Candice Warner has broken down revisiting the trauma of her infamous incident with cross-code rugby great Sonny Bill Williams in an emotional interview ahead of the publication of her new memoir.
The pair met at the Clovelly Hotel in 2007, with the then-21-year-old Bulldogs star celebrating a win with teammates while the 22-year-old Warner had attended with friends after a day out at the races.
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“We were chatting, there was some flirting, and then we did, we wanted to kiss,” Warner revealed.
“The last thing we wanted everyone looking and all eyes on us, so we thought we would go to somewhere that was more private. Clearly we went it a place that was unacceptable.
“We kissed. We kissed in that cubicle and who knows what could have happened? Maybe things may have eventuated, I don’t know, and I will never know, but what I do know is that I probably could have stopped that photograph going out.”
The private moment would have stayed private but for a photo from a punter who took a photo under the cubicle that blew the scandal up.
Warner admits she still thinks about how she should have handled it differently.
“I should have just picked that phone up and deleted it,” she admitted. “I shouldn’t have gone into the men’s bathroom, but I can’t change any of those things.”
The photo sparked a frenzy in the media.
But Warner called out the “doubled standard” which saw Williams seemingly given the “boys will be boys” treatment, while she was slut shamed.
“It was incredibly unfair, that double standard, but it wasn’t just me at that time who was treated like that,” Warner said.
“Most women were treated like that. For men, it was high-fives and ‘tell me all the details’ but for women we were pigeonholed to be a certain person or a certain type of person.
“It still blows my mind to this day how I was forced to apologise for a drunken pash that I had on a night out.”
Warner said the drama caused here plenty of pain, even driving her to go to an infamous clifftop location at the depths of her despair.
“I just thought ‘this is it’, I just couldn’t take it anymore,” she said.
“I couldn’t take the headlines. I couldn’t take disappointing my parents. I couldn’t take it all. It was all too much.”
Thankfully Warner didn’t hurt herself that night and her brother Pat picked her up and would then check in on her daily, which also helped her move forward in life.
“I felt I needed to get to that point to move on to some degree,” she said.
Warner also addresses that encounter an exclusive face-to-face with Stellar on Sunday, and a frank extract from her book Running Strong.
Warner has touched on the incident previously in public, going on SAS Australia in 2020 and telling her fellow contestants it was something she regrets.
“A long time ago, when I was young, I got myself in a compromising position, which I regret,” she said at the time.
“It had a huge impact on my family. Huge.
“It was just a personal situation. Too many drinks.
“Living with that and having to explain to my kids in the future is going to be very difficult. Especially when you’ve got three girls.
“I remember sitting on the side of the street and not being able to take it anymore.
“Yes, I’d made a mistake. But is that really worth, every single day, the media trying to drag me down? I don’t think so.
“It is not something I am proud of but something I can never take back.”
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After the scandal, Candice (then Falzon) spent some time overseas before moving to Perth.
In 2010, she met her future husband David Warner in a Bondi bar but it was far from the ideal first meeting.
“I just thought, ‘This guy is so rude’. I didn’t like him,” she laughed.
Despite the first impression, soon the pair began texting and by 2015 were married.
“From the very start we just clicked. I could just be myself with him, without any judgment,” she said.
The pair have since had three daughters together.
But the pair’s world came crashing down in 2018 during the infamous ball tampering scandal.
“We felt like criminals, we felt and were treated like absolute criminals,” she said, also revealing that there might be details we are yet to find out about the scandal that cost David his place in the national side for a year and permanently barred him from leadership positions.
“I know enough to know he’s taken his fair share of the blame. Maybe a little too much,” she said.
The infamous 2018 South Africa tour itself was a melting pot of torment for the Warner family, and Candice has spoken out previously about some of the unsavoury experiences of that tour.
Candice was mocked by fans and South African cricket administrators wearing Sonny Bill Williams face masks in Port Elizabeth, while David copped it on the field.
The fiery Aussie opener had to be physically restrained by teammates from South African wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock in a stairwell in now-infamous scenes, with opposition captain Faf du Plessis forced to sort out the exchange wearing nothing but a towel.
“I cop it left, right and centre, especially off the field from spectators and I’m used to that and it doesn’t bother me,” Warner said at the time.
“But in a proximity of my personal space and from behind me, a comment that was vile and disgusting about my wife, and in general about a lady, was quite poor, I felt.
“My emotional response was just something that I don’t believe should have been said and I’ll always stick up for my family and in that case my teammates as well.”
Candice Warner’s interview comes ahead of the release of her memoir, Running Strong – which will be published by HarperCollins on April 19 and is available for pre-order now.
See the full exclusive interview on The Sunday Project from 6.30pm Sunday night on Ten and 10 play.
