Erin Barnett said she would no longer let 'happiness depend on my weight'. Photo / Instagram
Erin Barnett said she would no longer let 'happiness depend on my weight'. Photo / Instagram
I'm A Celebrity's Erin Barnett has opened up about her weight struggles, revealing she was "embarrassed" of her figure after suffering from several health conditions.
Barnett, 24, rose to fame on the first season of Love Island Australia in 2018 and is now an Instagram influencer.
The nurse appeared onthis year's season of I'm A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!, revealing on Instagram that she had lost eight kilos during her three weeks in the South African jungle.
Sharing a photo of herself now and at the end of 2019, Barnett said she had been reluctant to post the latter photo of herself because of how she looked.
After her third surgery, Barnett rushed back to hospital just days afterwards because a cyst had burst inside her, leaving her feeling like she was "being set on fire".
"The surgeon missed the cyst. They thought I was going crazy, they were saying it was just post-operative pain. I was screaming," she said.
In an Instagram post shared in September last year, Barnett encouraged people to be "more caring and understanding to women" who suffered from PCOS and endometriosis.
"I'm bed bound a lot of the time, I randomly have clots come out of me during the day. No warning – no nothing … My pain gets so bad. Any movement makes me feel like my ovaries are exploding," she wrote.
"I have burn marks on my pelvic area from constantly having heat packs on me, & the sensation of the burning is more comfortable than the pain inside me so I leave it.
I have blocked fallopian tubes, a weird thing with my eggs where I either don't produce any or the ones I have are "empty" & cause more cyst.
But after her fifth and final surgery a month later, Barnett said she was finally "pain free".
"I'm feeling so good post op! Hardly any pain, just sleepy! I think I've just gained my life back? WOOHOO!! I feel so much better," she wrote on Instagram.
The I'm A Celebrity campmate has also been open about her fertility, hitting back at the idea her inability to have children means she is "somehow broken".
Barnett appeared on Love Island Australia alongside then boyfriend Eden Dally.
However, the couple split acrimoniously just months later, with Dally now expecting a baby with Married At First Sight star Cyrell Paule.
Eden Dally and Barnett split acrimoniously after Love Island. Photo / Channel 9
When Dally and Paule first announced their pregnancy Barnett hit back at the couple after her ex said she had "something wrong with her ovaries" that prevented her from having children.
Barnett wrote on Instagram that IVF is "no longer an option" for her, and there were now many complicated reasons as to why she could not have children.
"Let me get this out there here and now: if a woman or a man say they can't have children, don't ask why, or worse, ask what's wrong," Barnett wrote on her Instagram story at the time.
"The implication that you're somehow broken is upsetting … Not everyone's life goal is to have a baby, and if someone is infertile, people questioning it really doesn't help. The questions can actually make us feel bad."
The Love Island star has been dating Melbourne father Mick Russell, 43, since late 2018 and last year was forced to defend the couple's 19-year age gap.
"Yes I am dating an older man. No he isn't my 'sugar daddy' … I have my own money, I don't need any man, at whatever age, giving me any gifts or their money," she wrote on Instagram.
