She was a champion ironwoman who married Australia’s most divisive cricketer, now branded a cheat. Candice Warner tells Lizzie Wilson about past mistakes and how, just when she thought she’d hit rock bottom, life sent another blow.
Stripped bare, broken, humiliated, Candice Warner stares at the big screen and doubts there could be a more gut-wrenchingly low point in her life. It was March 10, and before a sell-out crowd of 19,000 and a global TV audience of millions, the former ironwoman champion and wife of Australian cricketer Dave Warner felt her knees buckle, terrified she might collapse.
Live coverage from day one of the second Test between Australia and South Africa in Port Elizabeth had shifted its focus to a rowdy bunch of fans wearing masks of New Zealand rugby legend, Sonny Bill Williams. For the heartless pranksters, it was just a cheap shot, a bit of fun. Normally resilient, the mum-of-two didn’t see the funny side. Candice describes the moment when she crumbled, crushed by their cruel attempt to publicly disgrace her for that infamous bathroom encounter with Williams back in 2007. “I felt like a dirty, horrible person – it was like I cracked in half. It was a deliberate and very personal attack and I felt so ashamed of my past. People were staring and pointing at me, but I had to put on a brave face for our girls.
“I was completely exposed. I’d become an unwanted distraction. I saw myself on the big screen, the victim of a sick prank, and without notice, rock bottom hit me like a brick. Nothing could have prepared me for what was about to happen.”
In this exclusive and often intimate interview, Candice, 33, speaks openly about the moment she learnt of the infamous ball-tampering incident, about what really went on behind the scenes, and for the first time, she reveals her heartbreaking news: that the Warners suffered a tragic miscarriage in the aftermath of cricket’s cheating scandal.
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