After a wild season of twists and turns, betrayals, blindsides and drama, Big Brother Royalty Vs New Contenders crowned its winner tonight, and it’s none other than Reggie Bird.
Host Sonia Kruger announced the news to rapturous applause and cheers from the live audience, as Bird was embraced by her family and fellow housemates.
“Reggie!” Kruger said. “You’re the first housemate to win Big Brother twice! How are you feeling?!”
With tears in her eyes, Bird offered an emotional thank you to the Australian public.
“I can’t believe it, Sonia!” she said, her voice cracking. “Thank you! Thank you to everyone that voted for me, I hope I did you proud! Thank you so much, thank you!”
Reggie, aka Australia’s Sweetheart, is the very first two-time winner of the competition reality series, having first won the show (and our hearts!) way back in 2003.
We won’t lie, since then, Reggie’s had it pretty tough. She’s been through two divorces, got scammed out of a whopping $40k by a conman, and has had a slew of health problems.
Not only did Reggie have a stroke in 2017, she’s also lost the vast majority of her eyesight. With no peripheral or night vision at all, Reggie has just nine degrees of central pinhole vision left, due to a degenerative eye condition called retinitis pigmentosa.
While chatting with POPSUGAR Australia, Reggie said that although she’s been getting a lot of love and support from the fans of Big Brother Australia, she’s also been on the receiving end of quite a bit of hate.
“I’m getting trolled a lot online about my eye conditions, saying that I’m faking it and that I’m not blind,” Reggie shared. “People will say, ‘she’s just a con woman trying to fool everyone’, I’m coppin’ it!”
“There’s a lot of love but a lot of negative stuff out there, as well, which is like, I’m not faking it!” she exclaimed, adding: “I don’t know why someone would wanna kick someone down like that, when they do have a disability.”
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Tonight, all of her woes were cast aside, as she made history during the live finale as the first-ever two-time winner of Big Brother Australia, and of course, with the winning title comes the grand prize of $250,000.
Reggie plans to use the money wisely, and has it earmarked for “stability and security” for herself and her two children, daughter Mia, 15, and son Lucas, 12.
Chatting to The Latch before the finale, Reggie said she just wants “a roof over our heads for me and the kids”, and that the money will “help pay for Lucas’ medication” — Lucas was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis four weeks after he was born.
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As for her kids, they’ve been thrilled to watch their mum take on strategic threats and challenge beasts all season.
“Oh, they’re so proud, they’re so chuffed when they watch it, they get all excited and they just can’t wait to see what’s gonna happen, they just love the show,” Reggie said.
Congratulations, Reggie!
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