Candice Warner has opened up about her husband David’s ball-tampering scandal in South Africa and the painful legacy of her ‘toilet tryst’ with former NRL star Sonny Bill Williams in an emotionally raw new interview.
The former Ironwoman and cricket WAG, 36, told The Jess Rowe Big Talk Show podcast it had required ‘incredible resilience’ to withstand such public humiliation.
Candice, who suffered a miscarriage due to the stress of the ball-tampering scandal in 2018, told host Jessica Rowe she had ‘learned to live’ with the vile sexist abuse from cricket fans stemming from her 2007 indiscretion with Sonny Bill.
Brave: Candice Warner has opened up about her husband David’s ball-tampering scandal in South Africa and the painful legacy of her ‘toilet tryst’ with former NRL star Sonny Bill Williams in an emotionally raw new interview
‘I’ve kind of had to live with it, I have gotten used to it,’ Candice said of the abuse she cops on social media and from crowds at her husband’s cricket matches.
‘Just the other day I went for a walk and people were calling things out… in this day and age, it blows my mind to think people are so narrow-minded, but I have learnt to live with it,’ she added.
Candice said that while in South Africa in the lead-up to her husband’s cheating scandal, she felt ’embarrassed’ by the spectators’ ‘horrible’ taunts.
Staying strong: The cricket WAG, 36, told The Jess Rowe Big Talk Show podcast it had required ‘incredible resilience’ to withstand such public humiliation. Pictured with her husband David
Candid: Candice, who suffered a miscarriage due to the stress of the ball-tampering scandal in 2018, told host Jessica Rowe she’d ‘learned to live’ with the vile sexist abuse from cricket fans stemming from her 2007 indiscretion with Sonny Bill
‘When I did see that in South Africa, all I was trying to do was support my husband and cheer on the Australian team and I was forced to defend myself and almost hide because I was embarrassed. It was a horrible, horrible thing,’ she said.
‘[The crowd behaviour] should never have been allowed and the officials who posed with [Sonny Bill] masks on and thought it was funny… it goes to show how far I feel we’ve come since then and that behaviour is just not tolerated.’
During Australia’s 2018 cricket tour, South African fans taunted David by referencing his wife’s brief sexual encounter with Sonny Bill in 2007 – years before the Warners even met.
The now-infamous meeting between Candice and the All Blacks star occurred in the bathroom of the Clovelly Hotel in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
The pair were pictured in a compromising position by another patron who leaked the image to the press. She was single at the time but Sonny Bill had a girlfriend.
Rude: During Australia’s 2018 cricket tour, South African fans taunted David by referencing his wife’s brief sexual encounter with Sonny Bill Williams (pictured) in 2007
Controversy: The now-infamous meeting between Candice and the All Blacks star occurred in the bathroom of the Clovelly Hotel in Sydney. They were pictured in a compromising position by another patron who leaked the image to the press
In 2018, Candice apologised to Sonny Bill and his family after their decade-old tryst was dredged up in the media following the ball-tampering affair.
South African player Quinton de Kock was fined for allegedly provoking David with a sledge about the toilet incident, and South African fans wore masks of Sonny Bill’s face in an attempt to further humiliate the batsman.
Cricket South Africa was forced to apologise after two officials posed for a photograph with fans while wearing the offensive masks.
Scandal: In 2018, South African player Quinton de Kock was fined for allegedly provoking David with a sledge about the toilet tryst, while South African fans wore masks of Sonny Bill’s face in an attempt to further humiliate the batsman. Cricket South Africa was forced to apologise after two officials posed for a photograph with fans wearing the offensive masks
Candice has said the pressure her husband felt to silence her critics inspired him to mastermind the plot to cheat in the Third Test against South Africa in March 2018 by tampering with the ball.
She would suffer a devastating miscarriage a week after David apologised for his role in the conspiracy.
‘I was bleeding. We knew I was miscarrying. We held one another and cried,’ she told The Australian Women’s Weekly at the time.
Candice told Jessica Rowe the ball-tampering scandal was a ‘very, very hard time in our lives’ and she was particularly hurt by the suggestion they had used their daughters as ‘shields’ while navigating the media scrum at Sydney Airport.
Ordeal: Candice told Jessica Rowe the ball-tampering scandal was a ‘very, very hard time in our lives’ and she was particularly hurt by the suggestion they had used their daughters as ‘shields’ while navigating the media scrum at Sydney Airport (pictured on March 29, 2018)
‘People were saying we were using our children as shields, that we were bad parents. It hurt more than anything we went through at the time,’ she said.
‘I’m very protective, even with David, to protect anyone, good or bad I will always approach someone and try to put someone in their place in the nicest possible way. But I had to sit back and cop a lot.
‘People saw images of us coming out of the airport, people wanted to jump on the bandwagon of hating the Warners.
‘I get people have opinions but when there is so much hate when you don’t know all the facts or the situation, that’s when I have an issue with it.’
Speaking of her miscarriage, she said it was ‘heartbreaking’ but they were ‘resilient’.
‘At the time I was very early in my pregnancy,’ she admitted. ‘I was pregnant and no one knew that and soon after we miscarried, it was heartbreaking… it takes a great deal of strength to get through situations like that… it takes incredible resilience.’
Hate figures: ‘People saw images of us coming out of the airport, people wanted to jump on the bandwagon of hating the Warners,’ she said