Original subtitles

I was one of the most famous swimsuit models in the world.

They were either trying to or they were trying to kill me.

I walked around thinking I was the best thing since sliced bread.

It was exciting.

But there's a lot of danger involved.

It was the last time that I ever saw him alive.

I was now going to be known for this.

I was petrified. I knew it was the beginning of the end.

I'm Simone Starr. I used to be a swimsuit model back in the late 90s.

It was something I enjoyed. It made me feel good about myself.

I was admired and important.

But the thing is, though, I had a kind of double existence.

There was my other life, which I kind of fell into.

When you first start out, it is very hard to make decent money unless you are

the catwalk.

And so I worked part -time in a couple of evenings a week in an escort agency,

a high -class one.

It kind of separated the escorting to the modelling.

There's an element of class with the high -class escorting, but still it's

prostitution.

I don't think anyone does that work because they like it.

They do it as a means to survive.

I'm not proud of that, but it's been in my DNA kind of thing since the day I was

born. I come from a very unusual background.

When I was growing up, my mother worked in the sex industry.

Monkey see, monkey do, I guess.

I never wanted this for myself. It's all I knew.

I have an idea.

I had been taking recreational drugs for a large majority of my life and managed

to be a functioning addict.

Cocaine. It was the only thing at the time that made me numb.

I thought I would be happy and I wasn't.

So I knew this lifestyle wasn't sustainable. It could not go on forever.

I didn't want to be a high -class escort at that time.

And I wanted more out of my life.

I decided no matter what, I would grab life by the horns so I could make

something of my life and myself.

I threw myself back into the modelling industry.

I removed myself from the escorting, the drugs. I started doing shoots for the

men's magazines, Maxim, Ice and Loaded and then FHM. Life changed very quickly

at that point.

Eventually I was voted into the 100 sexiest women in the world list for

FHM.

That kind of blew my mind.

I knew that if I was to go any further in this industry, I had to go to

Hollywood. I was the commodity and I wanted to cash in.

I flew to LA with $900 in my

back pocket in a suitcase.

I wasn't overly confident that this was a good move.

But I was going to give it a good go.

Simone, star.

In order to get anywhere, you need to know who's who in the zoo.

Hi. I was introduced to a guy called Zach.

He was very camp, and he was a go -to for pretty much everything.

Tell me a little bit more about your portfolio.

And he was a jack -of -all -trades, so he became my agent. I think I did this,

like, a month ago or something.

We got along like a house on fire. Yeah? Would you like to sign up? Yeah!

Yes!

He was the perfect person to further my career.

All right, cheers.

Hi, babe.

Hey, what's up?

He built me a website. In the merchandising section, it would have

with all my images on there.

Mugs. Calendars, pens, I like it. Yeah? Yeah.

It was all part of this branding for, you know, Simone Star.

My friendship with Zach blossomed from there.

When I look back now, I wish that I walked away, but I had no idea of the

consequences and what was about to happen to me.

Living in Hollywood was a buzz.

It is exactly what they make it out to be in the movies.

A lot of people do a lot of code, and it's the norm. It's like having a beer.

During that time with the partying, I started to feel elements of myself,

from the past.

Let's go.

I was happy. I was having a good time.

I just ran with it.

We were going from club to club, snorting a lot of cocaine.

Where there's cocaine, the party can go all night if you have an endless supply.

Especially if you're addicted to it, you just keep going.

The problem with LA, You can't just survive there on peanuts.

Every time I made money, it went in one hand, out the other.

And there was absolutely no way that situation could survive unless a cash

injection could go into it. We had to put our thinking caps on.

I wasn't going back to Sydney no matter what. I was going to find a solution.

And I guess I did.

Not the right solution, but, yeah, I found a solution.

You know, Zach and I talked about the difference between the price of drugs in

America and the price in Australia.

Like what?

It was a little bit more than $900 for an ounce of Coke in LA, but I knew for a

fact they were selling them back in Australia for $9 ,000, $10 ,000.

