Big Brother star Emma Cornell has broken her silence over the controversial decision not to inform her of her father’s death for three weeks, until she’d left the show. Speaking exclusively to Woman’s Day, Emma defended the producer’s and her family’s conduct over her 53-year-old father’s recent death from bowel cancer, declaring, “It was Dad’s dying wish … his final act of love.”
With her boyfriend Tim Stanton, 36, a personal trainer from Sydney, by her side for comfort, Emma revealed, “I knew he was ill when I entered the house, but I had no idea of the extent. I never ever expected he was going to die. I thought about him a lot while I was in the house and wished things could have been different.”
Wiping away tears, Emma says the only pain she feels is over being robbed of the chance to finally get to know her dad after so many years apart.
“That’s what really hurts. But it was his wish and his alone. And, it heartens me that he got to know a lot more about me, more than he ever has, by watching me on TV each night.”
Emma, who was six when her parents separated, says her family will hold a memorial service in Adelaide this week, during which she will help scatter her dad’s ashes at his two favourite places in the city.
“I didn’t get a chance to attend his funeral service, so it’s my way of saying farewell and to bring a closure to this whole traumatic ordeal for all of us — his family and closest friends. We can all try and move on with our lives,” she says softly…
For the full interview, see this week’s Woman’s Day (on-sale June 18).
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