Alessia Macari, cousin of Dublin Wives star Virginia Macari, won Big Brother Italy this week.
The Dublin girl has been working on Italian television for two years now and was asked to compete in the very first season of Big Brother Italy.
The model grew up in Ireland, but maintained a strong connection to her Italian roots as she would spend the summer in Italy when she was growing up.
Speaking on the Ryan Tubridy Show on RTÉ1 this morning, Alessia explained how she first rose to fame in Italy.
She told Ryan, “I’m not a model, I used to do beauty pageants in Italy, and I won all the beauty pageants. Because obviously I was a little bit different, I was a bit curvy and I eat so much.”
“Because I ended up winning, I got to work on a really big TV show here in Italy. I’ve been on that show 2 years, and from that I was offered to go into Celebrity Big Brother.”
“It was the first year that they did it here in Italy so obviously it was perfect. I’ve always watched the UK version. I always wanted to do it, so obviously I said yes.”
She also spoke about what it was like inside the CBB house, “It was hard at the start because I was in a poor house for 2 weeks. When I say poor, I had to wash myself with a hose, with cold water for 2 weeks.
“It was dreadful. Really really bad, but I have to say I had a good time in the poor house. But when I went to the rich house it just got even better.
“You have days when you’re up and when you’re down. Things are amplified in the house but you get used to it, I actually miss it a little bit.”
Alessia was also thrown and Irish birthday in the house, “They asked me what type of party I wanted, so I asked for an Irish one. Cause obviously I was always talking about Ireland in there.
“They gave me some beer, and they had Irish music. I had all the Italian people doing Irish dancing and I was telling them about Dublin and Temple Bar.”
Alessia also told how she’s going to give 50 percent of her winnings to charity, “I won 100,000 but 50,000 is going to charity. We haven’t decided exactly which one but it’s definitely going to be one with children.”
