'KEEPING MY MARRIAGE STRONG'

JACKIE GILLIES REVEALS THE SECRET TO KEEPING THE SPARK ALIVE WITH BEN

- Kylie Walters

Choosing to temporarily leave behind her two-year-old twins, Bonham and Rocco, in the capable and loving hands of their grandparents to head off on the adventure of a lifetime wasn’t an easy decision for Jackie Gillies. But in the end, it was her rocker husband Ben who convinced the psychic and The Real Housewives of Melbourne star that the pair needed to sign up for the 2023 celebrity edition of Ten’s The Amazing Race Australia.

“Reality TV isn’t really Ben’s thing, he only went on Housewives to support me,” Jackie tells WHO. “But when this opportunity came up, he said, ‘These are the amazing experiences that people chase and no-one gets to do this.’ So we had to do it.”

Jackie and Ben, both 43, met as teenagers living in Newcastle before reconnecting in 2010 after running into each other at a party, and were headed down the aisle just months later. They welcomed their twins in October 2021 after several rounds of IVF. So it didn’t matter how intense things got on the show, high pressure situations seem to bring the pair closer.