Life Uncut - UNCUT with Camilla Franks - Surviving breast cancer, building an empire and living with authenticity

Episode Date: June 22, 2021

Happy Tuesday Lifers! We’re coming to you cross continentally! Woohoo!Britt is here on the pod, but not here in Aus! She has touched down in Spain with to be with her lover.Today, we have a guest that you might recognise, but chances are you haven’t heard her whole story. Camilla Franks is undoubtably the kaftan queen, who started her own business that is now recognisable all over the world, but she is oh so much more than ‘just’ an artist! Camilla Franks’ story has enough components to fill multiple movie plot lines!We were lucky to sit down with her and discuss:·      The makings of her business and what it takes to ‘make it’ in the fashion world·      Her health journey; from dark depression and bells palsy to being diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer when her daughter was just 8 weeks old·      Her double mastectomy, recent struggles with IVF, and the gene mutation that led to a hysterectomy·      Her recent experience on Celebrity Apprentice·      The controversy of Australian Fashion week closing show·      Her love story that is extraordinary and unusual; just like CAMILLA! We kick things off with Britt telling us the truth behind some lovely daily mail articles written about her and the paparazzi/police debacle at the airport, plus we find out how her reunion with Jordan went! You know the drill! Tell your mum, your dad, your dog and your friends and share the love, because well, we love love!Oh and chuck us a review if you’ve got a sec!ex oh ex ohSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura and I'm Brittany and I am coming to you from Spain. this is the third time we have tried to record this now guys doing a podcast from different continents is no easy feat we have already had three different wi-fi issues and then britney's fucking electricity literally we were just like almost finished the record and the electricity went out which means the whole thing is lost yeah so here we are and i've stolen jordan's phone jordan had to go play tennis i was like i need to use your international roaming to make this Skype call. And now I can see all the Spanish girlfriends he's been messaging.

I'm joking. He has not messaged any, but also we did tell you guys that nothing would stand in the way, not Brittany traveling like thousands and thousands of kilometers away, not daily mail, nothing would stand in the way of us bringing you this podcast. So this is us, you know, trials and tribulations. And here we are. And boy, the daily mail have been trying, haven't they? Okay. We're going to get into that in a second. I want to hear like what it was like seeing Jordan for the first time? Well, I was actually so nervous and I don't know why, because I'm not a nervous person, but I think there was this part of me that was like, at this stage, we'd been together for the same amount of time as we'd been apart. That's what I'd worked at. It was about

like three and a half months together, three and a half months apart. So at this point I was a bit like, what if it's not the same? What if it's changed? What if he doesn't like me anymore? What if I don't like him anymore? Even though we've Skyped every single day and we're obsessed with each other, I think that those feelings were normal. But when I saw him, I was waiting for him in a lobby and I text him and I was like hey I'm here like come down the lobby of this hotel was huge and I saw him walking across the floor to me and I was like so excited standing there and he was just blank like a blank like a blank sloth and I was like oh he's not even like I was like he's not even smiling and I was like it's COVID precautions I can't run up and jump on him there's

all these tennis people around so I was like play it cool don't embarrass him and he was just blank and I was like fuck I have made a grave error he's not even excited to see me but turns out the sun was in his eyes and he couldn't see my face it was just like a glare but no it's been really great and it was like literally like a day had gone past it was like there's been no time between us but also to be fair you have changed your hair color like four times since you guys met so he was like is that her is that her is she standing behind that guy he's like that is not the girl I left behind but guys before we get into I mean there's a few things that we need to unpack now the Brits on the other side of the world. But before we do, we should tell you what this episode

is about. We have interviewed, and it is such a good interview. I'm so excited about it. We have interviewed Camilla Franks from Camilla, the brand. Camilla is honestly as vibrant and eccentric. There is so much to her and to this interview. She's exactly what you would expect from somebody who owns the brand Camilla. But there's also a whole other side to this interview as well. recently she has had a double mastectomy and also a hysterectomy and she is incredibly real and vulnerable talking about that talking about her experience becoming a mum and also for anybody who is triggered by conversations around suicide ideolation I just want to put this out there as a bit of a warning she does talk about some darker times in her life too so it's a really beautiful

and powerful interview and I'm so excited to get into that but before we do Britt tell us about your trip also tell us about your altercation with Daily Mail and Eddie Harden how you abused some people at the airport oh my god like Laura just said something to me and it's so true I'm gonna repeat it she's like there are four sides to a story there's the truth there's your side there's their side and there's the Daily Mail side and that is so accurate the Daily Mail do you know what they've never really done me dirty to this extent like sometimes I write some things that are questionable but really I've always thought that was sort of on my team a little bit I mean, it's different for you.

Well, the Daily Mail still think that I feed my kid dog food and, you know, that my partner masturbates whenever I have dinner parties. So they've never really been on my side, let's be real. Well, this is the first time they've written an article about me that they have known is 100% fabricated. They've known the story is fabricated because literally what happened, okay, let me just tell you. There's an article that's come out that has said that the police were called, which I

just am in hysterics about, the police were called to the airport because of an altercation I was in with the with the staff of at the airline when I was checking in that could not be I'm so mortified it could not be any further from the truth I would hate for people to think Laura wrote to me straight away she's like as if you of all people would ever abuse staff at an airport counter what happened is and I just want to start by saying I do genuinely feel so grateful I'm so lucky to have the opportunity to travel and I want to say that I've said it on the podcast I've said it on my individual Instagram a few times but obviously there are people they're going to miss that so I don't want that to be missed that I realize what this opportunity is and that there

are some people that don't have this opportunity and I can't imagine what that is like for them I do also want to say that I really really want to drive home to people that I'm not just traveling and gallivanting around the world like I literally am in a bubble I'm in isolation for three months essentially there'll be a few days here and there where I'm going to the next country where I'm free to actually get to the airport but we don't go outside and I don't think people understand that Britt is literally sitting in a hotel room at the moment and there is an incredible pool. Like she showed me the view out the window and it is amazing. Like the stuff that you would see in postcards, but she can't even go swim in the pool.

No, so I'm grateful. I'm here with Jordan and that's why I came. And I'm really grateful that I get to go watch him play tennis and I get to do all of those cool things. But I just would hate for people to think that I'm at home having the time of my life on a beach somewhere when it's not the case. Maybe over three months, I'll get a few random days in different locations, depending. That's it.

anyhow back to the story I went to check in my bag I had to take an extra bag of luggage because I'm taking all my podcast equipment over so that I can keep bringing this to you guys so I needed to check an extra bag in I needed two bags I tried to check it in online it wasn't an option Jordan tried to log in and check for me and book it it was an option you were not able to book online even though it says they give you a really big discount to book online so I call up they also tell me I can't book on the phone and I have to book at the desk so I get to check in and I'm like hey i have to book this extra bagging i tried to do it online and it wasn't available they're like no worries that's one thousand dollars i was like i was like a squeeze me and your firstborn child

i was like one thousand dollars and they were like yes and i was like for one bag and they were like yes and i was like this has to be a mistake i was like well can i i tried to book online and get like the 30 or whatever discount it was i can't remember exactly i was like i tried to book online and it wasn't available and then i tried to book on the phone and i still couldn't they're like yeah you can only book here and I was like okay well the fact that I tried means I should probably still get the discount and they were like no because you only get that online and I'm like but I tried anyway it went around in circles they're like well what do you want to do and I was like well look obviously I want I'll just pay because I need to get on the plane but I just want

to let you know that this is not ideal and I'm like you know that's literally what I said but I even said to the girls at the desk I was like you know no shooting the messenger I know this isn't you but a thousand dollars is ludicrous paid the money got on with it now to add to this story. There was a paparazzi there and I don't know how, cause I didn't tell anyone when I was leaving. I didn't tell anyone my flight. I didn't even say where I was flying to, but the paparazzi is there and he's in big trouble because you're not allowed to be in an airport. Now I didn't say anything. I didn't complain about the pap. I didn't do anything before I even saw him. The police were trying to chase him out. Like staff members had caught a man in there with a, with a camera and

they were trying to chase him out. But like the paparazzi are like rabbits. Like you can't keep up. They're hiding, they're running around the airport. So the police are already there trying to get this man out of the airport he's trying to take photos of me he's taken a photo of me the staff were really good to me and I want to say that like as disappointed as I am in their pricing they were really good with like look this guy's obviously hassling you and I was like he's not it's fine this is what he does he takes photos he'll be gone in a second like don't worry they're like we've called the police for you for an escort and I was like please don't do that I was like please I'm like guys I don't need a police escort I appreciate it and they're like no I just said

that he can't get those final shots and I was like I would rather him have it than have a shot with the police in it because anyway there's a photo of me pointing my finger and the Daily Mail have said Brittany the police are called on Brittany Hockley as she points her finger in altercation at staff members now if you look at the photo I am very clearly pointing my finger at the paparazzi I'm not pointing it at the staff the police are behind me they are there because of the paparazzi not for me they were on my team and I turned around to them and I said to them I appreciate you guys so much everyone what you're doing I was like but I really don't need it and I can guarantee that this has just made it worse I cannot tell you when I saw the article come out

in Daily Mail I was like this is so cooked unless Brittany's been punching some like scotches and some Valiums in the lounge this is not real this can't be real it wasn't and as if it was real like anyway so I said to these policemen there were like three big staunch big men and you know the police outfits are not normal they're like the big black they're like special forces or something anyway i was like guys i can guarantee what's going to happen i was like there will be an article out tomorrow that says the police were called on britney for having some sort of fight they were like there's no way they could do that that's not true and i was like you don't know the daily mail i was like and lo and behold britney's in an argument because of a baggage crisis which

absolutely was not none of this is true the i just want to be super clear i had no fight with the staff i paid the money willingly because i had to i just said like okay this is crazy it shouldn't have happened and I should have got a discount. Wait but just to be 100% certain so you didn't have the police call on you? I absolutely did not have the police call on me. Also I just want to say as well guys like I mean we all read articles every day and we take them for face value because we don't have another side to the story and I think that like I know I've been guilty of it I'm sure you've been guilty of it but just check yourself when you're reading especially shit that's in the Daily Mail or it's in like the rag trade type publications because the reality is

is that all a paparazzi needs is a photo and then they create a story around it. And we've seen it time and time again. And I hope that just by listening to this podcast and some of the conversations that we have had, that it makes you a little bit more hyper aware by how much shit there is out there in the media and how much of it is not real.

