In the space of just a few short weeks, Cyrell Paule has cemented her position as one of the most outspoken reality stars on Australian television.
The 29-year-old quickly became a firm crowd favourite on the Channel 9 show Married At First Sight with her straight talk and no-nonsense relationship advice for fellow cast-mates looking for love.
On Feb. 10 Cyrell exited the show after the demise of her marriage to cancer survivor Nic Jovanovic and returned back to the reality of life outside the experiment, far from the secrets and lies which became such talking points of her time on the show.
Now Cyrell has decided it is time to share a dark secret of her own.
This week the MAFS straight shooter will be making another appearance – not on television, but in court where she will plead guilty to drink-driving.
In so far as DIU cases go, Cyrell’s case is at the very low end of the scale but is likely to get plenty of attention because of the popularity of the show and who she is.
But Cyrell’s fine with that and says she won’t be offering up any excuses for for why she shouldn’t be held accountable.
The law is the law, she says. Break the law it and pay the price.
In February Cyrell was pulled over for a random breath test and returned a 0.015gram result after drinking one glass of vodka and orange.
Because she only held a P2 Provisional Licence at the time, police had no choice but to charge her with drink driving.
For Cyrell, the timing couldn’t have been worse. She was right in the middle of filming of MAFS and didn’t want personal scandal to overshadow the work she’d been putting into her relationship with Nic.
She also knew her conduct while out in public – and especially behind the wheel – had to be beyond reproach.
It wasn’t.
“I can’t stand hypocrites. People who dish out advice and then follow none of it themselves. Drink driving is a scourge in NSW. It kills so many people o and regardless of how you view the law it is there to protect us all,” she said.
“In my case the facts of the matter are that I should not have been driving. I did and it was foolish, but not deliberate in the sense I believed I could do as I please and get away with it.”
Cyrell says Australia should make it simple when it comes to the issue of drink driving.
“If you have one drink then you can’t drive. There’s no discussion then. And everyone gets home safe.
“Any amount of alcohol can lead to a momentary lapse in concentration and then it’s a game of Russian roulette. We roll the dice on our show in the search for love. There’s no need to do it on the roads as well.”
Cyrell said despite the low-level nature of her offending she still felt deep shame and regret. She wanted her case to serve as a lesson to others thinking of driving without the right licence and with alcohol in their system. “Don’t risk it. Get an Uber or get your husband or wife to pick you up.”
