
In 2017, Paulini Curuenavuli made front page news.
The singer, who launched to fame on the very first season of Australian Idol, was handed a six-month suspended sentence after she paid $850 to a Roads and Maritime Services employee for a fake NSW driver's licence, despite not being qualified to get behind the wheel.
It's a time that Paulini remembers as "soul-breaking".
Paulini recalls her experience on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! Post continues below.
"I did something really silly. I bribed a government official... I bought a fake licence," the 38-year-old told her fellow contestants on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!
"I was on my Ls... And I just didn’t want to wait, so I bought a licence. It was soul-breaking and spirit-breaking because I was thinking about my family and how I made my family look, how I made myself look," she continued.
"I just made a really bad decision and I absolutely regret it. So I got a criminal record.
"I got a massive fine. I lost work, like, that whole year after."
When news broke about the incident, Paulini was working on the Australian production of The Bodyguard.
"The worst thing was... I’d just finished a show in Brisbane. I remember it clearly," she recalled.
"I was walking back to my hotel, and I got the phone call. They said, 'Just letting you know, you’re on the front page of the paper tomorrow,'" she continued.
"It’s hard to make a mistake for someone who’s in the public eye because people are watching. You’ve got to keep going. You can’t let this break you. And that’s pretty much what I did. All of my gigs after The Bodyguard – all cancelled."
Listen to Mamamia's daily entertainment podcast, The Spill, below. Post continues after podcast.
Childhood, early career, and schoolyard bullying.
Paulini Curuenavuli was born in Suva, Fiji, on October 15, 1982.