And normally it wouldn't bother me, right? Normally I wouldn't care and I would never want to talk about it on the podcast. And we don't often. It's only when something is so far-fetched and makes us look like someone we are not that Laura and I get a bit passionate about it. And I would be, I pride myself on being a good human and being nice to everyone and

never being rude. And to have an article say that someone called police on me because I was so rude to air staff is ludicrous. And I was like, I'm just not going to put up with it. So Daily Mail, shame on you on this one. But also like, if you ever get the police caught on you in an airport, you're not getting on that fucking flight. Like, let's be real.

Exactly. Anyway, that was my story. Enough of that. Moving on. Laura, you had your own little wedding gaffe this week. You had me in hysterics. I'm just going to give you guys my own little life update. So Matt and I, we have a wedding coming up at the end of the year.

We have done no planning. I mean, like nothing. We booked a venue. That was it. And apart from booking the venue, like we still haven't asked our bridal party. We hadn't sent out invitations. We have done nothing. I can confirm that.

I got an invitation yesterday. so okay we hired a well this is the story I'm going to tell you about the invitation what happened so basically we've been meaning to these invitations for like three months and finally it was like 9 p.m on a Thursday and Matt was like okay Laura this is the night today's the day we're going to get our invitations done so because we've left it so long we can't do printed invitations so we decided we just set up a online website and we would send out like an email to everyone who's invited via like MailChimp and so Matt thought he'd get really fancy and he thought he'd like buy a domain name and we sent out the invites we put it together we're like this is so easy oh my

god this wedding website's so simple and we hit send and then kind of nothing happened for a little while like quite a while I was like surely some people would have seen this by now so then I messaged start messaging my friends and I'm like hey guys uh have you received the email invitation and they were like no haven't received it turns out one it had gone to everyone's junk mail what did you do the website that the invitation was linked to didn't fucking work and it loaded to just a blank sorry this page is not like you cannot find this page we fixed those glitches and then people started RSVPing and what Matt had done okay this is like the big thing so like in the RSVP section of the website you had to actually go in and customize what you wanted people to RSVP

for. So there were things like, what sort of accommodation do you want? And all of these default options had been left there, right? You had to go in, you had to like individually select out the things that you wanted, the things that you didn't want. It was stuff like, do you want the chicken or beef for entree? Do you want a king size bed? So then we started receiving all of the RSVPs from people, but with really specific RSVPs. Like I would like a king size bed. I would like the chicken for entree. Can I please be in the bridal party? This is the sort of shit that we left in our RSVP? Would you like to be in our bridal party? I now have 17 people in my bridal party and my mom still hasn't received the invite. Anyway, we were going to do a whole episode at

some point on the wedding and the planning. And I'm just not sure how we can do an episode on planning when you haven't planned it. That's what I'm a bit stumped on. I'm like, where are you going to get that content from? I do want to tell you one thing or ask you one thing I should say. I want to know what the sex was like the first time that you saw Jordan it was great I mean it'd been a long walk in the desert okay that actually wasn't what I was going to ask you but I'm really happy for that update what I was going to ask you is I read an article which was on pedestrian this last week this was an article that was repurposed from a reddit thread and now because we like to talk about poo on this podcast quite often it seems to be a common running theme

Do you know, we don't actually like it. We just seem to. All you guys writing your X-ray and filters are all poop stories. I want to ask you a question and I want your honest, honest answer, Brittany. Do you look at your poo? Do you look at your poo after you've gone to the toilet? Before you flush? Do I look at my poo?

I just have to think about this one. I think I probably do without knowing. Like, I think I probably give it a quick glance, but I don't like take a photo of it and study it under a microscope. go who flushes and doesn't look at it at all how do you know if you're healthy well the thing is you'd probably do yeah you do need to look at it because what if something's wrong with it or it's how are you going to know if there's blood i mean like this is pretty gross but like if there's if you're unwell your poo can tell you a lot your poo tells a story your poo has its own journey

i mean how are you going to know whether you've just eaten drunk beetroot juice or there's something really seriously going wrong in your life what was the study on about how many people look at it it was a poll and it was it divided the internet people couldn't decide there were people for and against and all the people who were against it and said that they didn't look at their poo i'm just gonna say you're a liar no you have to maybe we'll put our own poll up and we'll see what people are doing but you know what people in bondi pay for that shit literally they go and have enemas and then watch it come out of themselves so if you're gonna go to that level yeah that's a whole thing you shouldn't be going and voluntarily getting enemas if you don't need

them that's coming from a medical perspective you know you can perforate your bowel and if you don't know what that is google it you probably won't go and get an enema and before we get into the interview with camilla franks who i'm sure is so happy that she's been front-ended by a conversation about whether you look at your poo in the toilet let's do our favorite part of every episode which is accidentally unfiltered i'm gonna go first because i can guarantee you yours is gonna be like sicker than mine mine's actually like really innocent and cute but i had a good laugh as much as i had tried to block this story from my memory my friends have never let me live it down so i was getting ready for a first date with a guy I had been talking to on tinder and I was really vibing

it he was so hot it was the middle of summer so we decided that we would head down to the beach the most popular beach trip in my town to be precise I was so nervous as I was trying to decide what to wear I changed my outfits so many times my phone lights up with a text hey I'm out the front ready to pick you up I don't have time to change again so I stick with the outfit that I was wearing, a cute white denim skirt and a crop top. Feeling flustered, I rushed out the door. My nerves started to ease as we walked down the main road towards the beach. Things were going really well. The chat was great. As we approached the sand, it was getting to that point where most people would take their thongs off to walk barefoot. My date casually slipped his shoes off

and I went to do the same. This is when I looked down and to my horror, I realized that I had worn two completely different shoes. In my rush to get ready, I had been tossing up between my gold Haviana thongs and my white chunky Birkenstocks and I forgot to choose one. So she had one Birkenstock and one little thin Haviana. We walked the whole way. He hadn't mentioned it once, but I did catch him looking down to my feet. RIP. How do you not notice? Because a Birkenstock is like a platform like there is like a two centimeter chunk of cork at the bottom and a Haviana is like this thin tiny little bit of rubber I actually just love how innocent this is look I mean maybe she was overcome by nerves and then couldn't concentrate on her feet or maybe

she's got one leg shorter than the other who knows do you know I went to work one day at the hospital this is why I like this so much I went to work at the hospital and I had I did that the whole day I wore two different shoes one that was like a pointy black like it was when I wanted to be fancy it was like a pointy black toe and it was leather thing and the other one was like a gray jogger and I wore it the whole day I didn't notice no one and the other thing was no one said anything to me no one was like yo why are you doing that people just thought I was a weirdo the only thing I have that I can relate this back to is the other day I sent Molly to daycare with her shoes on the wrong feet so she was she was just walking around like a little duck and they're like hi Laura just

wanted to let you know that um I'm not sure if Molly dressed herself this morning but her shoes her on the wrong feet and I was like well that's very patronizing no I dressed her also just just change them over I don't need to know that okay all right I have a really funny one and this one had me in stitches literally okay girls I am dying so for my birthday last year my besties bought me a six inch suction dildo now not one of yours and mine are so different now not one of the cute pink ones you see on Instagram these days I'm talking a big veiny erect cock of a number skin colored with little bits of hair painted on where the ball sack starts it's aggressive oh my god it's aggressive and it was bought as a joke as i'd just gotten out of a

long-term relationship where we hadn't had sex for six months anyway the aggressive dildo has sat in its box for the last couple of months until last night your girl decided to give it a whirl i had a grand old evening with a bit of me time and then before i went to bed i had a shower i took the raging dildo into the shower ensuite with me. Now I did this because the bathroom is my own. My housemates would never go in there. And so I decided to just give it a quick wash in the shower while I was in there and didn't think twice about it. Fast forward to this afternoon. I get home from work. I walked straight into my bedroom and then straight into the bathroom because I was busting to do a wee. And there is my suction dildo cock neatly suctioned on the basin next to my face

