Idol comment that cut Paulini

Jungle stint helps star come to terms with body-image battle

IT has taken nearly two decades in the public eye for Paulini Curuenavuli to learn to love herself.

Plagued by insecurities and selfdoubt since rising to fame as a contestant on the first season of Australian Idol in 2003, it has been a long journey for the now 38-yearold.

“I always thought that I needed to be a certain way, to walk and look a certain way,” she said.

“Obviously looking a certain way, looking thinner, having straight hair and trying to fit into the mould of what people think you are supposed to look like, those are things I’ve struggled with my whole career.”

Three weeks in the Australian “jungle” on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! provided Curuenavuli the time and space she needed to get to this point.

Talking to fellow contestants including Grant Denyer and Toni Pearen helped.

Curuenavuli’s body has been the subject of much commentary since Idol, when judge Ian “Dicko” Dickson questioned her choice of a figure-hugging gold dress in a performance.

At the time, he said: “This is really hard for me to say, but it’s the real world, you should choose more appropriate clothes or shed some pounds. I’m sorry.”

He has since apologised but those words stayed with Curuenavuli for many years.

“It was always implied,” she said. “Things you see on TV, everything around you says that you have to look a certain way and if you don’t look like that, then you are not quite right. Now I finally realise that me being natural and me being who I am is the best thing ever.”

Curuenavuli’s weight issues were most evident. She would eat just breakfast and starve herself the rest of the day, with the exception of “a couple of lettuce leaves”.

“When touring with the Young Divas, I was hardly eating and working out like crazy,” she said. “I may have been between a size eight and 10. I was so unhappy.”

This week on the reality show, Curuenavuli spoke for the first time about another issue that has hung over her head for the past few years.

On Monday she addressed the “really silly” decision she made to bribe a NSW government official in 2017.

She was given a six-month suspended sentence for unlawfully obtaining a driver’s licence after pleading guilty to the offence 14 months after she paid a Roads and Maritime Service customer service worker $850 for an unrestricted NSW licence.

“It was just such a shameful thing. I absolutely regret it,” she said.

I WAS HARDLY EATING AND WORKING OUT LIKE CRAZY. I MAY HAVE BEEN BETWEEN A SIZE EIGHT AND 10. I WAS SO UNHAPPY