringing up traumatic memories from a jet ski accident years prior, she says she never once considered saying the phrase “I’m a celebrity… get me out of here”.
” I really didn’t consider saying it,” she promises. “I knew it was probably going to be the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life and maybe ever will do. It’s not just about the challenges, it’s about the experience as a whole. It’s about having no contact with your support network, dealing with every thought and emotion that arises with no distractions, the hunger, the sleeping outside.
“There’s so many different elements to the experience and I knew it was going to be difficult, but I never wanted to leave. I wanted to give it 110 per cent and I think I did.”
With hours of downtime in camp, Mia formed beautiful relationships with her fellow campmates and now, she says they’re “trauma bonded” for life.
“This show has people from all different walks of life that typically wouldn’t ever cross paths but now I have such deep friendships with them all,” she explains.
“But Nath and Concetta are two people that I absolutely adore and will be friends with forever. They really made the experience what it was for me. There was so much love within the camp and I think so much of that stemmed from them.”
Finding connection in camp was what made Mia feel comfortable opening up about her charity R U OK and the online bullying she’s sadly received for years being present on the internet. Now, after sharing her story with Australia, she hopes that it encourages people to “choose kindness more often”.
“For so long I perceived social media as such a critical negative space, because that was all I ever really knew. I was always criticised, quite heavily on my character, on my body, on my looks. It was always quite negative, and I’ve been shocked with the amount of positive feedback I’ve received on I’m A Celeb,” Mia explains.
“It’s been an overwhelming amount of support that I really have never experienced before. I just hope people when someone might send a hate message, they probably don’t think that they’ll ever see it or think it’s harmless. But I don’t think they realise that when you’re the one the receiving them, it’s the volume and an overwhelming amount of negativity, and they’re contributing to that.”
After Mia recieved her phone after being eliminated, she saw a bunch of messages from her former trolls apologising for messages they’d sent her in the past.
“I’ve actually had lots of people say I misjudged you, or I’ve sent you a negative message or commented something about you, and I’m sorry,” Mia continued.
“That’s the goal — to make people realise that there’s a person behind the screen and I hope people reconsider before they say nasty things.”
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