'I basically lost my marbles': Roxy Jacenko recalls troubled times while her husband was in prison

Sydney PR queen Roxy Jacenko has opened up about how she blamed her former investment banker husband Oliver Curtis for giving her cancer and for causing their relationship to break down, leading to her infidelity while he was in prison.

Their relationship hit a rough patch in 2016, after Mr Curtis was sentenced to one year in jail for insider trading and Ms Jacenko was diagnosed with breast cancer just a few weeks later.

The pair recounted their struggles in recent years to Melissa Doyle on Seven’s Sunday Night in an emotional interview.

Ms Jacenko, who started PR agency Sweaty Betty at 24, spoke of how she became resentful when her world started falling apart.

“I was very resentful. You know, I looked at my life, and I was like, how am I even in this position? How has this happened to me? You know. I’d worked hard my whole life; I have tried to do the right thing. You know, how am I in this position?”

She even alluded to contemplating suicide.

“I was very close to standing at the gap,” she said referring to a famous suicide spot in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. She said it was her children that prevented her from ever doing it.

“I wouldn’t have coped. But the only thing that stopped me was the fact that and they needed me,” she said.

Ms Jacenko made headlines during her husband’s time in jail after photos emerged of her kissing ex-boyfriend Nabil Gazal on a balcony in Sydney.

She admitted that she “started living a life as soon as Oli went to jail that was fast” and quickly spiralled out of control.

“I didn’t eat and went out and indulged in things I shouldn’t have indulged in. I had cancer. I weighed, like, 45 kilos,” she said. “I went rogue, basically.”

During this time she felt resentment towards her husband and blamed him.

“I said to him, It’s your fault. This is all your fault,” she recalled, even telling him “you gave me cancer.”

“I felt bad saying it, but, to be honest with you, at the time you know I was very resentful. I was resentful I had to I was resentful that I had to be on my own. I had to work. I had to look after the children.

“I didn’t... I couldn’t cope. I had a nervous breakdown.”

She is now cancer free following successful treatment.

“I remember I would go out, and I’d come home at all hours of the morning. I basically lost my marbles,” the 38-year-old said.

“I remember driving Ollie’s car and parking it and then the next day going downstairs and looking at it, and it was all smashed up. And I was like, I don’t even remember how I did it.”

On the day Mr Curtis was sentenced she recalled going home and being quizzed by her young daughter on why she was so upset.

“Did you have a bad day in the office?,” her daughter asked.

“I was like, ‘A very bad day.’ I had to lie, and I remember she said, ‘Oh, where’s Dad, and why isn’t Dad coming home?’”

Roxy told her daughter that her dad had gone to China.

“Because it was the first thing I thought of. And everyone was like ‘how could you lie to your child?’ ... but what could I say?

“It was bad. I’ll never forget it.”

Mr Curtis, who now works at his wife’s PR firm, appeared eager to use the interview as a way to rehabilitate his image, projecting a more happy-go-lucky persona.

“Of course I regret it,” he said of his insider trading conviction.

“You can’t not regret it. I was a kid, you know? I was a silly kid. I remember my old man telling me that you fly too close to the sun, your wings get burnt. And that’s just what happens.”

At one point during the interview he choked back tears.

The high-profile couple — who bought a six-bedroom Vaucluse home for more than $6.5 million in September — seem to pride themselves on staying in the spotlight.

Ms Jacenko was criticised in April for appearing at cricketer David Warner’s ball tampering press conference alongside his wife, Candice, who is friends with Ms Jacenko, and also a client of her PR firm.

She was also accused of turning her husband’s trial into a fashion show — a criticism that angered her.

“I really took umbrage to that,” she told Sunday Night.

“I had clients who were expecting me to show that business was usual. I was known for my lift selfies. My lift selfies didn’t stop, and they certainly didn’t start when Ollie’s trial started. I wanted to maintain the consistency, that life was normal. Sure, it wasn’t normal, but in my mind, I needed to pretend it was.”

The couple was not paid for the interview.

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