There are two names on everyone’s lips right now: Kate Fischer and Tziporah Malkah.
The first, a model/actress who once starred in a film with Hugh Grant, partied with Elle Macpherson and covered international fashion magazines. Oh, and was engaged to James Packer.
The second, a self-acknowledged ‘morbidly obese’ aged care worker.
Except Kate Fischer and Tziporah Malkah are the same person. After her engagement with Packer ended, Fischer returned to her Jewish roots, changed her name to Tziporah Malkah and struggled to pick up her once glittering career, which she abandoned to become Mrs Packer.
After eschewing the spotlight and a stint in a Melbourne women’s shelter, Malkah has returned to the silver screen as a contestant in Channel 10’s I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here.
She opened up about her incredible story to Carrie Bickmore on The Project last night, dissecting how she moved from billionaire’s bride-to-be to completely homeless.
“I’d tumbled from a great height,” she tells Carrie of her former life. “I was a princess in an ivory tower. It didn’t occur to me what it’s like to really, really suffer. Since I’ve had this experience, it’s really made me want to come back.”
Although she “hates talking about him” Malkah revealed what her life with Packer was like.
“I hate being defined by him. I felt like I was a bud snapped off the vine before I had the chance to bloom,” she says. “That’s fine, you make sacrifices for love.”
According to Malkah, Packer insisted she stopped working. “You’re going to be my wife and it’s tacky that you need to work,” she quotes him saying, adding, “I was allowed to do a play at the Sydney Opera House because that had some substance to it.”
After their relationship ended, Malkah says the relentless tabloid attention compelled her to leave Australia for the US, where she sought roles in Hollywood.
She also began a new relationship with a man who ran off with all her savings.
“Because we were in love and supposed to get married I said ‘Ok’ and just gave it [her money] to him,” she tells Carrie. “It turns out he had this wife and child in Israel and he just took it.”
Destitute, Malkah returned to Melbourne and moved into a homeless shelter. She undertook a TAFE course in order to begin aged care work.
Malkah is the daughter of politican Pru Goward, although the two no longer talk. “I respect my mother,” she told Carrie. “I understand my mother, but she’s not motherly.”
You can watch the full interview here.
