Well, it’s official. This year’s season of Big Brother Australia has come to an end with Coco Beeby crowned the 2025 champion.
The 30-year-old mum-of-three is the fifteenth person to win the reality show, given Reggie Sorensen is a two-time champ, and Channel 10’s first Big Brother winner in 17 years.
Coco said during Monday night’s finale that taking home the $135,000 prize would be “life-changing” as it would help set up her kids’ future.
Big Brother has historically made huge changes to the lives of everyday Aussies thanks to both the prize money and the national platform. Some winners went on to leverage their fame into media careers that are still going strong today, while others quietly invested their cash and left the public eye.
While time will tell how winning Big Brother will impact Coco’s day-to-day life, we checked in with five previous winners about how the show affected theirs.
Reggie Sorensen
Reggie made history as both the first woman to win Big Brother Australia in 2003 and the first two-time winner when she returned in 2022. The fan fave told PEDESTRIAN.TV that winning her first season “changed [her] life” massively because everyone suddenly knew who she was.
“The first one was crazy, like it was absolutely insane how big it was back then. Like, I had the whole of fricken Tasmania come out to greet me when I flew back home,” she recalled.
“I was just very overwhelmed and it took me a while to get my head around it all. I was like, why are all these people just facing me and loving me? I had no idea what was shown on the TV.”
The excitement was short-lived, however, as her marriage to Adrian Bird ended not long after the season finale and she didn’t get to enjoy her $250,000 prize money in full.
“My marriage fell apart, so I paid off the house and left that to Adrian and I didn’t end up walking away with much money at all,” she remarked.
Reggie went on to win the show’s fourteenth season in 2022, but admitted it was a “very different” experience all around.
“The second Big Brother wasn’t as fun as the first one,” she said. “I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first one because you had to play a game and do all those challenges and stuff.
“Even after the finale, I had to walk outside while all the fans were out there and wait to get an Uber to get back to the afterparty. It was bizarre, like Channel 7 spat you out the door and said ‘thanks’.
“They were two totally different moments in time.”
Terri Munro
While Reggie made history as the first two-time winner, Terri Munro made history in 2008 when she became the oldest person to win Big Brother Australia. Surprisingly, she continued working at Coles following her victory and told P.TV that she only retired in June last year.
“I was happy to keep working. It keeps your brain active and I liked the people I work with, the customers and all that,” she said. “I did my best not to let it affect my life too much.
“You’re only as famous as you want to be and I didn’t do it to be famous. I did it because I got sick of the show being about young people.”
Terri, who will celebrate her 70th birthday this week, added that she quickly realised she wasn’t suited for a life in the public eye and would rather “stay home and watch television”.
“I could have done a lot of things, but that experience was enough for me to realise I don’t want people in my face every five minutes,” she shared. “I don’t want people taking up my time all the time, people coming up and screaming at me. I don’t want any of that.”
“Obviously, it helped me financially — I was able to travel and gave my kids a bit of money. I hate saying it, but $250,000 was great, but it was five years’ wages. You can’t just give up work.”
Jamie Brooksby
2006 champion Jamie Brooksby had a very similar experience to Terri. He told P.TV that winning Big Brother had an “instant and dramatic” impact on his life, but he purposely made an effort to keep a low profile.
“I remember looking forward to getting home, imagining just resuming a normal life, but the first time I went back to my favourite pub with my friends, I remember just being stared at,” he recalled. “I think I did everything I actively could from then to fade quickly into anonymity. I’d give myself a gold star for that effort!”
He’s since made the move with his partner to Byron Bay, which he joked is “one of the only places [he] can find Thai fisherman pants and headbands to buy”.
“I used to wear them on the show and some things never change, I guess,” he remarked. “I work on property developments still, so there’s enough to keep me busy here.”
Benjamin Norris
Former accounts manager Benjamin Norris is one Big Brother winner who happily pursued a career in the public eye after his season in 2012.
He went on to host a breakfast radio show in Central Queensland, appear as a panellist on various TV shows and now has his own podcast, TV Reload with iHeart. Ben told P.TV that winning Big Brother had a massive impact on his life and “unlocked something” inside of him.
“It opened doors into radio and entertainment journalism and now I get to talk about TV for a living, which is honestly my dream job,” he said.
“Winning $250,000 literally changed my life. Gretel Killeen — not my host — told me not to blow it on jet skis and cocaine and to invest in property instead and thank god I listened. That advice helped me buy a house, which has gone on to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.”
Trevor Butler
Trevor Butler made TV history in 2004 when he won a massive $1 million on Big Brother, aka the highest amount of prize money ever given out on an Australian reality show. He told P.TV that winning the show helped him and his partner Breea Forrest buy a house and “make sure [they] had a stable future”.
“Big Brother was an achievement for me as I put it down on my ‘to-do list’ back in 2003. I tried twice to get on and I was successful in 2004,” he added.
Trevor went on to appear on the short-lived reality show Celebrity Overhaul a year after Big Brother and had a brief cameo on Summer Heights High. He’s also become a successful radio host on the Gold Coast and even returned to Big Brother in 2022.
What will the Big Brother 2025 winner do next?
So, who knows what’s in store for Coco after winning Big Brother? A radio gig? A surprise appearance on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here? Or perhaps we’ll barely remember her name a year from now because she’s purposely faded into obscurity?
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
The post 5 Big Brother Winners Reveal How The Reality Show Actually Changed Their Lives appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