And he was like, well, if you know anyone.

That could be temporary solutions.

I was thinking to myself, that markup's ridiculous.

And plus, I already knew a lot about the drug trade.

It would be easy to find some interested buyers in Australia.

To me, it was just a business thing.

How are we going to do this?

The merchandise that I was selling on my website was... The perfect camouflage

to ship it back.

That's the answer.

We

decided

that shipping cocaine was a little too risky.

They're always looking for that.

And so we decided crystal meth would be the right thing.

It wasn't very common in Australia at that point.

And crystal meth in LA is a lot cheaper.

And I said, I'm going to make a phone call.

I had a friend in Sydney. His name was Mike.

Mike. Yeah.

Mike agreed to take two ounces of meth.

Yeah, I just need your address.

Cheers.

We came across these bath salts.

Bath salts look like crystal meth.

And there was a product that I could plausibly sell through my business.

It seemed like it was the perfect disguise.

That moment I made that decision, I had no idea it was about to change the

course of my entire existence.

At that point in time, my main mission, get it back to Australia.

We bought a whole heap of crystal meth from Zach's suppliers.

Big snap -lock bags of drugs.

And we bought a whole heap of gift sets that had bath salts in them.

There was a process.

We would have to make sure that we had gloves on, hairnets.

So we laid out plastic because we didn't want any kind of evidence left.

No fingerprints, no DNA.

And we were naked.

It's like open -heart surgery.

Take the soap out, separate it all.

With screw jars, they have, like, the plastic around the sides.

I would cut that plastic, empty the contents, like, into a bowl.

Weigh it, making sure that it matches the weight of it on the jar.

I don't want any residue on the outside of the jar.

I would get a very fine, low torch and I'd seal it.

Put all the stuff back into the box.

It looks about as not tampered with as I could possibly make it.

Once the product was perfect, it got shipped with other items that had to go

out. So it all looked part of the same parcel with my company name on the back.

These

packages

would get tracked.

Once we knew it got there a few days later, we were heaps excited about it.

the money would be wired.

The job was done.

We started sending packages on a regular basis.

It worked out to be about $320 ,000 a month.

It wasn't going to be forever.

And then I could legitimize myself and focus on my modeling.

I'd be in front of the camera, boom. In my mind, I'm like, oh, got to get a gift

set today that had bath salts in it.

And that's what I'm thinking as I'm getting told to pull my midsection in.

I've lived a double life.

By day, I'm a swimsuit model gracing the pages of magazines.

Nighttime, I'm packaging drugs to send overseas.

Those two worlds for me were very real and I couldn't have them collide.

I now had so much money.

It's insane.

I could just walk into anywhere, purchase whatever I wanted at whatever

not even blink an eyelid.

I walked around thinking I was the best thing since sliced bread.

What are you doing today?

We're going to go and watch a show in Broadway in New York. I'm going to book

flight now.

Can't get a flight, let's get a G6.

Yeah.

I wish in my mind now that I looked at those times and thought that could send

me to jail for the rest of my life, but I didn't know any different.

When you have financial freedom like that, if you have no discipline, you run

amok.

And that's pretty much what happened.

I wasn't turning up for shoots.

Drugs were rife.

It wasn't the cause of my demise, but we got out of control.

I thought the power, the success, and the money, and I would be happy for once

in my life, and I wasn't.

I was not fulfilled. I had not found love.

I was so hollow and empty.

Why can't I just go into the supermarket and then it'd be like a can of, like,

love, a can of family, and I'll buy all that and I'll be right because I knew

what was missing, you know.

When you're taking a lot of drugs, you become quite unstable.

Where's your hairnet?

We were now arguing all the time.

I'm trying to put it back nicely. It's being very complacent with the way we

were, like, packaging things.

Everything was pretty floppy. It got floppy.

I look back and I think to myself, I worked so hard to get to that point,

and yet in one foul swoop, I was about to throw it all away and I had

no idea.

We'd been doing this for six months.

I'd received a phone call from my mate in Sydney.

