Mia Fevola has revealed how her AFL legend father, Brendan Fevola, caused the family to become homeless when his gambling addiction spiralled out of control.
Mia explained how the Carlton icon and his family were set to move into a $1.4 million Brisbane home in 2010, but were unable to secure a loan when Fevola admitted to having a gambling problem.
As a result, the contract collapsed, leaving Fevola, his wife Alex, and their three young children without a home.
Mia, who is currently starring in I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!, told her campmates on Tuesday about the extent of her dad’s addiction, including how he infamously gambled $363,000 in a day.
“The whole gambling situation, I honestly blocked so much of it out,” the influencer, 26, said.
“I think just as a defence mechanism. But I know he gambled $363,000 in a day. But to be honest, my mum tried very, very hard to protect us from all of these things.
“I didn’t really know what was going on unless people at school told me. That’s how I found out.”
Mia said her dad “gambled every cent” they had before they became homeless, and the ordeal caused Alex to leave him and move back in with her mother in Melbourne.
“We just bought a house and didn’t settle, so we got sued. And then we were homeless because he gambled every cent ever that we had,” she explained.
“We moved back in with my nanna in Melbourne. You know, my mum did Dancing With The Stars, and that’s how we sort of got back on our feet.
“Dad went to rehab, came out, then… to think he’s turned his life around from that. He sorted himself out.”
The model added that Fevola has “really owned up to his mistakes” and “hitting rock bottom forced him to pick up the pieces and change his life”.
“He had a lot of making up to do to my mum, that’s for sure,” Mia concluded.
Alex, 48, has opened up about Brendan’s gambling addiction and the impact it had on their marriage.
“At the lowest point, Brendan gambled an entire year’s worth of wages away. I couldn’t work out why the money wasn’t going in. There was no pay. I wasn’t working, and I had a newborn baby,” she told Mamamia’s No Filter podcast in 2022.
“Losing his job and hitting rock bottom made him the person he is today. He had to lose it all to appreciate what he has.”
Alex and Brendan had a rocky relationship, briefly splitting in 2010 following his affair with Lara Worthington, and divorcing in 2014 due to his addiction.
They got back together shortly after their split, and Brendan proposed again in 2016. They now have four children: Mia, Leni, 19, Lulu, 15, and Tobi, seven.