Emma Cornell

Emma Cornell and Greg Tingle

Emma Cornell (born 1983) is a personal trainer from South Australia but currently resides in New South Wales. Emma is the eldest of seven children, and describes herself as the black sheep of her family. Emma also describes herself as daring, stubborn and vivacious. Emma is a former Adelaide-based model and was winner of the South Australian section of the Ralph Swimsuit Model of the Year competition in 2005. Emma underwent breast enlargement surgery more than six-months before entering the Big Brother House to enhance her modelling career. She was the subject of a nude pictorial for Zoo Weekly, photographed before she entered the Big Brother House, in the 14 May edition. Emma has an English-born partner, Tim Stanton, also a personal trainer, and they had lived together in Sydney prior to Emma entering the Big Brother House.

Emma's father died on 16 May 2007 whilst Emma was still in the Big Brother House and she was not advised of his death. Emma and her father had been estranged for six years although they had recently been communicating through text messages. Her father's dying wish was that Emma not be informed of his death until after she had left the Big Brother house. He had hoped that his death would not receive publicity, however news of his passing was leaked to the news media. Emma's brother Matt reported that their father had endured a long illness and the family had had some time to prepare themselves. In an open letter to the Australian public, which was posted on the official Big Brother website, Matt Cornell explained that he and Emma had "discussed the possibility of dad’s death thoroughly. I can confirm with absolute confidence that Emma has prepared herself and her views have been considered in the family’s decision-making process."This news has been reported internationally.The producers of the series confirmed that, on her eviction from the house, Emma would be advised of her father's death in private and away from television cameras.

On May 28 Big Brother producer Kris Noble wrote to the press saying that "we were not aware that Emma's father had died until it was disclosed to the press by persons unknown. This took place after the funeral service. This in turn led to media speculation that the producers of Big Brother chose not to tell Emma about her father's death and would somehow use the tragedy as a grab for ratings, causing further distress for the family who wanted to keep their sad news private."

On the evening of 28 May during the staging of the live Nominations show two audience members held up a sign reading "Emma, Your Dad Is Dead", presumably hoping a housemate would see it during a live cross between host Gretel Killeen and the housemates during the program. However the Nomination show features no such live crosses; these are in fact a feature of Eviction shows. They were discovered and ejected from the audience. Emma became the eighth housemate to be evicted on Day 50 by public voting with 76% of the merged vote, along with Rebecca in a double eviction. Emma had been informed of her father's death during a meeting with her brother Matt and a psychologist, 24 hours prior to her eviction. The issue of her father's death was only briefly mentioned when Emma appeared on the stage during the eviction show. Emma stated that "I want to leave it alone tonight as was my father's wish." After two weeks of doing public appearances for Big Brother she cancelled all future appearances. (Credit: Wikipedia).

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