Brendan Fevola always knew he wanted to do The Amazing Race Australia, but never had the “right person to do it with” – until his daughter, Leni, demanded they do it together.
For the former AFL player, it was the opportunity to create special memories with his second-oldest daughter, with whom he worked in tandem during the competition.
“I’ve got some pretty good strengths, Leni’s got some pretty good strengths, and we’re total opposites,” Brendan exclusively told New Idea after he chose to tap out of the race.
“So that’s what you need in the race, where if you’re both the same and you come up in a challenge where it’s the total opposite, you’re in trouble. But yeah, we literally had a full skill set. So the race was perfect for us, and it was pretty cool.”
Supporting one another throughout the race was also a big part of the experience.
Before the seventh leg of the race, Leni became unwell, which meant Brendan continued solo in Sri Lanka. During the show, he missed having his daughter by his side to cheer him on.
While he came second after battling the heat, his heart broke when he found out it was just a virtual pit stop.
“I was delirious, I was hot, everything was burning. I had no energy. It was actually a really zapping day,” Brendan said.
Even though he chose to walk away, Leni said she was proud of her dad.
“To see all of that and what he did on his own, I was very impressed,” she said.
In hindsight, it turns out it was better they left when they did, because Leni’s health took a turn.
After flying home that night, she was in bed for a week and a half and then had a chest infection for six weeks. On top of that, her appendix also burst.
Their biggest takeaway from The Amazing Race Australia
Along with stepping out of their comfort zones, Brendan and Leni said the friendships they formed with the others have been invaluable.
Even though they all competed for the $100,000 prize for their charities, they said everyone supported one another. During the race, Brendan and Leni competed for Small Steps 4 Hannah.
“Everyone wanted to help everyone, everyone wanted to give a hand,” Leni said.
During her exclusive chat, Steph said Brendan offered to complete a speed bump for her and her brother, and Brendan helped others throughout the competition.
Rob Mills and Georgie Tunny also helped him when he was working solo.
“We all wanted each other to win, you just didn’t want to see a team fall behind,” Brendan said.
“I always said to Leni, ‘If we can help someone, we help them.’ If we finish last, we finish last. If we can lend a hand to someone, that’s what you do in life. You try to help people and you try to help friends and you don’t want to see anyone fall back.”
For the first episode, most of the teams caught up to watch it at a cinema with their families, and plan to do something similar for the finale.
“They didn’t deserve anything that happened to them”
While filming the show, the contestants became a “family”. When Dan Middleton got into an altercation with Luke and Scott “Sassy” O’Halloran, everyone rallied around the brothers.
After that incident, where Brendan stepped in and issued an ultimatum – Dan gets disqualified, or he and Leni leave.
Dan and Ant were then disqualified, which was revealed before the show aired.
While he has since spoken about it on the record, Brendan exclusively told New Idea that he was not initially aware of what was said to the brothers.
“I was under no illusion to what had happened, and I just acted because I had some stuff said to me about what he wanted to do and stuff like that, and I stepped in and said, ‘Mate, that’s not on’,” he said.
“I was just lucky that I was there to help the boys out; they absolutely didn’t deserve anything that was coming their way.
“They are literally the most beautiful people ever, and for them to go through that, I was actually pretty shaken up about it at the time. I remember Scott said to me, ‘This happens all the time.’ I don’t have my head in the clouds. I know things happen not just at that period of time, but in society.
“People say things to people and hurtful things, and it must be absolutely horrific for them to go through that.”
After that, they said it bonded them all.
