SKYE LECKIE ‘I WAS STRIPPED BARE’
THE CHARITY QUEEN TALKS BEGGING FOR MONEY ON FILTHY RICH AND HOMELESS
Sydney socialite and charity fundraising queen Skye Leckie was originally slated to go on The Real Housewives Of Sydney, but she admits that it wasn’t really her thing. Instead, the former PR guru swapped her high heels and charity parties for sleeping on the streets of Sydney in the second season of Filthy Rich And Homeless. Skye describes herself as someone who likes to be in charge of her life, so waking up on the street with no plan apart from searching for food was an emotional experience for her. ‘I felt like I was stripped bare,’ she tells New Idea. ‘I lost my freedom... I need to be in control and that was completely taken from me on day one.’ The compelling series sees Skye and fellow celebrities Cameron Daddo, Alli Simpson, Alex Greenwich and Ben Law swap their privileged lifestyles for 10 days of living on the streets in Sydney’s suburbs. ‘I’ve done a lot of fundraising in my life, but my primary causes were with children for the children’s hospital. So, homelessness wasn’t something that had crossed my path,’ Skye says. ‘I was keen to see it first hand so I could understand it, because I had no concept of how huge the problem was.’
For Skye, the experience was overwhelming – especially when all her possessions were taken from her and all she was given to survive were secondhand clothes and a sleeping bag.
‘I’m short-sighted and they took my glasses away,’ she says. ‘They’re not creature comforts, they are necessities!’
But one thing Skye was surprised to discover – she didn’t miss her phone at all.
‘Normally, if it’s not in our back pocket, we go into meltdown. But it didn’t worry me that I didn’t have it.’
Skye had more important things to worry about, like how she could afford to eat.
‘To have to go and beg for money, I thought, how am I going to do this?’ she shares. ‘And then when people look straight through you, it’s not a great feeling.’
The glamorous mum admits that her two sons, Harry and Ben, were shocked that she went through with it, but Skye doesn’t regret the experience one bit.
‘I know that it was only 10 days and that I came out the other end, but the experience will remain with me,’ she says. ‘If I can do anything [to help], I will, because I met some extraordinary people and learnt that the human spirit is an extraordinary thing.’