wash and my toothbrush. My fucking cleaner has taken out of the shower and arranged it on the mantle with all my skincare products. And I'm about to change my name and move to Japan. How? Why? Why would they do this? Leave the dildo where it is. Like you don't need to rearrange it so it looks neat on the counter. Now what I want to know is, is this the cleaner that you would use often? Or is this a cleaner? Because at the Urban Company, the cleaners that we've worked with, where you just get a different person that comes each week. Because I'm going to say if it's someone who's come to your house on a regular basis like that relationship is over you need to get a new cleaner it's done I don't know what I'd prefer I don't know if I'd prefer my regular

or like a one-off blowing cleaner I'd maybe the probably the one-off blowing cleaner because there's the regular to be like hey chicka chicka you got lucky last night imagine coming home and you're plugging dildo is just sitting there next to your hairspray and your toothbrush I'm done do you know what I always do actually and I it's not as bad as actually it's nowhere near as funny or bad but like I always regret it so even now like I just went down and got some breakfast and I came back upstairs and the cleaners had come which is great but I always leave because I wear Invisalign at night and I always leave my teeth around and they're always like moved to another place and I'm like why did you touch my teeth I'm so sorry I left them there just I'm like you don't

need to touch them I will never forget this is such a gross story but I'm telling you anyway I will never forget the time that I was traveling and I had just left my clothes out I was staying with my boyfriend at the time we had been backpacking we were just being grubs and we stayed in this hotel for two nights and all of our shit was everywhere out of our suitcases and I came home back to the hotel this one evening and they had cleaned up and they had made the bed and they had gotten my dirty undies inside out and laid them in the middle of the bed I think they were trying to make a point of like you're a feral like why would you leave this in the hotel room but anyway I'm okay let's get into this I know I am I am mortified especially

because you can that'd be like sweaty old crusty things that they've laid out the bed that's disgusting yeah and on that crusty under note let's chat to Camilla Camilla Franks is a lot of things an artist a designer a businesswoman a mother a breast cancer survivor and now also a reality tv survivor oh my god on Celebrity Apprentice She is the heart and soul behind the iconic Australian brand Camilla and we are so happy to have her here with us today. Welcome. It's awesome being here back in Bondi Beach. My roots girls, like I feel like I'm back home. Welcome to the reality TV club. I love it. I don't know if I'm a reality TV star, like you know I definitely maybe should stick to my lane.

Well we're gonna get into all that because I mean I've watched a few of the episodes now. I want to know what the whole experience was like. Before we do that, we do a segment on every episode which is called accidentally unfiltered and it is where our guests tell their most embarrassing story or one that you feel comfortable sharing we really do throw you under the bus straight away here at life uncut i literally have so many like i'm so clumsy i'm so goofy i'm i'm perfectly imperfect but i think the most recent one was actually first day on set first day at school at celebrity apprentice i was doing the whole selfie video thing and introducing the whole cast, doing it so eloquently

and we had Martha and Whipper and the whole gang behind me and I literally went arse over tit and landed backwards. What do you mean? Off a stage? No, like near the boardroom. So that was my first introduction to the whole cast and I was like, are you kidding me? It's one of those things, you're like, whatever you do,

don't fuck up on the first day of set. First day of set, everyone was laughing at me and I had to have a good hard laugh at myself. At least you weren't on Instagram Live. That's the one thing that you can kind of take from that. The cameras were rolling. Oh, shit. It's worse than Instagram.

I thought you just meant you did it on your Instagram. I was like, that's not that big a deal. But just to shame myself a little bit more, I did upload it. I was about to say, I hope you did because that's what makes it endearing too. That's what makes you relatable to people and that's the whole reason we get you to out yourself. Think about Jennifer Lawrence. That's what made her.

A couple of Grammys or Logies or Oscars or whatever it was, she fell up the stairs a few times. It's now her shtick. She just falls over and hurts herself. The red carpet bloopers, like I've arrived not even – because I'm always in a rush, not really thinking about the boobs and all of a sudden I'm on the red carpet and I look down and it's completely see-through and as soon as the flash –

I remember sitting beside like Alex Perry and I on the red carpet and he's like, what the fuck are you wearing? And I look down and then the following day on the paper, like literally boobs. You just reminded me when I was on The Bachelor, there was this one night we had – this is worse than being see-through. You don't wear undies. You barely wear bras on The Bachelor.

These are skin-tight dresses. and I had this dress that was very low cut, like down to my navel basically, but the straps were a little bit loose and I was like doing my piece to Nick, like the bachelor, all the cameras were on me and I don't know, it's like slow-mo, but I didn't feel it happening. The whole strap came off, my whole boob, like there was nothing. It was just out. Babe, try having a double fucking mastectomy.

So I can't feel this anymore, right? I used to have big floppy Zulu boobs and now I've got Margarita and Trisara, right? so Margarita and Chisara might look pretty but I can't feel them so anytime I will just be walking down the street just boob out and not realizing it and my friends are like what do we that's such a Margarita thing to do yeah just live a best life Camilla tell us how did you start the brand when did it start what was your inspiration for it and take us all the way back I was a really shit actress were you an actor yeah so I was at theater school for like three years I think

everything in our life sort of defines us and sort of paths our way you look back and go that's the reason why I did that and that's the reason why I did that crappy job and it all gives you the tools that you want so rewinding back at school you know you'd never find me in the maths room or the science room I was always in trouble I was always in the headmistress's office or on the theatre floor in the art room and it was definitely not at school where I shone and I think I had selective attention deficit disorder and before I finished school I started my own business Franks and Becks at high school yeah wow so I was far more interested in learning on the job rather than silly little facts I'd never learned at school sorry parents out there and you don't want to

pee too early the woman started a business in year 12 I was doing I love doing theatrical events and you see that in some of my events now so I was building snow wonderlands in the middle of summer with like huskies and deers and things left of field I used to love that events thing and then when I finished school my brother passed away and I think when something so traumatic happens it sort of defines part of you and and it made me want to live the life for two so I went into full throttle first year and threw myself into the world of advertising and that's where I sort of got the skills and tools to learn everything about producing so whether you're producing coke bottles or caftans or whatever it is it's about running budgets and all that boring stuff

and then after that i got bored and went overseas and backpacked around the world but wasn't a great backpacker i had like 18 pairs of shoes in my bag it was a total shit show i call it flash packing i did the same thing flash packing it's called flash and then i just went why did i just take a suitcase totally you know it's not as cool for the pictures with a suitcase so dumb and then i was working on music video clips over there producing I turned a restaurant into a night club you know I did all these wonderful things and then came back and I was like do you know what I still haven't finished my theater moment because from the age of three I was on stage I was a ballet dancer I used to love theater so to the disappointment of the family I threw myself into

the world of acting in Australia and that's where I started to really find my truth my creative integrity the person that I knew I wanted to be I knew it had to be creative and I didn't want to conform to what society expected of me and I couldn't even if you tried and so all those books that I ignored at school like Shakespeare and Chekhov and all of that I literally immersed myself in them and I used to love building the characters and building the characters for me was also I could visualize the costumes like the narrative was there so I used to get really involved with working with the costume designers and then I started making some myself and then I started making my rehearsal gear and then I was traveling around Australia doing really bad co-op

theater like city theater yeah like four hour like Shakespeare performances with no interval my friends were like please shoot me now looking back in the back audience and you just see them going and then I get off stage that was wonderful I was like you're bloody asleep yeah so I used to rock on stage wearing these fabulous costumes and no one paid any attention to the acting and a label was born so I threw myself in that was the end the start and the end of the acting career yeah pretty much and so I threw myself in I thought oh everyone's sort of taking note of what I'm wearing on the streets you know because I was picking up vintage saris or vintage textiles and sort of mashing them together and making kimonos and kaftans and kind of very bohemian

silhouettes and people that I didn't even know like that were in the fashion industry were calling me asking me you know if they could buy them so I was living in a small apartment in Potts Point at the time and all of a sudden I was getting calls from like the NMAs and all these big wigs and so I used to schlep my one-off pieces into people's beautiful homes or offices and sell them and I went oh screw it let's do it I'll most well do fashion week. I just got goosebumps was listening to that because it just sounds like the only thing not to take away from anything but the only thing you did was really really live your authentic truth not caring what anyone thought and it for the first time for the first time and I was so confused for so long after my brother died I

kept on throwing myself into these jobs and it was just like I felt like I couldn't wait till five o'clock like every hour felt like five and I just I never felt completely myself I didn't want to be there. I wasn't creatively fulfilled. I wasn't stimulated. I couldn't focus. It wasn't my purpose. And then when I stepped into the world of acting, that's when I stepped into my authenticity. But I also think sometimes with having that back history, doing advertising, working and schlepping those jobs that you don't want to do, when it comes to then creating your own business, you have this arsenal, you have all these tools that you're like, because it's not running a business is not just designing caftans. It's not just the creative side. There is so much

stuff that goes on behind the scenes like the duck's legs going underneath the water i first started i threw myself into the world i knew zero about the fashion industry and soon after my first show i opened the store at bondi beach now i was a one-man band at that stage pretty much and so i would have the office up the back the store at the front the phones would call hello welcome to Camilla's bitch house. And this is Francesca. And this is Yona. Let me just get Camilla.

And then, can you please transfer me to the finance department? Hello, the finance department here. Like, I put on all these accents and pretend to transfer. Like, it was complete smoke and mirrors. Your acting has completely helped you. You actually remind me of, we had Samantha Wills on the podcast. She's a good friend of ours. And she tells a story that's exactly the same.

