Shannon Noll Revealed How He Lost His ‘Idol’ Fortune And Our Hearts Are Breaking
In an emotional d&m on I’m A Celeb, our ex-Idol star and Aussie icon Shannon Noll opened up about what exactly happened to all of the big money he raked in from his early days of fame.
Nolsy might have a bit of a rep as a party boy but he is always and forever a country boy at heart (and in branding #Shannon-I’m-from-Condobolin-Noll).
In a ‘private’ chat (as private as national reality TV allows for) with fellow camper Fiona O’Loughlin, Noll opened up about the hardships and family tragedy he had experienced while keeping their farm afloat, during one of Australia’s worst drought crises. It’s heartbreaking stuff.
The conversation got emotionally charged as Noll explained that it would have been his father’s 73rd birthday but he died in a farming accident a few years before the whole Idol fame train.
Addressing what happened to the fortune he came into, Noll said that his family’s farm was swimming in debt since he was a teen and things only got harder after his father’s death.
He told Fiona,
“We tried to farm our way out of it in the next two years.”
“We failed because of the drought so we got enough rain to put the crop in and then it didn’t rain at all after that. That cost $40 or 50 grand at a time for fuel, seed, spray. So we went further into debt.”
Apparently, Shannon Noll’s Idol near win and resulting success wasn’t the dream ticket out of debt that they were hoping for.
“We went further into debt so we had a family meeting and said: “If we fail again we’re gone”, so we had just enough money to buy another house and I went on Idol and it all blew up from there.
A few creditors were left over and they [had] seen me on the show and chased mum really hard for the shortfall.”
Noll was understandably emotional recounting his family’s story and was sure to stress that he never pissed away his money like some people assumed.
He explained,
I wrote a cash cheque out for $209,000 to a tractor company”
“I thought I was doing the right thing. I was a farmhand, I’d never run a business before so I paid a lot of those debts out and consequently all the big money I made after the show, I paid bills with it.
I didn’t blow it on yachts and all that sort of stuff.”
After sharing such a deeply personal story about his family, work and finances, Fiona gave Shannon a damn big hug on behalf of us all. Lots of love to you Nollsy – ya bloody legend.
