Jessika Power shot to fame on Married At First Sight Australia in 2019 and has remained a prominent fixture on our televisions (and social platforms) ever since.
WATCH: Dayne and Jess fight over “influencers” on Big Brother
You can say she’s not “really famous” or joke about how being an “influencer” is not a career – like her co-star Dayne Beams did recently on Big Brother VIP – but you’d be wrong. While we’re all guilty of occasionally judging influencers and reality TV stars, there’s no denying how much star power they hold.
With more than 360,000 Instagram followers and credits on multiple reality TV shows (highly rated TV shows, we might add) Jessika Power is simply famous. And infamous, at times.
On Tuesday night’s episode of Big Brother VIP, Jess and all of her co-stars were forced to defend their VIP status to Big Brother. Revealing she’d been paid as much as $11,000 for a single Instagram post in the past, Jess first spoke about her influencer career before opening up about one of the moments she is most well-known for.
Jess spoke about when her MAFS partner, Dan Webb, broke up with her on live television during a Talking Married segment in the finale week.
“I really loved him,” Jess told Big Brother, adding “yes” when she was asked if Dan had broken her heart.
“I moved states for him, I moved my whole life and I thought I was doing the right thing,” she said. “And then it wasn’t… It just hurt as well because it’s not like a normal breakup where it’s private and you talk about it with each other. The whole of Australia knew, I got broken up with on national TV. That was pretty big.”
Jessika also revealed she’s yet to find love since the ordeal, telling Big Brother: “I feel like I’m always getting played.”
But, how did Jess transform an appearance on MAFS into a fully-fledged career? And what’s her relationship with Dan like now? Join us for a stroll down memory lane…
Jessika Power and Dan Webb’s MAFS Journey
Jess was one of the contestants on, arguably, the best-ever season of MAFS. We met Cyclone Cyrell Paule, lovebirds Jules Robinson and Cameron Merchant, the ever bubbly Mel Lucarelli, and who could forget our faves, Martha Kalifatidis and Michael Brunelli. It was jam-packed with scandals, especially from the moment that “intruders” Dan Webb and Tamara Joy entered the show.
Dan and Tamara tied the knot later than the others, entering mid-way through the series. The star caught the eye of Jess, who was ‘hitched’ to Mick Gould at the time. She had also made a pass at Cyrell’s husband, Nic Jovanovic. But Dan didn’t know that… yet.
Sneaking around behind their partners’ backs, Jess and Dan got to know each other and decided they wanted to pursue a relationship of their own. Fair to say Mick was fuming when the affair was revealed, after Jess had kept him in the experiment so she had time to get to know Dan (for context, Mick wrote leave multiple times in a row).
“Now this all makes sense,” he said after the shock announcement. “You dragged me, you made me stay here by myself and made me look like an idiot so you could play footsies and flirt with him. To think, at one stage I actually b—-y liked you.”
When asked if he had any idea this was going on behind his back, Mick said he didn’t.
“No idea, one hundred percent no idea. This explains why she hasn’t wanted to hang out with me for like three weeks now.”
YIKES. Tamara was also pretty shocked.
“Hold on, settle,” she said, holding up a hand to stop Dan speaking. “You wrote stay because you ‘wanted to try to make it work with me’ but really you just wanted to hang out with Jess. So, you’re a liar. If that’s how you felt, speak to me about it. If we’re so-called friends, speak to me about it.”
“And I have had your back and you’ve s–t all over me,” Tamara continued, turning to Jess. “You could have said to me ‘we’ve spoken, I fancy him, I want to catch up with him,’ whatever, and I would have been like ‘cool.'”
Of course, the dramatic reveal had been filmed long before viewers saw it. Meaning Dan and Jess were still happily together while the show was airing. However, when the reunion for their season was filmed, Dan found out for the very first time that Jess had been interested in Nic.
He struggled to move beyond that fact and, in a live interview on Talking Married after the reunion episode aired, the pair had an argument. It seemed that reliving the controversial moment was enough to break their bond.
“To me it is [a bit deal], there’s a lot to it for me. I wish I didn’t watch it tonight to be honest with you,” Dan told host Ben Fordham at the time.
Jess then said: “I definitely wish I’d been a bit more honest.”
When Ben asked: “Can you trust each other three months on. Can you get past it?” Dan said: “ I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
Following the interview, Dan told Yahoo Lifestyle that he and Jess had split.
The Fallout From Jess and Dan’s Split
Frustrated that Dan had told the media they were no longer together, Jess posted a lengthy statement to her Instagram page.
“I cooked Dan dinner, we had sex and he was telling me how much he loved me and that nothing could change the way he felt,” she said.