She's like, when she started off, she was having a lot of trouble getting people to pay their accounts and no one was taking her seriously because she did everything. so she just made up all these alter egos and names and proper account emails and she just started to email those different people and all of a sudden yeah everything started everything from marketer finance god bless my invoices i used to kind of use a computer i can't do math they were always crap everyone would call me and just say this is we really struggle working with you because your invoices are just so wrong.com and but and i was front of house i was retail i

was the designer I was production manager I was logistics I was everything but wearing all those hats was my playground to learn everything I kind of needed to know about the fashion industry but also rewinding back to my first show being a one-man band there's feelings of complete fear and uncertainty and vulnerability that come with that when you throw yourself out there I broke industry standards that I didn't know actually existed because I hadn't come from fashion I had no one educating me on that I just was a creative and so I did this show that celebrated women and all of all different age shapes and sizes and you know like back then that wasn't done so people sort of took note and then David Jones were there and they're like we

want to come and see the collection tomorrow make sure you got your line sheets your you're like my what I had no idea and they're arriving the following day so all of a sudden I found a mannequin it was missing most of her fingers shirley i shot it on her i mean i've still got the lookbook it was so bad the collection was so bad i also think that there's so much to be said for the naivety of it because i think if you start a business and you knew all the hurdles or you knew just like what was involved and what you needed to do there's no way and there was no business plan there was no idea about the fashion industry i just believed in my baby with my full heart and i wasn't going to take no for an answer we literally started this podcast and we were like

I googled I said to Laura let's do this podcast she's like you're right she's like what do we do I was like no idea I was like how to start a podcast the next day by microphones it is we don't know what we're doing and I wonder now like we were up till 3am working last night all of us and I was like if we knew I wonder if we would have done it we probably would have just done it with a bit more organization but I love we've learned on the job and I think that that's the most important part to any you can go to any fashion school in the world you're not going to get the same training unless you're living it and breathing it and learning from people like I get to spend time with my family in India when we're not in COVID I get to learn from the

most amazing artisans that have multiple generations that have been taught with textiles and beading and fabrics and everything you're not going to get that at a college in Australia do you know what I mean so for me I think learning on the job with fashion has really helped me have a unique DNA and handwriting because I wasn't taught from school. But one of the amazing things I think about Camilla as a brand, and one of the things that I just think is so inspirational, aspirational is that you have never conformed to what is on trend or what is in style. There's never been this following the pack. And I think that's so obvious in the fact that caftans have been in fashion for 18 years, which is truly remarkable. Yeah. You started the trend. You weren't following

the trend. You just did what you wanted and set the tone, which I think is incredible. our biggest voice is our gut and sometimes we don't stop enough to hear what our truth is you know and I think I needed to go to acting school to really because acting school is a really selfish place because you are all about self self self getting to know yourself every single day so that was a time it was three years of me working out what I really wanted and being able to listen to the voices from within so I went to acting school for three years too yeah so I've always wanted to be in the entertainment industry and I started trying to get into acting I've done short films ended up not ended up but the podcast started and this has been sort of appeasing that

outlet yeah that really soul intensifying energy that I've been looking for but even just talking to you now I'm so like I don't know if you're looking in my eyes I'm so inspired to just go start auditioning again just from you being like I just want to live my dream and that's when I was like I'm going to audition why don't we just put our own play on I would do it with you let's just do our own film I'll do a short film with you podcasts and collections I'll be there front row guys I'll sell the admin tickets don't worry anyone's listening Camilla and I are doing a short film if you want to provide anything camera wise you can meet us there tell us though guess like we've talked about some of the positive things but what has been one of those moments

where you thought it was your biggest failure with the brand or one of your biggest learning curves with the brand oh look I think when you had a brand for 18 years there's so many bumps and bruises and hurdles that you either kind of fly over or face plan into. And I tend to face plan into them. And that's when I learn the lessons with full force. There's a list a mile long of my failures from hiring the wrong people, trusting the wrong people, traveling around the world on my own was really hard for so many years. You know, I used to schlep my collections around the world season after season and there was rejection after rejection and you know I love that Brene Brown saying that courage is not without fear but the willingness just to show up

no matter how you feel inside it changes you and makes you that little bit stronger and braver so even though you're taking the risk it doesn't always necessarily translate so you know some people just didn't get the collections confused by me or i think it's so important to hear this because often we look at brands and we think that they're an overnight success so we don't necessarily hear the failures and hear the setbacks and for anybody who is wanting to start a label or i've been through the journey myself i have a jewelry label it's so hard when someone thinks oh you've got this easy now and i think no it's never like that for any brand for any label i mean there was so many nights when i just would

have tears rolling down I was so lonely it was physically tiring mentally tiring it was completely draining I would spend many nights just crying in my hotel room going what am I doing you know and then I have to steam all the samples again for the following meetings the next day not knowing whether it was going to be accepted or not but I think what happens in the universe if you really throw it out there and I mean really throw it out there the universe ends up rewarding you and so all those stockers from back in the day, like Neiman Marcus, Harvey Nichols, Bergdorf Goodman, Sachs, all of those like crazy Aussies back. And like now, fast forward like 18 years, you know, we're one of their number one designers on the floor. So it's definitely worth it. So for all

those upcoming designers, don't take that negative feedback as a hard no, like just keep going back and refining your skills and evolving your collections based off the guidance that they're giving you so what was the defining moment that all of these brands said no to you year after year how did you someone that's faced rejection so many times in that sense alone young in a hotel on the other side of the world how do you pick yourself back up and say cool i'm just going to keep going was there ever a part where you thought i'm just gonna i can't do anymore it's too hard no one likes it I just thought I had nothing else you know I thought if I don't do this and make a success of this what else am I going to do and after losing my brother I was just like I've got

to live the life of two and I wanted to make my parents love me you know it was really a fear of failure I think it just kept me motivated it was probably a really unhealthy motivation but I just had to keep going and going and going and another pitfall on that is you know I was working 24 7 and my body was crying out for me to stop and you know I was getting glandular fever constantly I was getting anxiety I just couldn't sleep I was really unhealthy and unhappy but I just kept working through it thinking I'm fine I'm fine it's just part and parcel with the job and I was over in India and I was working in my factory and all of a sudden my whole face dropped and I was having a stroke because you're being in India and you think you're having strokes so fanged it to the

hospital and I was going this is not happening this is my world's worst nightmare this is not happening this is not happening for two days they were like no it's a stroke and then finally we found out it was Bell's palsy and I still have weakness and especially when I'm tired I had to do a lot of rehabilitation over a year to build the muscles and nerves back up there but I still didn't listen and also for people that don't know just quickly Bell's palsy can be brought on by extremely stressful situations so obviously you were run down it's attack on the nervous system and it's your body telling you to slow things down so you didn't listen cool i didn't listen again like glandular fever tick bell's palsy tick possible stroke need to get this collection out

lift face back up tick fashion week is coming and then i stopped functioning just all of a sudden i couldn't find myself in meetings I was shaking my speech I was physically emotionally and mentally completely burnt out I had nothing left to give I went into a spiral a really dark spiral and this was probably my biggest learning I feel like I had to dance in that darkness to kind of learn what not to do but I have what I like to call my spiritual emotional mental awakening but was a breakdown in full Camilla form and I found myself with suicidal depression and not understanding why I was like I've got everything to live for I'm successful I've got the job of life I get to travel off the beaten path and immerse myself into these beautiful crazy worlds what is going on

inside mental health still had a big stigma back then and so I was nervous to say anything so because I think work was my addiction all the trauma and things that I'd experienced in my childhood I hadn't kind of made peace with them or forgiven them so for me I really I ran from them and it catches up with you and once it catches up with you all at once and I crescendoed like this big volcano I had to kind of put the pieces together so I took two months out and I went over to Arizona to a rehabilitation center which was amazing it registered my body I don't know how they did it but they put all these things on you the trauma in my body was still registering at a nine out of ten from my brother's passing when i was like i'm seemingly fine now i'm seemingly

fine you just bury it and other little things that had happened in my childhood i hadn't made peace with i thought i had up here but everything in our life is held in our nervous system and sometimes it's hidden and sometimes it takes a few little things and then it exploded so I had to literally learn about the ins and outs of that I had to sort of dance in the darkness for a while to kind of come back to feel whole again and falling down is so goddamn hard but getting back up and stepping into your power is one of the most empowering things and I look back at that girl it was probably about 10 years ago and I it's like I can't even relate to her I can't relate to that pain and that sadness that I was going through so for anyone out there struggling with

mental illness or depression or suicidal thoughts it does pass it does pass well I think trauma and I think it's easy for us to forget it is a cumulative effect it's something that you might think that something hasn't happened to you in a very long time but like you said if you don't deal with things as they go it adds up and one day you implode but how old were you when this was happening like how long ago are we talking mental health has come a long way in the last i guess probably five to ten years but until then it wasn't spoken about you were deemed as a bit crazy like you needed help but it's exactly the same as if you sprain an ankle right you can see it people go oh poor you no one can see your mind no one can see you but like i've gone through breast cancer

