Remember Sara-Marie from the first season of Big Brother in 2001?
WATCH BELOW: Big Brother’s Sara-Marie Fedele chats to Rove McManus in 2001
With her infectious personality, bunny ears and bum dance craze that took over the country, Australia fell in love with Sara-Marie Fedele.
Though she was nominated for eviction six times, the then 22-year-old finished in third place in her season and was so popular that she had her own self-help book published, The Sara-Marie Guide To Life, released a song and also had her own line of pyjamas.
After appearing on Celebrity Big Brother and Dancing with the Stars and a hosting stint on Totally Wild, the reality TV star eventually faded into normality.
But, with Big Brother 2021 on the horizon and her season hitting its 20th anniversary this year, let’s take a look back and see where our beloved now 42-year-old Perth star has ended up in life. P.S. Her Big Brother fellow 2001 contestant Peter Timbs scrubbed up pretty alright.
In February 2018, Sara-Marie Fedele appeared as a guest on the Studio 10 panel and filled viewers in with what has been happening in her life for the past 17 years.
At the time, Sara-Marie revealed to the panel that she had started her own online business called Words on Rice, selling personalised grains of rice that she writes names or messages on. Tragically, we noticed that the Instagram page for the brand has been deleted, so there’s a chance she’s no longer running it.
The Big Brother breakout star also revealed on the Channel 10 show that she started doing the bum dance on Big Brother as a message to her sisters.
“There’s four girls in our family and we used to do that as a joke,” she explained.
“One sister would get out the bongo drums and I had the biggest bum so I’d move it around. I thought, ‘What could I send a sign to my sisters that I was happy?’ So that’s how that was created.”
And yes, she did do the bum dance on Studio 10.
But, while she gave a voice for plus-sized women in the 2000s, the former Big Brother star recently revealed last year that her iconic dance move led to a fight with her self-confidence.
“It was really hard for me to grasp because I was loved for being confident but then I had to learn a new confidence,” she revealed to Mamamia‘s Mia Freedman. “I had to stand on stage and talk in front of thousands and hundreds of people.”
“I’m a confident person in my own circle but that doesn’t mean I’m real good to get up on stage and tell everyone I love myself. I had to learn that as well which people don’t realise.
“Sometimes I felt like a performing seal when I did a book tour. I’d have to stand on stage and slap my arse. I felt like I became a character.”
Sara-Marie also appeared on the ABC’s You Can’t Ask That in July 2018 in an episode dedicated to former reality TV stars that saw her answer controversial questions about her time in the spotlight.
Despite success after the show, including a free boob job and an occasion where she earned $10,000 for a doughnut shop opening, the former reality star confessed she felt lonely in the period after Big Brother and the abuse she copped from members of the public.
“I was at a bar in Sydney and he said to me ‘If you weren’t on Big Brother you’d be nothing but a big fat f***ing heifer’ and I said ‘Excuse me?’ and he said it again really loud,” Sara said of a previous bad interaction.
Though she’s appeared on other reality shows since Big Brother, Sara-Marie told You Can’t Ask That that she wouldn’t turn down a chance to do I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! And, certainly, after former Bachelor contestant turned podcast host and I’m A Celebrity winner, Abbie Chatfield, proved, she has a fighting chance.
“The only reason for that one is I love eating competitions and so I’d want to be the hero that eats everything for the whole team,” she explained.
Sara-Marie also welcomed a daughter in April 2015, but when she turned 40 underwent a hysterectomy after suffering bad pains.
“I knew at the time I wasn’t having any more children,’ Sara-Marie told Mamamia, adding that she’d had endometriosis and cysts throughout her life but the hysterectomy “went terribly wrong.”
“They accidentally cut through my bladder so badly that I was in surgery for six hours having bladder surgery after my hysterectomy,” she revealed.
“Then I was in hospital for a week with a catheter and then I was at home for a week with a bag praying for my life that this is the only two weeks I have to have one,” she added.
Fortunately, Sara-Marie confirmed she’s since recovered and “blessed to be back to normal.” She’s currently living in Perth and studying to be a teacher’s aid for children with special needs.
“I haven’t been in hibernation, I just didn’t care to be known,” she added.” “I’m still the same person before, but a grown-up version. I did what I did and then I was happy to go.”
