While Australia is still coming to terms with the loss of cricketing great, Shane Warne, his friends and family have slowly begun to speak out on their horror at shock at his sudden and untimely death.
One of Shane’s closest friends, AFL star Brendan Fevola, is just one of the many who are grappling with grief.
“I didn’t stop crying all Saturday,” Brendan said on his radio show, Fifi, Fev & Nick.
“Seeing all the headlines, I can’t come to grips with it yet. It hasn’t sunk in.”
Brendan and Shane were friends for years, but grew closer when they appeared on the second season of I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! together in 2016.
Brendan says he has ‘learned a lot’ from Shane, including how to hold himself in moments of scandal, given both the sportsmen had their fare share.
“It wasn’t just his cricket, it was his off-field stuff,” Brendan said of Shane.
“So many people can relate. I could relate to it as I stuffed up a lot in my life.
“I learned off Shane that you just own up to it. You own it and then people can’t have a crack at you. That was his philosophy. He goes, “I just own up to it and I’m okay”,” Brendan said.
Brendan’s close relationship to Shane saw him donating half of his winnings from the show to the Shane Warne Foundation, despite the fact it was closing imminently.
The foundation, which was founded in 2004, assisted seriously ill and underprivileged children and teenagers.
“Shane has raised a hell of a lot of money for underprivileged kids,” Brendan said at the time.
“This cheque will go to a worthy cause before (the closing of the charity).”
Their friendship continued over the years, with Brendan revealing in the wake of Shane’s passing that he was a regular at Shane’s famous poker nights.
He said they’d had one just two weeks prior to Shane’s death.
“We caught up for poker nights, which were always at Shane’s garage, his house, his holiday house,” Brendan said on radio.
“He was the life of the party. The life of the poker. All our poker mates just rang each other, there was just big, grown men bawling their eyes out.”
Over the weekend, Brendan shared a post put up by fellow poker night regular, James Hachem, simply writing “Going to miss these nights.”
The two were also a known pair of troublemakers, in the best possible way.
The pair attended the TV Week Logies together in 2016, a moment that drew attention and comment from none other than Niall Horan, a musician and former member of boyband One Direction.
“@BrendanFevola25 @ShaneWarne you two at the Logies together, I smell trouble,” he tweeted.
Brendan tweeted back: “Mate if only you were here,” adding a beer and an ace hand emoji.
Brendan and Shane were spotted throughout the night chatting to various people from the Australian TV industry, including glamorous sports reporter Mel McLaughlin and Pia Miller.
Host Dave Hughes even made a crack on the night about Shane and his womanising ways.
In the wake of his loss, Brendan, a father himself, has shared his respect for Shane’s role as a dad in the lives of his three kids – Brooke, Summer, and Jackson.
“Everyone loved him as the cricket player – the larrikin Shane Warne, but I knew him as a father as well and he loved his kids,” Brendan confirmed.
“I can’t stop thinking about them. Those poor kids have lost their dad. They shared their lives with their dad and now they have to grieve with the world about their dad as well.
“There’s nothing we can do to help, but I just hope they know that their dad was one of the best people anyone would ever meet. He was a great man, a good man.”
“He made you feel so special,” Brendan added.
“He did that with everyone in the room and not many people can do that or have those qualities. Everyone always says ‘I’m mates with Warnie’ because that’s how he made you feel. You were his mate.”
Shane passed away from a suspected heart attack on March 4, 2022 while on holiday in Thailand.
He was offered a state funeral by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, which is likely to take place in coming weeks.
WATCH: Summer Warne makes TikTok with her dad Shane Warne
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