i've gone through natural birthing labor for 24 hours nothing beats the pain and the trauma of depression and suicidal thoughts nothing because you don't know your way out it's so overwhelming and terrifying and i don't believe a tablet fixes it i believe in the power of the mind now spend a lot of time in meditation and the power of thoughts and how that can change the biochemistry in your body i mean there's functional mri scans this is what i do but functional mri tests that they've done that literally show the difference in the brain matter the white and gray brain matter when people meditate and look after their brain to people that don't it's actually pretty incredible if anyone's remotely interested in that if you're not when i

was going through breast cancer like i had stage three aggressive breast cancer that was one of my non-negotiables so i made sure every morning i would do my meditation and there was all that mind work that really helped me like i had stage three aggressive breast cancer and it wasn't looking good and the tumor was big like it was hanging off me from this meditation as well as modern medicine it was shrinking and shrinking fast my doctors couldn't believe it like what are you doing there's so much that we want to get into that's happened to you in the last sort of 10 15 years i got to go to your fashion week show which was in 2018 i'm not sure in timeline how soon it was after your diagnosis or something we did kill us and it was the standing

ovation it was honestly the most powerful thing I have witnessed it was beautiful I mean one at the show itself was incredible and to think that you were going through so much in your own personal life and still able to put on an amazing show no genuinely it was the best show of fashion week but then you were there you had obviously started chemo you had no hair and it was just the most powerful moment and yeah I really will never forget that so I thank you for allowing me to be a part of that oh thank you I it was weird I went back to carriageworks just last week for fashion week and that's my first time back there since that show and I actually started tearing up that's here up now when I walked in there because I thought wow you know I thought I was going to

lose my life and here I am back at carriageworks closing fashion week and I just felt so grateful and blessed to be alive but that show 2018 there was a powerful energy in that room and I felt so much love I literally felt the love in the room I mean I've got goosebumps now I remember walking off stage and I felt like it's like my whole team and I it was like they did this massive celebration to send me on my journey into treatment that's what it felt like you know it was like a new closing of a new chapter and opening of another one it was like you were entering your treatment yeah with the love that you needed it's like they set you on on that path set me on my path with cherry blossom trees, Kyoto drummers, 45 models.

It was floor to ceiling pieces of silk. It was like you were like entombed and encased in this world of Camilla with a full cherry blossom tree in the middle. It was amazing. We've still got that cherry blossom tree. So if anyone's wanting to buy a cherry blossom tree, it's still in storage. My CEOs, please get rid of it.

It's going to fit in here, guys. There'll be no more space. it's just we come into Brittany's apartment it's just a treat the listeners have seen where we record please do not bring a 10 20 foot cherry I wouldn't even fit it would not even fit in this room talk me through that period of your life you had just had Luna as well little girl so a period which is supposed to be I mean it's already incredibly challenging a wonderful and challenging motherhood but then to have this diagnosis that it happened as well talk me through what was happening in your world at that time so I had just finished traveling around Australia at that time

and it's meant to be a time of complete joy and love you're bonding with your daughter and exhaustion and it was eight weeks I'd been traveling around but I'd had a lump on my breast and everyone just said it was mastitis so I didn't really take much notice and I got back and JP said come on babe get it checked and he was heading off to Wales so he took off to Wales I went to get the mammogram and all of a sudden they're like I need to do a needle biopsy and I still didn't trigger and then that afternoon I got called back from my GP saying you need to get here this afternoon and my GP would usually just tell me over the phone so my heart was just palpitating and I remember that drive it was like an out-of-body experience and when I walked into

that room and she told me i've got stage three breast cancer i felt like my whole world as i knew it came crashing down and it's like the floor just dropped from beneath me and there was a terror and a fear and a dread like i'd never actually experienced before and i knew that it was just a non-negotiable i had to fucking survive this and i have an eight week old child and i want to see her get old you know and and so all of a sudden it's like i jumped onto this crazy ride that i didn't buy a ticket for i wanted to get the hell off when you're diagnosed you're in fight and flight mode you're not in your body and you're not taking in information except you're being flooded with information and it's information that's really scientific really confusing i

failed school like this is like I'm going back to chemistry world you know and I had to really focus I'd focus to focus because there were so many different ways that I could approach this and it was really important for me to choose the right team I ended up being a little bit left of field surprise surprise I put two surgeons together that don't actually quite like each other I was like please don't fight over my body they don't usually work together but it was important for me that I ended up having the exact treatment plan that I wanted and the exact mastectomy that I wanted. And I'm so happy that I did that. And I think it's really important. Anyone going through this journey, it's okay to say no to certain treatment plans and to question them, question

them again, sense check them again, ask people that have gone through them, ask to see someone's breasts that have gone through a mastectomy. Because that's the other thing. I'm an aesthetic girl you know I'm a designer so I'd go into surgeons say show me your work they're like we don't have images of our work I'm like why not I want to know what I'm going to look like after I've had a double mastectomy I want a look book yeah so they're your boobs you know I'm living with this and so finally when I said well I'm not working with any of you until you'd show me so there was four different surgeons and they showed me and I just thought oh my god there's got to be an alternative and then my old next door neighbor in four clues his name's David Kaminer I went to

him and he said there is an alternative and sometimes surgeons can get a bit lazy and want to go simple stupid you know and but I believe that we can go through here from the bottom over to your tumor and get it and we can do a reconstruction at the same time and we can save the nipple and so for me to hear that was like oh my god he goes look it's not a hundred percent proof but he had conviction he literally said i believe i can do this and i'm so grateful i ended up putting the dream team together and what they do for people is you know all i do is i make fashion but these guys you know they're incredible they're incredible it's like when you say because i know you have had a double mastectomy but now hearing you say that in fact they sort of went in and just

did a resection of the tumor did they actually still take all the breast tissue on both breasts like they would in a mastectomy no no so but to get the tumor they sure and to make sure all of that was out of this because usually a double mastectomy would go straight through there but i didn't want a constant reminder every time i looked down because at the end day you're the one that looks at yourself in the mirror naked and so what you look at it reminds you of that traumatic journey and yes my boobs don't look like what they used to and it's still a reminder you know I'm still getting used to them but I don't feel butchered yeah I mean this is why we want this podcast we want to be able to put that information out there because I didn't know I'm

in medicine I didn't know that you could do a mastectomy like that I thought you had to literally and I don't want to use the term butcher, but it sort of does look like that. They're pretty big, scary-looking scars that go straight across your breasts. It's a power move. It's a preventative move to save our lives, but I just wish more women were given more advice about what the alternatives are. And can all the surgeons please have a lookbook for these women?

Camilla says. But also I think with your story, it just would be so much harder to reconcile is that at that time as well you were breastfeeding your daughter, so you've just your body already goes through this huge i don't even know how to describe it it's the most all-consuming thing giving birth and you become very in touch with your body or that's how i felt anyway you know my boobs beforehand or my breasts beforehand i didn't i mean they didn't really feel like they had a purpose and now i feel they really do have a purpose in this and they're not perfect but i love what they provide for my children and that was one

of the hardest things like when how long did you breastfeed well i'm still breath i have a four month old baby now so i'm still in the midst that's why one is a lot bigger than the other right now she prefers the right your relationship with your body changes and my relationship with my breasts have changed like I said they're not perfect yeah but I have such a deep appreciation for what my body can do now and I know that it's such a personal journey breastfeeding and having that autonomy and having that taken away without having that agency must be something that was really difficult well I think eight weeks old like you're four months in mate kind of so eight weeks old and then I get told within a week I need to stop breastfeeding I mean it kills me even to

say it out loud now it was makes me it still makes me fucking angry it's like cancer stole some really sacred moments from me those 3am mornings where you really bond with your child for all those women out there that are complaining about the breastfeeding just enjoy it sisters like just really enjoy that suck the marrow out of that or let the baby suck the marrow out of you I think it's when the choice is taken away you know we do have that choice normally as women whether we want to breastfeed or bottle feed and if you have made the choice that you want to do that to be denied it I can't imagine the hurt that comes with that oh that was one of the hardest things and then they put some kind of liquid or dye in me so it was radioactive so I couldn't

actually hold Luna for comfort I couldn't comfort her for like 48 hours or something like that that was shocking that was a really painful time Camilla I want to read something that you that I read that you said and is it rude it's so rude it was just I'll read it out it was so beautiful and powerful and I was in tears reading it I underwent a double mastectomy saying goodbye to my breasts which had just been nourishing my beautiful newborn next went my fallopian tubes but now this the divine essence of my womanhood my ovaries my most sacred givers of life being taken from me leaves the biggest hole of all I feel like I'm not allowed to get emotional even though I am I feel like it's it's just something that's so sacred to women can you talk to us about that next step after

your mastectomy and what happened next and how you decided to go down that path and in the interim I guess because you were really really wanting and pushing for another baby yeah that's why you're gonna give me an egg i just froze my eggs last week and camilla's asked for one you know what you can have it we're all friends here if you like my dna you're welcome to it how funny also looking for a surrogate if anyone's out there okay not me but you can have the egg so after the double mastectomy i had been putting off a life-saving procedure and that was taking the ovaries and the fallopian tubes and everything out so i spoke to vince lamaro who's my gynae also an amazing gynecologist he was like look let's just keep testing you every couple of months to make sure