And he explained to me that he had been tracking one of the packages.

I immediately thought, something's wrong.

And then I thought, oh God.

I shipped these parcels with my company name on the back.

Holy... I'm thinking, the authorities may be knocking on

my door very soon.

I was petrified.

I knew it was the beginning of the end.

I was so nervous because if the police have the packages, my

life is going to fall to crap.

I spoke to Zach and he told me, you know, basically not to worry about my

situation and that everything was going to be OK.

I could feel it right through me. Nothing was going to be OK, either which

Anyone in their right mind would have just taken off.

But I intoxicated myself day after day just to deal with it.

Smoking, drinking, doing whatever.

I became very paranoid.

I stayed in my apartment and pretty much lived like a hermit.

I was pretty messed up and I felt I had no one, like, you know, to help me

through. I kind of felt alone, you know.

Then two weeks later, there's a knock on my door.

Zach came unannounced.

I was in a bad state and then he tells me that he's booked a flight to Sydney

because I have to do a shoot, which I completely forgot about.

Are you serious?

And I said, I'm not sure what's happened with those packages.

You can't send me to Sydney.

And he said... It's been a while.

Don't you think they would have come already?

I don't think it's going to be an issue. Like, this is going to be huge for you.

He makes it very clear that I can't miss this because this label had me

be the face of it for Australia and Southeast Asia.

So I couldn't miss this shoot. It was very important.

He might be right.

But if he's not right, what's going to happen?

I can't.

You're going.

And he said, whether you like it or not, you're going.

I realized I just had to concentrate on positive things so I can get away from

the drugs and put me in the right direction as to what I could do to

career.

Going back to Sydney, it was a risk, but at the end of the day, it was the only

way that I was ever going to get on with my life.

Zach drove me to LAX.

It was scary because I didn't know what was to lie ahead.

I was either going to be fast -tracked to fame and glory or I'm going

into a 4x4.

sell for a long time, arrested by the police, and my whole life is just going

fall apart.

Well, wish me luck.

And then he was like, All right, babe, have a good trip. See you later.

He said goodbye, waved, smiled.

It was the last time that I ever saw him alive.

I wheel my trolley to the check -in desk.

There's a lady standing there.

Sit next.

She looks at me, types up these details.

Another lady comes over.

She said, is your last name Star?

I said, yes, it is.

One moment.

My heart was beating fast. I was thinking to myself, something's really

And I said, is there a problem?

She said, no, no, no, it's okay.

Not a problem.

I've never felt so sick in my entire existence.

And then she's turned around and she's hung up.

She said, that's fine, yeah, not a problem.

I couldn't believe it.

That was it.

Give me my boarding pass.

And then I leave.

What the hell just happened?

So strange.

So strange.

When I landed in Sydney, I was obviously apprehensive because this was the place

that all the shipments of meth had been coming to.

I was completely stressed.

They stamp my passport and do all that? No issue.

Strange, okay.

Now I'm thinking, maybe everything will be okay.

It's protocol in Sydney Airport for everybody, all their bags to be checked.

It's mandatory.

Thank you.

There's this lovely older man in customs ready to check my bags.

And they checked everything.

I was thinking to myself, at least I wasn't carrying drugs.

He finishes his check, zips everything up.

I was good to go.

You know what? I sighed and I was like... And

then all of a sudden, someone said, are you Simone Starr?

In that moment, my heart rate went up.

I realized that all my premonitions were right.

Oh, it's not good.

He goes, And he said,

I remember

that sentence.

It changed my life.

In that moment, I knew everything that I had.

felt, seen, done and worked for was going to... My

life was over.

This is international swimsuit model Simone Farrow on Wednesday.

The DEA and Australian police claim Farrow was the mastermind of an

international drug ring, trafficking in high -grade crystal meth. She was using

FedEx and even the Postal Service to ship methamphetamine around the world,

hiding it in bath salts.

I was escorted to the airport.

It was sort of like headline news around the world, pretty much.

I just thought, you've really lost your life now.

