Schapelle Corby’s first interview
Schapelle Corby spent nine years in a Bali jail. Ninemonths after coming home, she opens up about life on the outside
I’m just happy to be alive!
Spending nine years locked up in Bali’s rat-infested Kerobokan Prison is likely to change a woman, admits Schapelle Corby. But in her first interview since her release, she’s understandably cagey about reminiscing on her hellish time behind bars.
Speaking to Woman’sDay, she instead bounces around her favourite topics right now, talking about juice cleanses, her newly adopted dog Lucille and how she enjoys long tanning sessions by the pool.
But every so often, Schapelle drops a few breadcrumb clues of how life changed forever when she was found guilty of smuggling drugs in 2005.
“At the moment, my mum’s address is pretty well known,” the Queenslander reveals. “And taxis – if we give the address, they say, ‘That’s the Corby address – that’s the Corby street!’ Everyone knows it, but if I moved, it wouldn’t change. It doesn’t matter where I lived – it would become known. I’ll never be free like that.”
Schapelle was an unknown 27-year-old brunette from Australia’s Gold Coast when she was found with four kilos of cannabis in her boogie-board bag at Denpasar’s Ngurah Rai Airport in October 2004.
Her arrest sparked international interest, partly because the Aussie, with her striking blue eyes, was an attractive young woman with her whole life ahead of her, but also because of her furious denials that she had smuggled the drugs.
Family’s shock
When the case went to court a year later, in 2005, Schapelle’s representatives and family thought she would be found not guilty, trusting the judge would believe she’d been set up by airport staff, an account the Corby family has always maintained.
But at the end of the trial, she was instead sentenced to 20 years in prison and was later told she escaped the death sentence only because of her young age. Naturally, it deeply affected her.
“I don’t like too much contact any more,” Schapelle explains. “I don’t hug. It’s too much body contact. What I’ve gone through, I’ve changed in that sense.”
Yet even after the verdict was delivered and she was behind bars, Schapelle evoked serious emotion from those looking in at the case. There were name-calling trolls, of course, but also there was an incredible and unwavering support as strangers around the world, and especially in Australia and New Zealand, continued to proclaim her innocence.
“I’m not into drugs,” she says now. “When I see comments saying ‘Druggo’, it’s upsetting because I don’t use drugs. I don’t smoke marijuana.”
There are still around 100 active groups on Facebook dedicated to the injustice of Schapelle’s case. “People drive past all the time and yell my name,” she tells, adding, “I don’t feel like a celebrity at all because I’m not.”
Public support buoyed Schapelle’s spirits while she was in prison, but in January 2008, she hit rock bottom after her beloved dad Mick – who was publicly accused of being behind her alleged drug run – died of bowel cancer.
Her mental health began to deteriorate and she was soon suffering psychotic episodes, requiring medication from the in-jail psychologist. Even today, Schapelle is still
I’m happy to be alive and to be able to experience it with love’ the people I
haunted by the fact that she didn’t get to properly say goodbye to her father.
“I miss my dad. I feel closest to him when I’m with Lucille,” she says of the scruffy lapdog she recently adopted. “He wasn’t a dog lover – he was an everything lover. I miss him so much and when I’m with Lucille, I feel love.”
In May last year, after 13 years of hell, Schapelle was finally allowed home, returning to her family abode in Logan, just south of Brisbane, where she hoped freedom was finally on the cards.
“I want to live my life, not be paranoid about it,” she says of her return. “I’ve been paranoid before and it’s not nice. When I get paranoid, I get worried about my mind and worry it’s starting again. I remember I was feeling like that before I started to get ill. I have to change what I’m doing to not get back into that place.”
In the months since her release, Schapelle still hasn’t been able to enjoy total freedom as she’s recognised everywhere she goes. “I’ll never be left alone,” the former beautician says. “I always will be who I am.”
While Schapelle, who turned 40 last July, admits the constant attention is tough, she is still grateful to be back on home soil. And she’s focused on her future and rebuilding her life.
“I’m already 40, but I’m just so happy to be alive,” she says. “I’m happy for life. I like smiling and giving people the time of day. I’m not stuck up. I’m happy.”
After leaving Bali, she set up an Instagram account and unsurprisingly, it blew up, with followers desperate to see how her second chance at life would unfold.
“Initially, I joined Instagram on the plane home so I could show people what’s actually going on,” she tells. “I was so amazed. I thought, ‘Oh, maybe 5000 people would like to see that.’ And when I landed in Australia, there were 99,000 followers. Then the next morning, there were 198,000! I thought, ‘What? Wow!’”
But Schapelle’s intentions were never to cement herself as a social-media star, even if her posts now attract 13,000 likes.
She insists, “It’s not about having a voice – it’s just about taking control for myself. I couldn’t go out of my house for three weeks before leaving Bali because my street was full of media. I couldn’t even sit on my patio because they had cameras over the fence, so I said, ‘I’m going to open an Instagram account and I’m going to film my own stuff.’”
These days, her account is filled with snaps from her new life, including days at the beach, her new pooch Lucille and nights out with her sister Mercedes, who has been by her side throughout.
“I just live day by day,” she explains. “I read. I’m working on some little projects. My mum has a swimming pool and I don’t really work, so I make sure I get outside ... No excuse not to get some vitamin D.”
But it’s the sea she credits for breathing a fresh lease of life into her.
“The ocean is freeing,” she explains. “The ocean is quiet and cleansing. I’ve spent hours bawling, crying inside the ocean, cleansing my soul. It’s beautiful.
“I’m happy to live where I live, have the family that I have, and be alive and be able to experience it with people I love.”
Bad break
Just two months after her return to Oz, Schapelle suffered a setback, breaking her leg, ankle and knee, and the injury has only recently healed. Nevertheless, she recently got her driver’s licence back, which she says is her first taste of true independence.
As for bonding with her old pre-prison friends, she says, “I’ve been so slack with that, my friends from school and everything, mostly because I broke my leg. I’ve had three operations on it, so that’s taken up six months of my time just to recover.”
Her health is now her number-one priority and she laughs off rumours that her fresh-faced look is the result of fillers or Botox.
“No, no fillers, no Botox,”
she grins. “It’s called Snapchat and Instagram filters. I look at a photo of me and think, ‘Gee, that’s ugly,’ and then I put a filter on it.”
Instead, she credits her healthy look to a strict morning routine, drinking apple cider vinegar and water to get her metabolism going, and following a red meat-free diet. But she adds, “I don’t think I’m beautiful.”
When you’ve been to hell and back, perhaps being goodlooking is low on the list of what’s important. Instead, Schapelle says her focus is on recovering from the last 14 years.
“I have dreams, but I don’t have long-term goals,” she confesses. “I have no idea what I’ll be doing in five years. I just need to concentrate on recovering, being with Mum and living life again.”