your bloods are looking good there's no cancerous cells we'll do all the scans and everything and in the meantime let's either try and get you pregnant naturally that wasn't happening so then I shifted into I literally turned into a white witch I I said to JP JP was leaving for Wales I was like before you go freeze your sperm fuck off see you later and you're just there in the corner with a turkey baster ready to go so I did rounds of IVF and it wasn't successful and on like literally the first week of filming Celebrity Apprentice I found out that the eggs hadn't carried and stuff so it was kind of like my final like it'd been 18 months since my double mastectomy so it was like I was a ticking time bomb because I have the BRCA genes and I'm 45

and I was trying to pull off a miracle the miracle didn't happen but I would have regretted not having a go so I put my body through hell and ended up the IVF didn't work but end up having to get the ovaries out and that for me was harder than the oh was it harder yeah it was harder than the boobs because they're the sacred givers of life and I felt like my womanhood had been kind of stripped from me unfairly it made me really angry it made me sad it made me grieve I remember sitting and lying in hospital just crying and Luna gave me her teddy before I left and I thought I don't really need the teddy god I needed that teddy in hospital I was just literally boiling into this teddy and I haven't quite made peace with it because again I had no choice but I also

know how lucky I am because I have a daughter but a lot of women that I saw and met and connected with during treatment were way younger than me and cancer unfairly stole that opportunity and that gift from them so I do know how blessed and lucky I am to be able to have another one child but I'm also looking into surrogacy and adoption that's amazing you're so and I mean I hope that you guys can hear this just from the chat but just in real life you were so positive you were such a light to be around and for someone who's been through so much and especially to think that you're going through this whilst still doing a reality tv show like the woman who never stops that wasn't my smartest move just saying it's a lot that's why you fell over day one oh my god but like how do

you start to heal from this how do you start to reconcile what you've been through over this past 12 months I need to take some time out it has been a crazy as you know like reality tv isn't as easy as it looks it's really hard I have a profound admiration respect for reality tv stars out there and I always used to say why do they get so emotional I get it sleep deprivation yeah producers editing all of that kind of stuff and not understanding different characters and you're walking onto set and you're trying to represent the brand you're also I get social anxiety so I was like anxious already then you've got cameras on you I have hormones racing through my body from IVF like two completely polar opposites worlds living in parallel that didn't quite match

and so it was a recipe for complete success right yeah absolutely it's one of those things that no one knows what they're getting into until they're doing it and I think we can watch people on tv and think oh well you asked for this because you signed up for it but nobody fully understands what it is that they're signing up for i know that my experience of the show that we did was very different to what i thought it would be i mean obviously it ended positively i'm with the guy we have a happy life together but the experience itself yeah was so much more challenging than i could have ever imagined it would be how long were you shooting for we shot for three and a half months yeah i was nine weeks no three and a half months i was beside myself and you were all

living together too right yeah well we were on different seasons so laura got the happy ever after and i was the one that was the first person to never get picked at the end so i was like oh but we both did the same time period but she got a reward i got like a kick i know i do i do feel like i think i like to get to the end of that and not be with the guy like to be the person that walks down that red carpet or whatever it was for us it was a beach in thailand and to be told that all of that was for nothing i mean you get the life experience yeah you learn something from every experience but at the same time like yeah there'd be a whole lot of disappointment there's so much duality on reality tv like i have the wins out of that you know the opportunity to be able to

really fight my cause for national breast cancer foundation tick like because when i went through breast cancer when your mentalities question it's not about me anymore it's about the higher purpose i'm prepared to do whatever it takes to raise more funds for the research for breast cancer so that platform that that gave me has been huge and it's made a difference it's also given me friends for a lifetime like literally i've met the most wonderful powerful talented kind quirky mad human beings look we have heard about a party that you threw we'll get to that later we want to know why we weren't invited and we want to know what really went on and um but then the other side the duality like whether i experienced microaggressions on set and

little microaggressions tend to add up and and that really affected me because i wear my heart on my sleeve and i'm a people pleaser and i want everyone to love me and love me in return and all of that kind of crap when you don't find your click and you probably had that in the house it made me really anxious and and i i feel i need to kind of make peace with that and heal that still you shoot way in advance and then the show comes out and you've got to kind of relive it again so I feel a bit more stimulated again and triggered off again but also I think when you in the capacity that you work one of the really beautiful elements of that is that you can bring in your team you're surrounded by people who have a similar ethos whereas when you do something like

reality tv you're thrown with a whole lot of different personalities some of them are there because they are controversial they are abrasive and we don't necessarily in those environments it doesn't bring the best out in us because we're being faced with challenges and then we have a camera in our face. That's what I wanted to know is, is a lot of the drama that we see on Celebrity Apprentice, how much of it is fabricated and how much of it is actually real and personalities just colliding? And what was your edit like? I think there's so much that gets edited. Let's just start with that. You know, you shoot for 14, 16 hour days or whatever, however ridiculous it is for two or three days straight. And that ends

up in a one hour episode. So what about all that good shit I did? I know. So I was like, It's really funny. Like I'd get home in the internet, really nailed that, and then the crap two seconds of it, that's what gets. So you have no control over that and that's something that, like Dave ended up moving in with me. I did hear that too. Yeah, and so he really talked me through it

and he's able to compartmentalise. I mean, he's done a few reality shows, so he's a veteran where I was literally a virgin in that world and I found it really hard to compartmentalise and to see myself in a particular narrative of where I was like, was I really? So they choose an archetype for each of you. Well, you become a character.

We all get the character that the producers want or that the show wants or that fits what's happening at the time and there's nothing you can do about it. It's completely out of your control. We even saw that with the Veronica's, you know, like the Veronica's are two of the most incredible human beings and they're two beautiful siblings that have all the colours of the rainbow in them and they focus on, yeah, the drama.

they were two squabbling siblings so bloody what you know that's what they do right I think when we have reality tv when you omit part of the story when you omit you know this part of a person's personality and you only show this part it creates a shade for that person it's like okay well that's the mean person because you've removed all the nice stuff you can do the same in the opposite as well I mean like we all even lovely people have the ability to say and do some not very nice things and then by removing that you elevate that person's character as well and so it creates these huge caveats between like the people that are really nice and the ones that we all rally behind and the ones which end up being the villains on the show and i know that that's how it works

on bachelor so i was quite interested to see if that would be the kind of the same tools that would be implemented especially because all of the people who are coming on celebrity apprentice already have profiles people already have a sense of who they are intentionally went in with that character like you know dave loves to be the villain yeah martha loves to be the but he's a lovable villain yeah and he's kind of ridden that wave as well you know i think like he's he's been disliked loved disliked now he's just like we love that he's got a smile so what about martha martha like you said she loves to be the villain is she a villain or does she play up to that or like she's just sassy and says what everyone's thinking you know she's

unapologetic about her inner monologue just lets it out and it's like like that's a thought I wish I was that brave well there are a lot of people that have said there was a lot of favoritism towards Martha and she was sort of her head was saved from the chopping block over and over again people were like she must be contracted to the end because how can he let her slide on through do you think there was a little bit of favoritism there I definitely think she was a favorite whether it was favoritism I think she definitely earned her stripes I learned a lot about Martha about the reason why she is successful she is a powerhouse she's still got a lot to learn but she's she's on her way to being a huge success story i think so i i think she was she was meant

to be in the last four i think love that i love hearing that we know that it's not all true but every you know like it all depends on the task right so i was speaking to our had alex hayes stay with me recently as well he got eliminated in the first round and he is amazing way wiser and brighter than I ever was at his age now if we'd had say the fourth task first which I think was the social media he would have smashed that right what was the most challenging part for you and I think especially knowing that you have a brand you have morals and ethics and everything you've got this whole brand that you have to uphold as well not just your personal brand but you have Camilla the clothing brand that you have to do right by what was the most challenging part

of Celebrity Apprentice probably having those hormones churning through you were they I think having those hormones definitely and i think when i first arrived on set and i think lord sugar had an approach where he wanted to disarm us and kind of shame us and i kind of wasn't expecting that my insecurities started bubbling from the beginning i wasn't i sort of kind of went in like a puppy labrador going oh this will be great i've got this you know it'd be like working just with a new tribe and I was just so wrong and then he kicked you and like I literally got kicked and then so it was like I had I felt like I had to dim my light and he's a Brit right so I felt like I needed to make myself less than because I got criticized for being bold and colorful and

playful and Camilla I got criticized for being Camilla so and I've experienced that in the past before so that was a massive trigger for me and I also had it off one of the other contestants and so I felt really I felt really insecure and vulnerable on set a lot of the time I didn't have the confidence to really speak my truth at times and I just was dying to get back to my Camilla tribe to be honest you know I had the Ferrari team and all of a sudden I had the backyard go-kart team you're like no offense would you do anything differently then if you could go back and do the whole experience again in hindsight would you would you change anything believe in myself and believe that you know I'm perfectly imperfect but I'm actually okay you know and I

think outside judgment like I think people that decide to judge you in a first meeting or in a second meeting I feel like it's the lowest form of intelligence and it sort of puts up walls and so I think I wouldn't allow any of those people to rattle me again I would just allow just to fade away i like to resolve things and fix things and please and so i probably wouldn't have done that i wouldn't have wasted my energy trying to do that and just let it go just let it go i mean ultimately they had you on the show because they wanted camilla so i don't know how i feel about the fact that they were like hey camilla come on because we want you but then also don't be you just be a bit less camilla every time i was at the boardroom oh so you