You can just take a seat over there.

I was taken to Australian Federal Police Headquarters.

You've been sending a lot of mail.

They said to me, are you aware that six packages have been seized?

I don't know. I was like, I don't know anything about it.

I was thinking to myself, deny, deny, deny, and maybe it'll go away.

OK, Simone, you need to process this.

And he said, you're in a lot of trouble.

It sounds guilty.

You're looking at 25 years in jail.

When I was told that, I was like, oh, no way.

That won't happen.

I'm not doing that.

OK. And then they said, we've got word from Washington that the DEA... Went

around to Zach's place to question him.

So he had told the police, please come back in three hours, I'm happy to talk

you. So the DEA left, came back to the apartment. Knock, knock, knock.

No answer.

They broke in and found Zach dead.

No, he's committed suicide.

So in that three hours, he killed himself.

Yeah.

And, yeah.

And then I broke down.

I couldn't believe that he would do that.

I guess he couldn't face going to prison.

I was

taken

to the only main correctional centre for women in Sydney called Silverwater,

which is a maximum security prison.

I've never felt so scared.

I shut down, actually.

I was, like, shaking and everything.

I was greeted by some very stern -looking correctional officers.

They said to me, we've been waiting for you.

That's when I realised I knew who I was, because I'd been all over the news.

They didn't get many swimwear models in there.

So, yep.

I was a freshie.

I was like, you know, a piece of meat.

All I remember was the officer saying to me that you're going to have to leave

your tiara at the front desk here, princess.

Better harden up.

Because the girls are going to love you in here.

That kind of sent me over the edge.

And bang, the steel door closes.

Everything flushed before me.

I realised I was no longer known for being a girl that graced the pages of

magazines in swimwear.

What I'd done had wiped out like a tsunami my entire

career.

It was very much a hard pill to swallow.

I was now going to be known for this.

The next morning I woke up.

I tried to keep my head down, but, you know, I was the focal point.

Everyone knows what's happened because it's been on the news.

I was the target from there.

There was one prisoner in there called Kaylee.

And thought she was, you know, all that.

It's like the worst bully in the school times ten.

I already knew straight off the bat. She could be a huge problem for me.

The next day, I'm just standing near the wall down at one of the phones.

Kaylee turned on me because I wouldn't give her smoke.

She threatened me and said that she was going to kill me.

I was petrified.

I don't know whether I'm going to survive or not.

And then the officers broke us up.

I was pretty messed up.

I realised that I was a fish out of water and I completely did not know how

behave or how to act in this existence and survive.

I was very upset.

I just didn't know how I was going to keep going.

This officer, Miss Young, she gave me some advice.

You're going to have to learn to stand your ground.

Because she knew I wasn't going to survive.

You're all right.

She managed to allow me to open up like that.

I don't do emotions and I don't like to tell people how I feel.

But she genuinely cared, and she was an officer, she didn't have to do that.

I was very grateful.

And then she just turned around and out of nowhere, like, are you checking out

my arse?

I'm like, what?

I'm just kidding.

Later.

She was only mucking around, I look back now, but...

There was definitely something about her.

My

existence

in prison was they were either trying to kill me or they were trying to kill me

and there was absolutely no in between.

Violence and sadness and darkness is pretty much what it's about.

There's no room for the weak.

I was eventually sentenced to six and a half years to be served inside prison.

I was devastated about it.

But what do you do? You just get on with it.

At that point, the only ray of sunshine in my life was Miss Young.

She was definitely the first genuine friend I'd had in a long time.

She was the only thing that kind of made me smile.

She was a huge mentor for me because she encouraged me to become a better

person and to recognise some of the traits in myself that needed changing.

I was starting to have feelings for Miss Young, you know.

I've been with women in the past.

I'm a judge of the soul.

The more time we spent with each other, the more obvious it became.

But people didn't like it.

Rule 101.

When you're in prison, you are not to have any kind of affiliation or with an

office that...

You just don't do it. You can get bashed for that.

