How My Kids Helped Me Through This Week From Hell

The heartbroken star cuddled her children after the cause dearest to her heart came under fire.

Carrie Bickmore admits she was “absolutely gutted” last week when the charity she set up in tribute to her late husband became embroiled in controversy, forcing the bighearted mum-of-two to defend herself against a tirade of abuse.

Fighting back tears on air, The Project co-host, 36, was forced to deal with heartbreaking criticism after launching this year’s Carrie’s Beanies 4 Brain Cancer campaign to raise money for research into the deadly disease that robbed her son, Ollie, nine, of his dad.

Carrie’s first husband, Greg Lange, died in 2010, just two days after Christmas, following a long battle with brain cancer, and for anyone to even suggest she had done something “sneaky” or “underhanded” in her tireless mission to save others from the same tragedy cut her to the core.

The star was on the verge of an emotional breakdown at the suggestion she had deliberately damaged another charity’s big day to promote the cause she has devoted to Greg, for whom she says her “awful sense of loss never entirely goes away”.