Dream Home contestant Brad toured Australia with Madonna in 1993 – but he doesn’t have a lot of stories of hanging out backstage with her.
“She comes straight before the gig, gets straight on stage, limo straight after the gig… These guys don’t muck around!” Brad tells TV WEEK with a laugh.
Alongside brother Gary Pinto, Andrew De Silva and Danny Williams, Brad is a member of boy band CDB, who had a string of hits in the ’90s, including Earth, Wind & Fire remake “Let’s Groove”, and also sang backing vocals for Peter Andre when he was the support act for Madonna.
“We were essentially hanging out with mates and making a living doing something we loved,” he recalls of their heyday. “When it really took off, it was exciting, but it was like another world.”
Brad has been with his wife, Mel, since the 1990s. She caught his eye at a club when she was dancing in a corner. A week later he saw her again.
“I just grabbed her and said, ‘You’re the girl from last week. I love you.’ And that was that.”
Brad and Mel are now parents to Bennett, 18, Spencer, 16, Maya, 14, and Ginger, 12. The family live in a three-bedroom, one-bathroom Melbourne house which is set to be transformed on Dream Home.
“We haven’t put a new piece of furniture in our house for nearly 20 years,” Mel says.
The four kids are “incredibly excited” at the possibility of getting their own bedrooms, but worried about their parents renovating.
“They were saying, ‘Is somebody else going to build that for us or are you involved?’” Mel recalls with a laugh.
In the first week of Dream Home, as Brad and Mel help transform Elle’s house, their complete lack of renovating experience shows through, and they face the possibility that they might not finish the bathroom before judging.
“It was gut-wrenching,” Mel admits. “We’ve never done anything like this and so we didn’t understand all the details. You know that sick feeling you get when you just don’t want to let anybody down? Brad and I were just like, ‘We have to do whatever it takes to get it done.’”
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