“Then the last episode aired and Dan and I watched it together and he got upset over mine and Nic’s conversation. Then straight after we had to do Talking Married and we had that live breakdown and I was in so much shock.”
Jessika continued: “We broke up and I called him and said, ‘Despite us being a public couple can we please do the break-up story together because I am so in love with you and respect you’, and he agreed.
“He went to Sydney and did that break-up story behind my back after the day before saying he still loved me. Then recently, despite saying in his tell-all that he would never speak to me again he continues to call me.’
Yeah, the drama was intense. And the massive attention cemented Jess as a fixture on the Australian reality TV scene.
WATCH: Jess talks about her split from Dan at the MAFS reunion. Story continues after video.
Jess remained friends with Ines Basic from her season of MAFS, and even went on to form a friendship with Tamara despite what happened on the show. The girl’s used their moment in the spotlight to further their social media profiles, to great success.
As for Dan and Jess, it would be a while before we heard from them together again.
Are Jess and Dan friends after MAFS?
Oddly enough, the duo paired up for a MAFS-related interview in March 2020, joining forces to chat about the show when their co-star, Elizabeth Sobinoff, returned to the series. In a video filmed for New Idea, they spoke about the new season and reflected on the relationship between Liz and Sam Ball in their season.
“I think Lizzie got ripped the first time around, poor Sam [Ball]. Ge was made out to be a bad dude. He is a good dude. They weren’t a good pairing. The experts made a f**** deal of it. They’re not each other’s types,” Dan said. “But I think she rolled in and owned it straight away, it’s hard to do that.”
Speaking about their own experiences on the show, they both seemed to have a laugh over their awkward on-screen moments – including the episode when Jess asked Dan if he loved her – and appeared to be on friendly terms.
“This is our banter, he’s secretly still in love with me,” Jess said in the video, with Dan adding “You’re the one who tried to seduce me when I walked in – I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”
After that video was filmed, Dan spoke to WHO about his time on the show and claimed that, despite a tumultuous breakup with Jess, there are “no grudges” being held.
“I hold no ill respect to anyone else but myself,” he says.
“She came around and we had a bit of a chat,” he explains. “We’re on talking terms. I wish her the best of luck.”
Since then, we haven’t heard much from the pair. But Jess still follows Dan on Instagram, so there’s probably no bad blood on her end.
WATCH: Jess and Dan reunite to talk Married At First Sight’s new season in 2020. Story continues after video.
What does Jessika Power do for work?
Jess has previously revealed she hasn’t worked a ‘normal’ job since the show. So, how did Jess turn her villain edit on MAFS into a career? The star amped up her social media profile, working with everyone from beauty brands to sex toy companies as a brand ambassador. Jess also made money through modelling gigs and appeared in Maxim’s Hot 100 list in 2019.
Earning a living thanks to her social media, Jess told her fans in 2020 that she “makes a pretty penny” from Instagram. And she’s not the only one, with her MAFS co-stars like Jules Robinson and Martha Kalifatidis marketing to their huge Instagram followings.
Returning to reality TV for the MAFS Reunion television special earlier this year, she later moved on to Channel Seven’s hit show Big Brother: VIP – both of which would pay her a hefty sum to appear.
Joining the celebrity version of the Big Brother series in October, Jess told her fans:
“You all know me for being this confident, over the top, outrageously opinionated woman but what you’ll see unfold as I share more is that it’s all just an act to hide how really insecure and sensitive I am…and so that people hopefully won’t see how truly broken certain parts of my childhood and growing up has left me.
“Please be kind. These walls were really hard for me to tear down in order to let you all in.”
The reality TV star also made headlines in August this year, when she joined OnlyFans. In September, she said she made $50,000 from just five days on the app and would be removing her lingerie snaps from Instagram to put them behind the paywall.
“I have earned enough money in the last five days to put down a deposit on a house and then some,” she told The Herald Sun. “I wish I had started it a year ago because I would be rich.”
She’s not the only one from MAFS to join the subscription service, with Tamara Joy and Hayley Vernon also on the platform.
Jessika Power moves to the UK
Saying she’d done just about everything she could in Australia, Jess announced she would be moving to Manchester in the UK in October. Recently touching down in the Northern Hemisphere, she’s been hinting at exciting projects to come.
With her MAFS series recently airing in England, Jess has blown up over there and says she’s now being welcomed with open arms into their reality TV scene.
“I have a lot set up over there already,” she said of her new adventure. “I have a TV show – a new one, I have appearances, I have invitations to parties, I have some really exciting stuff going on.”
We’ll have to wait and see what Jess does next but, one thing is clear: her fans and haters alike will both be watching. Jess was right, whether you love of her not, you can’t deny she’s famous.
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