‘I think my biggest achievement to date is still being alive’: Convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby talks candidly about being imprisoned in Bali on SAS Australia as the show’s instructors insist her ‘grit and determination’ will be an asset
Schapelle Corby was reduced to tears while talking about her nine-year stint in a Balinese prison during Monday’s premiere episode of SAS Australia.
After being ‘impressed with her mental resilience’, the show’s instructors decided to sit down with the 43-year-old convicted drug smuggler to learn more about her.
According to Chief Instructor of Ex-Special Forces, Ant Middleton, the goal was to take Schapelle ‘out of her comfort zone’ and ‘push on her weaknesses’.
Reliving the past: Schapelle Corby was reduced to tears while talking about her nine-year stint in a Balinese prison during Monday’s premiere episode of SAS Australia
A guard pulled a black hood over Schapelle’s head before she was led into an interrogation room and asked about her controversial past.
After having the hood removed from her head, a terrified Schapelle began to get teary as she took in her surroundings.
She was then asked where her resilience had come from, and after initially giving a vague answer, began to cry as a soundbite from her trial in Bali was played to her.
Fascinating past: After being ‘impressed with her mental resilience’, the show’s instructors decided to sit down with the 43-year-old convicted drug smuggler to learn more about her
Schapelle was then asked about her drug conviction, maintaining her innocence as she spoke about being arrested at a Balinese airport for possession of marijuana.
‘How come a court of law can prove you guilty and then you’re saying, “It wasn’t me”?’ asked a disbelieving Ant.
‘Did it just magically turn up in your boogie board and you’re like, “Don’t know how that happened!”‘
‘I suffered. I started to have mental illness really bad in 2008, and I lived in psychosis for four years,’ she revealed, wiping away tears
Schapelle silently nodded, before Ant confessed he didn’t care about the fact she’d been convicted of drug trafficking, he was more curious about her experience in prison.
‘I suffered. I started to have mental illness really bad in 2008, and I lived in psychosis for four years,’ she revealed, wiping away tears.
Schapelle admitted she still wasn’t ‘fully recovered from it’, as she recounted the death of her dad while she was incarcerated in 2008.
Past trauma: She was then asked where her resilience had come from, and after initially giving a vague answer, began to cry as a soundbite from her trial in Bali was played to her
‘He used to come and visit me a lot. I didn’t think that he would die, and I didn’t understand that that would be the last time I’d see him,’ she confessed.
She said she’d been repeatedly appealing her sentence, but kept getting denied, and admitted it all led to her ‘losing my mind’.
‘Hallucinating, I couldn’t eat. I don’t eat meat anymore, because my hallucinations were so vivid, I thought I was eating my dad’s human flesh,’ she revealed.
‘Hallucinating, I couldn’t eat. I don’t eat meat anymore, because my hallucinations were so vivid, I thought I was eating my dad’s human flesh,’ she revealed
The instructors assured Schapelle that her ‘grit and determination’ would be her biggest asset on the show.
‘There’s not much that will phase you because of what you’ve been through. You have that mental resilience that will see you through life,’ Ant told her.
‘I think my biggest achievement to date is still being alive. I am a survivor,’ she later confessed.
‘I think my biggest achievement to date is still being alive. I am a survivor,’ she later confessed at the end of the episode