Channel 10
From a revealing medium reading with Jackie Gillies to eating a whole tarantula, model Simone Holtznagel sure made the most of her in the jungle. Now, the former Australia’s Next Top Model star tells WHO she’s keen to get back to work.
WHO: Jackie (Gillies) conducted a reading with you while in the jungle and she brought up a lot of things about your friend and mentor, Charlotte Dawson. How does it feel having that connection four years after her passing?
SIMONE HOLTZNAGEL: It was amazing! I’ve said before in interviews that I feel her around me a lot so just having that reiterated was amazing. I didn’t doubt it, I knew she’d come through straight away. I was very, very happy about that.
WHO: Lisa Oldfield caused quite a stir after she was evicted as she alluded to a jungle romance between you and Josh (Gibson). How do you feel about that?
SIMONE HOLTZNAGEL: I heard she said that. I mean that comment was just stupid. Josh and I are like brother and sister so the fact that she felt the need to say that is just silly. Definitely not true.
WHO: Were you surprised by any of the friendships you made in the jungle?
SIMONE HOLTZNAGEL: I wouldn’t say that I’m surprised, I’m just super stoked with everyone that I met, like Pete, Josh, Jackie, Fi, you know, just basically everyone.
WHO: People were surprised by how frank you were about some of your campmates upon your release. What brought that on?
SIMONE HOLTZNAGEL: Uh, the truth.
WHO: You’ve gone from this really intense experience and now it’s back to reality. How do you think this experience has changed or affected you?
SIMONE HOLTZNAGEL: It’s definitely changed me for the better. I am so appreciative of all my family and friends and the support system that I have around me with my agents and things like that and I’m very lucky to do what I do and live my life the way that I do. I’m super appreciative of that, I’m very lucky.
WHO: What was the hardest part of being in the jungle?
SIMONE HOLTZNAGEL: The hardest part for me… I mean, the fire was pretty hot all the time and it’s not very cold in South Africa, it’s pretty warm… that was annoying. I didn’t care too much about the lack of food, like we knew that going in so anyone who whinged about food, It’s like what did you think was going to happen? That was like the one thing you could bet your money on is that we weren’t going to get much food. So don’t complain about that. I missed my family of course, but I’ve been away from my family for a long time, so I’m used to not seeing them for months on end because, you know, I live overseas. I speak to my mum and dad everyday, just about twice a day, on the phone for at least an hour so I definitely missed speaking to my parents it was made a lot because I knew that they were watching everything on TV every night. So, you know, I didn’t have to relay everything that I was doing because they could just see it.
WHO: You mentioned that your agent was discussing how much weight you’d lose weight while in the jungle. How much did you end up losing?
SIMONE HOLTZNAGEL: I ended up losing 6.3kg but of course, me and my agent like to carry on a little bit, he’s been my agent since I was 16 so we’re quite close and we are both very tongue in cheek so everything should be taken with a grain of salt.
WHO: Watching from the comfort of home, who do you want to win the competition?
SIMONE HOLTZNAGEL: I would love it if the final two was Vicki and Fiona, but I would love Fi to win.
WHO: What’s next for you now that this adventure is over?
SIMONE HOLTZNAGEL: I am going to go back to Australia for a few weeks and then I will be back in LA which I’m super excited about and I can’t wait to get back to work, honestly.
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