Did you catch the look on Kris Smith’s face on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here tonight when he saw Tziporah Malkah?
The look of polite enquiry on the women’s faces, too, as they tried to repeat her name?
In case you were as confused as everyone else, Tziporah Malkah is the woman formerly known as Kate Fischer.
Tonight she’s the name on everyone’s lips. Quite a different name. So how did it come to this?
You might remember her as a Dolly cover girl at 13. She was engaged to billionaire James Packer at 22; Australia’s Mariah.
A ’90s it girl, model, actress, socialite, and sex bomb next to Portia de Rossi and Elle McPherson in the Australian move Sirens.
And then, she vanished.
She told the Australian Women's Weekly that after her split from Packer, she fled to LA to give acting a go. While there, she fell in love with a man but lost all her money, drifted away from the bright lights of La La Land and into Judaism.
She converted. Changed her name. Moved back to Melbourne quietly, flat broke, and living in a house for homeless and vulnerable women. She was working in aged care; looking after elderly psych and dementia patients, and getting on with her life when she was 'outed' by the paps.
On I'm a Celebrity... tonight, she told co-star Ash Pollard what it was like being unwillingly "dragged" back into the spotlight.
"[The photographers] waited until I looked as hideous as possible. They must have been like, 'Thank you God! This is the money shot!'" Tziporah said.
"It was meant to humiliate me. I didn't let that bother me... when they did a second story the next week with me in my work uniform, going 'Twice as big, twice as happy' I just thought, 'You know what? Up yours.'"
She emerged, with a wink and a smile, a new woman.
"I did a photoshoot with the opposing mag, in my underwear, being sexy and all that kind of stuff. I thought, 'Well, there's not much more you can see than underwear.' Then suddenly, all the paps disappeared," she told Ash.
From the bright lights of celebrity, to a deeply religious psyche nurse who works with the elderly, and back again.
Tziporah Malka is a woman who has already been in the jungle. And come out the other side. She's got this.
Listen to I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here on our TV podcast The Binge:
Top Comments
I was 100% behind her until her comments with Steve Price. Saddened to see she likes the views of Pauline Hanson and the Alt Right
Absolutely love Tziporah. Maybe James Packer's Israel adventure means they will be reunited? That would be fantastic!