I’M NO ANGEL
‘CASH MONEY’ BIKIE CLEANS UP FOR MUM
LESS than 10 years ago Chris Bloomfield was hoping to make it big in the National Rugby League.
He had helped his school to a national title and played about 20 games for the Gold Coast Titans under-20 team.
His next big score was becoming a bikie and sparking an NRL scandal by last year posting a Snapchat video while partying with the Gold Coast club’s star Jarryd Hayne.
For the first time, Bloomfield opens up about life as a gangster with the Hells Angels, the extortion charges that could land him in jail and
that night with Hayne, which he still doesn’t know what all the fuss was about.
The 25-year-old reveals desires to still become a professional footballer, his grief over letting down his biggest supporter – his mum Losa – and how her health scare last year forced him to turn his life around.
Out of the gang and studying a preparation to university course at Bond, with sights set on law, Bloomfield claims he’s changed and is sending a message to the doubters: “I was meant for more than just going to (expletive) jail”.
MUM, COURT AND JAIL
Bloomfield knows he’s put his mum through hell.
And not just because he used to be part of a bikie club with the word in its name.
“I hear kids say shit about jail, like it’s cool and I’m like ‘It’s not cool’. I mean you’re fine because you want to do that but what about your mum? My mum has suffered the most out of everyone,” Bloomfield says choking back tears.
“That’s what these kids don’t get. Like (expletive), they can do whatever they want but their families? Their girlfriends? I mean, the women are the people that suffer the most.
“Rocking up to court rooms, like, she’d (my mum) be there for every single mention.
“My mum did all of that because she loved me and not at one point did I ever turn around and go: ‘ Maybe I should just chill a bit, you know? Do something normal’.”
Bloomfield says it was his mother’s serious illness that shocked him into leaving the Hells Angels.
“Last year, in October, my mum had a heart attack,” Bloomfield says.
“I remember leaving my apartment and I got to my mum’s house and ... the next day I called Bond (University to look at study).
“My mum is always going to be proud of me but there comes a point in your life when you’re like: ‘ Dude, just because your mum is always going to be proud of you doesn’t mean you keep doing stupid shit’. You know what I mean?”
GROWING UP
Bloomfield grew up in Sydney’s western suburbs but moved to the Gold Coast in 2006.
“I’m a Mount Druitt boy, the ghetto,” he says.
He lived with a host family when he moved south of the Glitter Strip and became one of the many shining stars to come through Palm Beach Currumbin High School’s rugby league program that produced some of Queensland’s best Origin players.
As a teen, he was part of PBC’s national schoolboy side which won the national comp in 2008.
“That day is still the best day of my life. I still remember it like it was yesterday,” Bloomfield says.
“I think we were down 24-22 with 20 seconds to go ... we scored the winning try ... we’d worked so hard that year. I was in tears. (I’m) tearing up just talking about it.”
BOOTS AND ALL
Bloomfield went on to play about 20 games for the Titans in the U20s Toyota Cup before he underwent a knee reconstruction.
He later played rugby union at the Sunshine Coast before injuring his back.
“That’s when I just gave up,” Bloomfield says.
“After being injured I didn’t watch a game for, like, four years. I was so angry. Not at anyone, but I just didn’t like footy because I gave it up.”
But that’s all changed in recent months.
“I just have the urge to play footy again, I don’t know why,” Bloomfield says, with his arm in a sling after injuring himself again after being back on the field.
After playing his first game for the Bond Pirates about a fortnight ago, the backline player says he wouldn’t rule out trying to crack it in the big time.
“Last year I started watching footy,” Bloomfield says.
“The whole year I was just thinking about going to play again ... I want to give it a red hot crack, but if I do get anything I want it in my contract I can keep studying.”
THAT SNAPCHAT VIDEO
Chris Bloomfield has the words “Hells Angels” and the all-too-recognisable “1 per cent” symbol tattooed on his neck.
Several other club tattoos share space on his arms, alongside the name of his ex- girlfriend, who he remains close with, and a large tribal design running up his right bicep.
“The reason why I did what I did (joined the Hells Angels) was because I came from a sporting background my whole life and there was that camaraderie thing.