wearing Camilla again well I'm not going to wear bloody added ass what do you want me to wear then the issue with that is is like there's almost like this undertone of like oh this is self-promotion you're like no this is what I wear this is this is me why approach me if you don't want me to wear my brand and that that was confusing so then I'd rock into the boardroom wearing ball gowns and my big head pieces and everything and I'm going oh this is kind of awks no but I was like stuff it I'm just going to be me. But I think there was people on set that just made me feel really comfortable being me and I love those people

and they'll be in my life forever. I think that that's the truth. Even like for our experience on reality TV, like I look back on my time and I think I've never felt more insecure and vulnerable than what that show brought out in me. I couldn't believe it. I thought I'd been through that part of my life. I'm never going to end up back there again

and I felt like I went back to my 20-year-old self. but do you know what it did for me though so I received all the babies yeah yeah got me a family I received all the backlash I received all the negative like the nasty things that people wrote on Instagram I received it all and it just made me so thick skin I can read anything about myself in daily mail now I can have any message read to me and it just doesn't touch the sides yeah I don't have thick skin but it comes in time it really does because I didn't have thick skin I don't even want to read the bullshit i've seen laura reads everyone but my it's almost like a personal challenge and i don't i don't read one thing my skin's a little less thick when i say thick skin

i don't mean it's hurt for all you trolls and bullies out there you need to understand there's consequences stopping this someone on the other end of that that has a heart and you might have an idea of who we are but we've all got our own life lens and internal monologue going on at the moment so lead lead with love well i think it's very quick to judge isn't it because i mean even for laura and myself the thing that we get said to us the most now that we've had the podcast we've had the platform for two years is oh you guys are actually pretty smart or you guys are pretty funny or you guys aren't as bad as i thought you'd be like you're not as bad as i thought because a we made a decision to go on a reality show but you're also not getting edited by a

station totally exactly because now we've got a personality that's really us like someone said to me the other day oh i just thought you were like this really shy wallflower i'm like fucking volcano i'm like the opposite of a wall but that's why i've done frankly speaking because i feel like you know i've got this audience of like 400 000 followers and i feel like they deserve the respect to see the real me rather than an edited version of me when i say and i just want to kind of clarify when i say i feel like i have thick skin from it what it was with me and my personal journey is that i had to rediscover who i am and i got really okay with who i am and i am flawed and I am not perfect and I am like you know I have a lot of insecurities but I'm okay with

those insecurities now and that it really challenged me as a person and I think I just came out the other end of it and I'm stronger for it yeah you know and I really believe in my abilities now which I didn't then I think I've made peace with my flaws and my insecurities and everything but I I never seem to be able to find peace if someone doesn't get me or misunderstands me I want to try and get them to understand me like it's like it's like I really like I want to crack through that let's kind of work this out but that comes from empathy as well and it comes from you wanting to be a people pleaser it's not a bad quality the only thing that you know you end up kind of chasing your tail with a little bit is like you're in self-doubt like I wasted so much

emotional energy on that show because of some of these and I just yeah I regret that I really regret that because it took away a lot of the joy of shooting for me was something I wanted to bring up with you and it's been in the media lately and it comes back to fashion week and the reason why I wanted to talk to you about this is because I feel like I've read lots of articles but very few conversations that have come from you about this so fashion week this year we saw that it's the first Australian fashion week that has had a variety of inclusivity not just models of different sizes but models of different abilities as well and the final show there was look there was a few things that kind of went a bit awry what came up in the media and what happened in the final show

was that the accessibility of the final show was compromised by confetti yeah or streamers or something being on the catwalk yep so one of the models lisa cox was wearing a camilla caftan and there is a beautiful photo of you getting on to the runway and helping her down the runway yeah And now I understand that the feedback that's come in has been like, well, she shouldn't be needed to be helped. Yeah. But also I think that there was this real sort of misrepresentation that this was a Camilla show.

Which it wasn't. Yes. And so I wanted to kind of ask you, like, how do you deal with that sort of backlash when you receive it as a brand? But also from your own words, what was that experience like and what happened? Well, firstly, you know, the brand Camilla, rewind 18 years ago, has always been about celebrating diversity. and so one of our key values is you know everyone's welcome to Camilla Tribe and we celebrate women of

all different age shapes and sizes and disabilities so for me it was a dagger to the heart it was really fucking painful like we were furious about it at first I didn't have time with Lisa one-on-one and I said I'm not dressing Lisa unless I can work with her one-on-one because I want to give her the respect that she deserves this is her big moment she's closing the show and I want to make sure she feels like a goddamn goddess and so we got to connect and it was amazing we spent an afternoon in the office and we put all her looks together so we tried four different things on and then we got the millinery done while she was there and then we started making the her big angel wings and I wanted to make sure we could test drive it so she was completely comfortable in the wheelchair

and she taught me the do's and don'ts so we made sure we had our part sorted so it was completely unfortunate that when she came out that there hadn't been a true dress rehearsal with the creative direction and it was unfortunate that we were 18 designers two of which had disability gods and goddesses in their shows and they got caught on the runway and unfortunately PA Nation so Pip Edwards, Claire and myself have been attacked and trolled and bullied and accused and we've had to step into first gear to protect and defend our values and our brand. I think it's set progress back this online bullying and trolling because while it wasn't perfect there was also progress and with that we're moving forward we all should be able

to see ourselves reflected back in advertising campaigns fashion media so this was a great step forward for the fashion industry so I don't want to shame it because I think yes mistakes were made but I'd prefer to make mistakes than not move forward because I think when you make mistakes that's when you rise up and learn and grow and the thing was that these trolls and these bullies they didn't actually go to the source they didn't speak to us they didn't speak to lisa lisa's made a statement so one of the things i wanted to read out and i think because like when i first saw it i genuinely thought it was a camilla show and i thought it was a pe nation show that was actually the first one i saw i saw pips and i thought it was a pe nation show and then i did a little bit

of digging and realized it's the closing show so for anyone who doesn't know kind of how fashion week works each individual brand is responsible for their own show and then the event organizers are what does the closing show and it's a representation of all the brands so each brand has a model that walks down the runway and obviously there had been a rehearsal but the rehearsal didn't include all the props which were then put on stage just before the show so Lisa Cox who was Camilla's model and she's mixed able she was in a wheelchair she came out and wrote this statement. I am the disabled model in question and nobody has bothered to ask me directly about this. Facts. I was consulted. We did rehearsals for this and it was safe.

A mistake happened and to focus on that shows a lack of understanding of a large scale production. Camilla and Camilla with Love's team was so amazing and wonderful to work with. I've written an entire article about this for Inside Retail about how people are sadly focused on the wrong thing instead of celebrating what has happened at Australian Fashion Week this year. And I just think it goes to show that sometimes we can have outrage culture maybe rightly so in some respects because we did make mistakes and you know next year those mistakes but you know what lisa said to me the other day she said do you know what i have been putting my hand up for better facilities for disability you know and then all of a sudden we have a fuck up on the runway and now it's

created this massive big conversation so maybe it was meant to happen i just think the important thing is just to really reiterate here that it's been overshadowed the fact of the matter is you were the person that was the most inclusive in that show and it's been completely overshadowed by the fact that there was a mishap that was completely out of your control and for everybody listening I think this is a really important lesson not to jump to conclusions to do your own research to not be the first person to get on a bandwagon because everyone else is you know Pip and I were talking the other day it's like these online trolls these online bullies aren't going to change our narrative or stories around inclusivity and I was with one of the heads of

IMG this morning you know who is still completely apologetic but we want a public apology like we want them to set the story straight so P Nation and myself don't have to continue to defend our brand's values well you're also the ones that are falling on the sword for this we're falling on the sort of a big time you know img is a huge agency you know they're the ones who put on the production and really it was their mistake that was made and their name hasn't been called into question at all img did a great job of giving it a go and i think we need to celebrate that you know because i think it's counterproductive to come after those who stand up for inclusivity and representation and diversity but if they've made a mistake that's okay just own up to it and allow us to just live

by our brand values. And also, I mean, it sets a precedent for next year that things will be done better. Things can be done with good intention and then, you know, mistakes can happen. And I'm not saying that the mistake is insignificant. Like there was probably some embarrassment that was caused by the situation, but all we can do is be better next year. And I think that that is what will be the learning curve from this whole situation. Oh, I think we'll definitely grow and learn from this and I think IMG's definitely learned I've definitely learned to sense check the creative I mean it's a I don't usually do group shows so I I just didn't think to get involved with that and that was my downfall I should have really asked what's going to be on

the runway I just didn't you assume I just assume they would have had that covered everybody has their part to play and you trust that the people that were in control of the production at the end did their part correctly one thing I want to ask you before we do let you go we've had you for way too much time but I'm not gonna let you go just yet yeah how did you meet your partner JP and I know that there's a bit of an interesting story here and we are a podcast that when we first started we actually started as a dating relationships podcast yeah we've evolved and one epic failure so we're like this is the key to success but it's always I mean relationships are such a huge part of what make us the people that we are and I think that even though we have

