Having met her new reality TV husband for the very first time at the altar, in front of her closest family and friends, while the whole thing was filmed for a reality TV show, you’d think Gabrielle Bartlett would be nervous about watching her episode of Married At First Sight go to air last night.
But the 44-year-old single mum has shared that, in the weeks leading up to her first episode on the Channel 9 program being broadcast to Australia, she’s had “bigger fish to fry”.
Listen: Clare and Jessie Stephens debrief on Gab and her sister’s Married At First Sight debut. Post continues after.
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, the plus-size model and actor revealed that she’s recently been hospitalised after learning she was suffering from toxic shock syndrome.
Gabrielle said she realised she wasn’t well towards the end of filming Married At First Sight, after noticing she had lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time and that her energy levels were lower than normal.

But it wasn't until she visited her family that she realised just how sick she had become.
"My family and I get quite teary about how serious this could have been had my sister not taken me to hospital a couple of weeks ago," she told The Daily Telegraph.
"Had that not happened I would have been a lot worse."
Toxic shock syndrome (TSS) is a rare complication often caused by the staphylococcus aureus bacteria, which releases toxins into the bloodstream and causes symptoms of shock. It is more common among women who are menstruating, but there is no evidence that tampons cause TSS.