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Shannon Noll might be a favourite on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out Here, but the talented singer did a lot more than belt out a few tunes at the campsite recently.
During a one-on-one conversation with campmate Fiona O’Loughlin, the 42-year-old revealed that it would have been his late father’s 73rd birthday. Noll’s father died of a brain injury following a farming accident before the star became a household name, leaving a heartbroken family behind.
“It has ruined mum, you know. Mum is not so tough. She will never be the same,” Noll said of how his mother has coped with the loss. “With the sons, we had our own kids and our partners, we had things to occupy our minds…but she is in a house in a cold bed every night. Just a constant reminder everywhere she turns.”
“It’s the hardship of getting left behind. [That] began for her then and it has never stopped,” he expressed.
After his father’s passing, Noll and his brothers struggled to keep the farm running.
“We tried to farm our way out of it in the next two years. We failed because of the drought so we got enough rain to put the crop in and then it didn’t rain at all after that. That cost $40 or 50 grand at a time for fuel, seed, spray. So we went further into debt.”
At that point, Noll confirmed the family have to make the sad decision to sell off the farm.
“Big business, though, they don’t mind jumping on an opportunity I suppose. We just had enough to buy mum’s house. I went on Idol. A few of the creditors were left over, they chased mum really hard for the shortfall,” he said.
The country crooner went on to admit that while he had found success on reality TV as a singer, “I wrote a cash cheque out for $209,000 for a tractor company. I thought I was doing the right thing – I’d never run a business before. So I paid a lot of these debts out. Consequently, all the big money I made after the show, I paid bills with it,” Noll said.
“I didn’t blow it on yachts and all that sort of stuff. Just paid [bills].”
Noll rose to fame on the 2003 season of Australian Idol, the star came second place and Guy Sebastian took the title as first Australian Idol winner.
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