evolved as a podcast it's still such a core part of what makes life on cart life on cart we love love and i'm so interested to hear how you guys met and how your love story came to be okay so god so long ago where was i i was in sydney so i left to go overseas when i was 21 i was living with a girlfriend of mine and i locked myself out of the apartment i think i was wearing my pajamas was at the time and I called her and she said she was in London and there was a famous nightclub called the 10 room so I fanged it over to the 10 room there was this massive queue out the front and I was like you're kidding me and like it was a proper posh nightclub and I'm literally in my PJs and I'm like yeah actually great anyway so I got to the dorm and I said look I'm not dealing

with this you just need to let me in I was quite emotional you just need to let me in I need to find my friend I need my keys and I need to get my apartment I need some clothes and I need some clothes anyway so he was like let the crazy girl in let the crazy Aussie in so I tried to find Tatiana and it was a big nightclub anyway this lovely Welsh boy came up to me and said you look really distressed I said I am I can't find my friend why do you think that and then he goes let me get you a glass of water calm down breathe and I'll find your friend with you anyway so he found tatiana and then walked me out to the cab and he was such a sweetheart and he said and by the way can i have your number bless his cotton socks and so he called me the following day and

which men never usually do which i thought was very romantic and he said can i please um take you out on a date and i went sure no worries in my head i'm like i'm never going on a date i used to hate dates they make me anxious nervous so a week later the date came around and my girlfriend had flooded the flat she's like you have to go on the date I flooded the flat literally flooded it how do you flood a flat she knew she wanted you to get out she's like go on a date it's the middle of winter yeah we're on to her she floods the flat anyway can't cook can't clean this one so she left the washing machine open or something so all of a sudden we had these big industrial fans so I go on the date and I arrived on the date I remember being so nervous and I sat down to have

dinner and within the first moment there was a massive big candelabra on top of me he's sitting opposite me I think we were both quite nervous and the big candelabra and had the big massive zulu boobs and the wax just fell down my breast so I literally like burnt your breasts literally burnt my breasts and it was just so it was most awkward clumsy date and then I jumped up the dinner went everywhere the glassware went everywhere the breasts are on fire I literally had burns and he's then he's got the napkin going like this he's getting a good feel you know he sat you under the candle so that this would happen so wrong and we started laughing it sort of broke the ice and we I think within two hours we told each other we loved each other we're going to

spend the rest of our lives together shut the front door and then was that it from then on or so then we did two years living in london but then my visa ran out and i had to come back to australia so when i came back to australia we did long distance but back then there was no sort of facetime or anything and like mobile phones clunky it was just too hard a disaster send a carrier pigeon over yeah send the falcons anyway so we were doing this crazy long distance relationship for two years and it just became dysfunctional and we hurt each other, but we never stopped loving each other. And we kept in contact for all that time. There were long stints where we didn't because we were too angry with each other. We hadn't forgiven. And there was one time I met

him when we were at the Beverly Hills Hotel, I think, because he was traveling around with Chrissie Hynde from Pretenders. He had a band with her after she left the Pretenders. So I met up with him then and you know we still told each other we loved each other and we had snot connecting and drooling and cuddling but you know it's love when your snot connects yeah and crying that we couldn't kind of be together but then it was just too difficult you know his world was traveling around the world being a rock star mine was getting a brand up and we'd heard each other so there was just too many things going on then a few more years passed and then I got sick with the Bell's palsy and then my awakening and he heard about that and he's like I've got to see

you he goes you know I've tried to find another Camilla there's not another Camilla it's like I had a good bottle of wine I need my good bottle of wine back where are you and so he demanded that he'd meet me on the back end of I was doing a yoga meditation retreat in Thailand and he'd said he'd meet me there so he met me on the back end of that and I was so nervous I remember because I arrived two hours earlier than him to the hotel so i went to the villa that he'd booked and i was like there's only one bedroom here this is all imagine if i don't like it we're gonna have sexy imagine if i didn't like him you just built a pillow fort in between no just get another room i walked straight into the bill i was like can i please have two jugs of margarita anyway so

by the time he arrived i literally just ran up and jumped into his arms and it was just on and that was it yeah back in love back on now he lives here with you and you've got a baby yeah and it's perfectly imperfect like we still live long distance you know we bounce but now with COVID it's even harder but we make it work and it works for us it's not everyone's sort of cup of tea but for us I mean I kind of like having my own space and so does he and then you come back and then you have your journey together we love love on this this is like I remember reading about your like how you guys had met quite a while ago and I was like god for anyone who's into a bit of a romantic story this is it it's a romance story yeah it's got a little movie that's in the works

as well you know yeah we actually talk about that when we've had too many wines like hey that's our short film oh that's right who are you gonna play I'm a young Camilla okay great Camilla thank you so much for taking so much time out of your day today absolute pleasure to come and do this podcast you are just divine a wonderful positive light and I think that there's gonna be so many people who are going to listen to this and truly get something out of it. And I need something out of it. I need an egg and a surrogate. So we're so, so grateful. And yeah, thank you so much for being a part of this. Thanks so much girls for having me. I loved that. Okay, guys, you know that we never finish an episode without our suck and our sweet, and that is our highlight and our

low light of each and every week. And Brittany, you can kick it off because I reckon you got some pretty sweetie little sweets for us oh i look quick and easy i've got two solid ones my suck is the daily mail saying that i had to get taken away by the police for having a fight with the staff at the airport which is like fun paying a thousand dollars i mean then there's the truth of the suck which is paying a thousand dollars for a bag my sweet was 100 obviously finally reuniting with the love of my life well currently the love of my life let's hope it's long term jordan you cannot say that you cannot say currently well do you know what i say when i say the love of my life okay this is what i do let me tell you when i say the love of my life i have

this thing where i feel like i'm gonna jinx myself to the universe so i have this thing where i feel like i can't say it and then i have to like play it down to the universe is that weird i think this is also like a reflection of the fact that because you were single for so long you're like this is the love of my right now look he is currently no not currently he's the love of my life let's just leave it like that but I just like am also hyper aware that one day he might break up with me and then that will be awkward I'm just trying to keep it real you know so if that ever happens I don't want this to be like it written in stone on a podcast forever I want to be able to retract this statement all right what's your suck so my I'm gonna do this around the other way and that

I know I know it's breaking the rules and I have to do my suck first and then my sweet but I'm going to tell you my sweet and that's because otherwise my suck won't make sense so okay you do you my you do you boo so my sweet for the week is that it was molly's birthday and we had a super cute little birthday party for her and we had all her little birthday friends over and yeah just like i cannot believe that i am a parent to a two-year-old it's wild i actually can't believe that and i can't believe i missed her birthday i mean to be honest though like as a mom who when you have like a group gathering with lots of kids you don't actually have any conversations so you would have been there and it would have been like hi brit how are you oh let me just go and save

this child who's choking on something like you don't ever actually get to complete any one conversation so yeah gone are those days yeah completely it was so beautiful that we got to do that but my suck and some of you might have seen it if you follow on instagram it's not unusual to me or unfamiliar territory for me to receive like a lot of commentary in regards to like parenting some of it's positive some of it's negative and we've spoken loads about trolling online but I often receive messages and I did especially after this birthday party about Marley still using a dummy or still having a bottle at two years old and there was a couple of people who messaged one of them I shared actually on my Instagram and I mean we talked about it with the

interview with Camilla but it's so crazy to me and it blows my mind that people think it's okay to give their unwarranted opinions especially around parenting and I think that like the whole mummy shaming thing. There's nothing new about it, but social media has given people even greater access and given people even more like this idea that they have a right to say something. And I think it's so weird because we would never walk up to somebody who we've seen at a cafe. We'd never walk up to someone who we've seen at the park and say, oh, your kid's too old for a dummy. But on social media, the anonymity of it means that people feel a lot more entitled to give their opinions and they shouldn't that's my that's my suck for the week well the fact is your child's two

she's not 22 she's two and they're complaining that she has a dummy and a bottle i think that like that is so far-fetched and so ridiculous and also what really pisses me off my one little thing i'm gonna add in half the time that we get these messages from people like that they've gone and created like an account that doesn't even have a name half the time and it'll be from a blank account for the same reason that they wouldn't come up to you on the street and say it they some of them still don't want to say it they don't want to have the person behind the trolling acknowledged. And I think it's like, if you're going to go and be that rude, don't go make a fake account, just own it. Anyway, enough of that. Mummy shame is not cool guys. And like we

said, you know, there's very few things that hit the side for me, but I think like when you're being criticized for your parenting, it hits a bit differently because at the end of the day, everybody wants the best for their kids. Everybody loves their children unconditionally. They want to do what's right for them. They want to do what's best for them, but we all kind of do it a little bit differently. And if you have a two-year-old who's sucking a dummy, I guarantee that they're not going to be doing that when they're 16 and they're gonna be fine so that was my little suck from the week that is it from us that is it from me in spain i'm gonna go stand back on my balcony and just look longingly down at the beach that i can never go to but guys this is our normal

scheduled programming so on thursday we have ask uncut so please keep on sending in your ask uncut questions for that keep sending in your accidentally unfiltered because you know how much we love them and if you haven't already subscribed or left a review then what are you doing where you at But please tell your mom, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friends and share the love because we love love. So delight. Try and sing that shit.