But that didn't stop me talking to her, so... Come what may.

Hi.

Officer Young... She didn't show up one day.

No, I thought, oh, she must be having the day off, you know?

So I waited for the next day.

She didn't show up that day either.

And then the day after that.

I go straight to the officer.

And I said, listen, I need to find Miss Young.

Because she's more meaningful.

And he said to me, she's been moved to another prison.

I said, so she's not coming back? Like, she's not?

coming back to here to work ever.

And he said no.

I was really upset.

They took her away and I didn't see her again.

And that's that.

Things went from bad to worse for me.

So the next day I'm in the canteen line and then Kaylee goes, don't let that

screw -loving dog in.

You know, she's having a relationship with Miss Young.

Oh my God, did she just yell that out?

They're all looking at me.

Kaylee was loving it. She was feeding right into it.

It's about time Simone had learnt her lesson.

So I just failed and I was like, oh, this isn't going to end well.

Two officers came into my cell that night and said, an inmate has told us

are going to be jumped and your face cut up and cut off and we're taking you

down to Segro.

And then it hit me like a ton of bricks that my situation was pretty messed up.

So gross isolation.

Just a bed.

And my own thoughts.

Why is my world falling apart?

All I could think about was I've lost everything.

Zach.

And now Officer Young.

I realise that anything good that comes into my life is short -lived and then it

goes.

I had spent my whole life convinced I don't do feelings because if I don't do

feelings, I don't get affected, you know.

Truth be told, it affected me a lot.

I couldn't keep going at that point.

And that's when I decided, you know what, I'm going to check out.

I wanted to commit suicide.

For me, that was rock bottom.

That was rock bottom.

So it couldn't get any worse than that.

But I couldn't do it.

Right then, I realized that I had to turn everything around.

And so I decided to keep going.

I'd been in Segway for a couple of days. I had a lot of time to think and

reflect about things.

I made all this money, yes, and I realised one thing through the process

money doesn't make you happy and it doesn't make you complete.

What I was searching for was not big houses and things and fame and

money. I just wanted to be.

loved for me. I wanted a sense of belonging.

And I wanted someone to reciprocate.

You're going to have to learn to stand around.

I kept thinking about Officer Young. Are you checking out my house?

I'm just kidding.

Later.

I was very fond of her. I liked her.

But she was gone, so...

Maybe it wasn't meant to be. Maybe it wasn't real, you know?

And that's when I decided I have to be the best version of myself I can

be.

I knew I had to turn my life around.

And she was my motivation behind it all.

Even if I never saw her again.

So...

I spent about three weeks in Segro.

I had to find my way back to salvation.

I got moved up to a different section of the jail.

I did an intensive drug and alcohol treatment program.

So, yeah, I was addicted to coke and meat.

It actually teaches you about who you are, why you have drug addiction, why

behave the way you do.

How to recognize trauma and deal with it.

I had to be put in that situation.

I had to grow up. I had to learn about myself. I had to beat my demons. I had

demons and I had to beat them.

I felt liberated.

And I became a better person from it.

I felt like I'd run a marathon, literally.

Like, I felt like it never was going to end.

And so I walked out.

There's a lady standing there.

You know, I couldn't believe it.

Miss Young.

I actually got to see her and I got to, you know, I was in love with her.

She said, Just got to go somewhere and drop something off.

She was going to hand her uniform in.

She had decided to quit her job in order to be with me.

And... Do you want to invite her for you to do so?

Yeah.

You want to come?

No, she said, Britt, come.

Come, you've got to bring your chair.

This is Brittany.

Miss Young.

There, there you go.

Look at his face.

The moral to the story, everything I had been doing and searching for was

incorrect.

I had the fame, I had the money.

You can have everything materialistically, but you can have

Now I have a very simple life, and I'd rather live in a cardboard box and be

with her than have a penthouse in Beverly Hills and millions of dollars

alone with a drug addiction and shipping drugs across the world. You know, I

finally got the one thing.

that I wanted, and it was to be happy.