“When you get injured so many times as a young kid, you know, you get depressed and you’re going to lean into something that is much the same, like a team environment.
“But at the end of the day, there is nothing good to come out of it.”
And then there was the Snapchat video with Hayne.
“That thing wasn’t really any of our faults,” Bloomfield explains.
“I mean, I used to play with them. I used to play against a lot of those players and to him, and to me, and to those boys, it was merely like old mates catching up.
“To everyone else it was the Hells Angel hanging out with Jarryd Hayne.”
Bloomfield recalls being “so shocked” the morning he woke up after the night he spent flashing $5000 with the NRL’s biggest stars.
“My mum was just hounding my phone and I didn’t even know what was going on,” he says.
“I mean like the fault (that night) was not on anyone, it’s just, I don’t know what it was really.”
LEAVING THE GANG
Ask anyone in the know about these things and they will tell you leaving an outlaw motorcycle club on good terms is relatively rare.
However, Bloomfield claims leaving the Hells An- gels after several years as a drug debt enforcer was easier than many may think.
“It’s not hard at all to leave the club,” he says.
“There is a level of understanding there. I mean, a lot of people think it’s impossible but if you put your mind to what you want to do ... whatever happens after was going to happen anyway.
“Inside me, I feel, there are so many people still involved in clubs that really want to get out. Like, that are bright people that just feel like ‘This isn’t for me’ but feel like they can’t leave. You can leave anywhere. You can leave McDonald’s if you don’t want to (expletive) work at McDonald’s.
“The only thing now is I have to get rid of my tattoos. The laser treatment is the worst pain. That’s probably the most hurt I’m going to get,
getting rid of them, but in the same breath I don’t want them on my body because I’m no longer part of it.”
TOMORROW’S GANGSTERS
Bloomfield says he wants to use his experience with the Hells Angels for good to prevent troubled youth turning to gangs. “I go to sleep at night thinking about how to help the younger generation, the troubled youth.
“It’s the troubled youngsters that are really lost. I could sit back and say I regret it (joining the club) but I feel like I needed to go through that to learn that particular lesson. I want to give these kids options.”
EXTORTION CHARGES
Bloomfield, like many students, lives off Austudy.
He earns about $330 a week and most of that goes toward his rent. What’s different about him compared to many other students studying at one of the country’s most elite universities is that he is preparing to fight extortion charges in court.
Bloomfield was charged more than three years ago after allegations he, with two other Hells Angels members, bashed a man over a $20,000 drug debt, threatened to kill his family and took his BMW.
“They’ve got me on a really strict program at Bond. Like, they’ve got their eye on me, which I can understand,” Bloomfield says.
“Depending upon how things go with the trial, even if anything happens and I end up going to jail, I still want to come out and study. I have everything in place to withdraw so I can continue when I get out.”
JAIL IN THE FAMILY
Jail is not a foreign concept for Bloomfield, having spent time on remand and two of his nine siblings are behind bars.
“My brother is in jail, my sister is in jail. We had nothing as kids. We’d go to school with like, buttered bread. It’s affected my family, not having much, in different ways,” he says.
“(When I was on remand) I knew at that point ... it just didn’t feel like me. Like I’m not that type of person. I just felt like I was meant for more than just going to (expletive) jail, you know?”
KIDS AND WHITE PICKET FENCE
Bloomfield has big plans.
He says the haters who don’t believe he’ll achieve them will be eating their words. As well as hoping to begin a law degree in Septem- ber, he says he’s starring in a film set to be made on the Gold Coast or the Middle East at the end of 2017.
“People at uni tell me ‘Good on you for doing what you’re doing’,” he says.
“Even the (police) sergeant at Robina, where I report (on bail) said: ‘Listen, I’m still sceptical about you but if it is really what you’re doing, good on you’.”
He has dreams that are simple too, like starting a family and owning a home.
“I just want to have four kids, a house with a fireplace and a white picket fence and a dog called Red. I can’t wait until the day I hold my own child. That shit is going to be remarkable,” he says.
“I don’t have time for girls with uni ... but if I could find a woman that is just like my mum ... that would honestly be the greatest thing.”