Mikey Pembroke opened up about the tragic death of his younger sister, Kate.
WATCH: Mikey leads a movement to tackle self isolation
Celebrating what would’ve been her 28th birthday, the operations manager revealed in a heartbreaking Instagram post that she passed away when she was 18-months-old to sudden infant death syndrome.
“We have never posted a photo of her but during these weird times I thought it would be appropriate to recognise and celebrate her birthday,” the Married At First Sight star captioned the post which included two photos of his sibling.
“If angels exist she definitely is one! I have her initials on me forever 🖤 Happy Birthday to you darling girl.”
Speaking to Daily Mail Australia about losing his loved one at the tender age of four, the 26-year-old said Kate’s death came at a particularly burdensome time for his close-knit family.
“My mum lost her father a few weeks after I was born, and my dad’s father died in the only plane crash in Australia never to be found, so there were a few deaths in such a short amount of time,” said Mikey, who endured an ill-fated on-screen marriage to Natasha Spencer.
“What was nice was that my other baby sister, Caroline, was born one year later, which I think would of helped the family. We were young but my parents had to push from that,” he added.
In an act of remembrance, Mikey had his sister’s initials tattooed on his right rib, admitting it gives him the “strength” and “courage” he needs to push through challenging times.
Since the finale of the controversial dating experiment hit our screens, Mikey has been at the centre of many controversies, the main being his alleged affair with bride Stacey Hampton. But while he maintains he slept with the single mother of two when she was still “married” to Michael Goonan— an accusation Stacey has vehemently denied—he would’ve preferred to be matched with KC Osborne.
Spilling behind the scenes tea on his new Instagram Live show, Mikey on TV, he said things would’ve panned out differently if the experts matched the brides and grooms correctly.
Reading out questions from his fans, Mikey asked himself: “Knowing what I know now, having that hindsight, what bride would I pick now?
“Probably KC Osborne,” he said without hesitation. “Obviously I find her attractive but more importantly she is a good dancer, she has got a good sense of humour and she was just someone I got on with.”
During the four-minute-long video, Mikey also spilled on his tumultuous relationship with Natasha, saying: “Of course she is a beautiful girl but she wasn’t my type. When you walk down the aisle with someone you’ve never met before, you try and build that chemistry. It’s something that I really struggled with. She’s a great girl but there were no real feelings there.”
As we know, Natasha still harbours resentment towards her television husband for sleeping with Stacey just hours after they called it quits and she was booted off the experiment.
“We had broken up four hours before I decided it would be best for my mental health to leave the experiment. So he literally turned on his heels as soon as I said I was going, packed his suitcase, said this is done, went to another room and f***ed Stacey,” she told WHO exclusively earlier this month.
“I thought he would’ve at least let the dust settle. 24 hours would’ve been nice instead of on our one month anniversary.”
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