
Warning: The following deals with pregnancy loss and suicidal ideation.
Candice Warner has hit rock bottom twice in her life.
The first time, she was just 22.
She was Candice Falzon then, known best as a successful IronWoman until she was mercilessly slut shamed by the press and online commentators over a sexual encounter with rugby league star Sonny Bill Williams. A member of the public had filmed the pair without their knowledge, the media acquired the footage and committed the details of their drunken liaison to paper for the entire country to gape over.
Predictably, only one reputation was scarred.
Watch: Why Candice Warner stepped back into the spotlight for SAS Australia.
Reflecting on the fallout on Mamamia's No Filter podcast, Warner hunts for the silver linings. There was no social media, for one. But most importantly, though the enforced shame dragged her into a dark place, she found a way out.
"It got so bad that I remember pulling to the side of the road and [thinking], 'I just can't take anymore'... There was a part of me that wanted to end my life, to be brutally honest. I did not want to be here anymore. I did not want my family to suffer. I couldn't shame my family anymore.
"But I think it was that moment that needed to be had to wake me up and go, 'Okay, you can do something about your life and move forward in the direction that you want to go. Or you just continue down this path of— I don't know if it's feeling sorry for yourself, or just taking the blame and hiding from everyone, from life.
"So that was the first time I hit rock bottom. I got through that. So I knew I was quite resilient."
Then came 2018.
"I couldn't believe what I was seeing."
The events of the Australia versus South Africa test series are infamous.