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Reggie Bird first hit screens in 2003, winning the third season of Big Brother and $250,000 prize money in the process.
Then in 2022, she returned to Big Brother once more, winning for a second time and taking home another $250,000 in prize money.
But the triumph hasn’t come with boundless glitz and glamour, with the star having had quite a harrowing journey since leaving the reality show.
What happened to Reggie Bird?
Just a year after her first season of Big Brother, Reggie, now 50, was diagnosed with a degenerative eye condition called retinitis pigmentosa and is now legally blind.
“I’ve lost my peripheral vision and I’ve got 10 degrees of central vision left. I have no night vision,” she said during The Daily Edition in 2016.
Due to her age and the invisible nature of the ailment, Reggie has been on the receiving end of certain personal misconceptions.
“Sometimes when I forget to take my cane to the shops and I bang into people… they look at me because I’m so young and just think I’m being rude,” she has also previously explained.
“Even when you’re getting a taxi – I’ve had a few say, ‘You’re only going up the road, why can’t you walk?’ Things like that upset me.”
Reggie also suffered a stroke in 2017 as a result of a heart condition.
“They told me I have a hole in my heart. I was literally heartbroken. But it makes sense now, why I’m always so tired and unwell, and what caused my stroke last year,” she divulged to our sister publication Woman’s Day in 2018.
How many children does Reggie Bird have?
Two-time Big Brother winner Reggie Bird has two children, Lucas and Mia.
Unfortunately, Reggie’s health conditions extend past her own, with her youngest son Lucas, 13, grappling with cystic fibrosis.
Reggie welcomed her first child, Mia, 14, four years after Big Brother with her second husband, Dale Sorensen. Three years after that, the couple had Lucas.
The mother has previously explained to our sister publication Now To Love that the condition comes with daily physiotherapy and medication to help Lucas digest food and break down mucus from his lungs.
“It’s mentally and physically draining on Lucas so I have to stay strong for him. It’s a constant battle to try to get weight on him so he has to drink supplements and have a diet high in calories and fat. I hope he will live past the 37 years of expected time.”
Watching her son deal with the condition throughout his childhood has been understandably heartbreaking for Reggie, who recalled one particularly harrowing moment on WHO’s celebrity podcast, Who Are You, in 2018.
“At the moment he’s saying, ‘Mummy, I don’t want to live. I don’t want to live with cystic fibrosis, I don’t want to be here’. A little nine-year-old saying they don’t want to live… it’s not good.”
Earlier in 2022, Reggie rallied her Instagram followers to sign a petition to get a new cystic fibrosis treatment, for patients 12 years and older, approved under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).
According to the ABC, the requests were denied twice before the drug was made available under the PBS in August for those with a specific mutation of the disease, making it more affordable for patients fitting the eligibility requirements. For those who don’t, the drug reportedly costs Australian patients nearly $300,000 a year.
In October of that same year, Reggie thanked those who signed the petition, regardless of the unfortunate outcome.
“We will keep on fighting for our loved ones living with Cystic Fibrosis 🙌 #YesToTrikafta #CysticFibrosis #cfcantwait #trikafta.”
As well as dealing with the financial aspects that come with these health conditions, Reggie was also financially burdened.
“I left everything and moved to Sydney. I couldn’t get a job for about two years after the show because no one would take me seriously. I spent all the money I had left on rent…” Reggie told news.com.au’s Not Here To Make Friends podcast.
What’s more, after a man reportedly claimed to be a TV producer with the means to fund the pilot of a new travel show she was to star in, Reggie forked over $40,000 to the fraud.
“I thought it was legit. He said he didn’t have money and asked to borrow five grand and another five grand and then it all snowballed,” she told the podcast at the time.
What is Reggie Bird doing now?
The Big Brother alum even nearly faced eviction in 2017, telling her story to Woman’s Day.
“I’m so scared. One day your kids are cuddled up and warm and safe and just like that, it could all be gone. I owe my kids a warm bed and a safe house, that’s not too much to ask, is it?
“It’s hard to believe I became known as the girl who survived multiple evictions in the Big Brother house, to 14 years later be faced with the real thing,” she added. “I’ve been having nightmares ever since, wondering where we’re going to go.”
As well as financial woes, Reggie also said she had a stalker who she claimed went by “nine different names” and would come to her house.
“I met him at a movie premiere and he approached me. I didn’t know anything – I’m just a little girl from Tasmania who cooks fish and chips. And you get thrown into this crazy world afterward.”
“Even going to events – I got offered so many drugs. And I don’t take drugs and I didn’t know what they were,” explaining that she was unaware of the slang terms for certain substances.
After returning to the Big Brother house for season 14, Reggie became the only contestant to win the Australian adaption of the show twice, and fifth worldwide – spending a combined 148 days in the house across both her seasons.
But even despite this success, the mother-of-two says she still feels like a “failure” after being unable to secure full-time employment after her latest stint on reality television.
“I’m starting to think, why doesn’t anyone want to give me a job? I want to work and that starts to make you feel like…no one wants you.”
“I could answer phones, you know, I’m good at talking to people,” she added, reflecting upon her lack of vision.
“I’m limited to what I can do because my eyes are so stuffed. I’ve now got nine degrees of pinhole vision, no peripheral vision, and no night vision left,” she confirmed sadly in a recent episode of the Mental as Anyone podcast.
“I only just see what’s in front of me, it is like looking through a straw, that’s how I explain it to people,” she elaborated.
Thankfully for fans, Reggie returned to Aussie television screens once more in 2025 as a contestant on season 12 of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!
It was during this experience that the reality veteran opened up about her fears about going fully blind in the not-so-distant future.
When quizzed by fellow contestant Matty J about what she will miss most when she loses her vision, Reggie was quick to respond.
“I won’t be able to do as much as what I do know. I’ll miss seeing the kids [the most],” she lamented sadly.
“I’ll never know when my last day will be to fully see again. That day is going to come.”
Moments after a visibly emotional Matty consoled Reggie, he spoke of the impact their conversation had over him in a candid on-camera confessional.
“Knowing what Reggie is going through, she’s a mum who is afraid of never being able to see her kids again, cause she is going blind, you’re like…all of a sudden my struggles seem so insignificant [in comparison].”
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