Reggie Bird’s three word response that brought Matty J to tears on I’m A Celebrity

Reggie Bird brought Matty ‘J’ Johnson to tears with just three words during Tuesday’s episode of I’m A Celebrity! Get Me Out Of Here. 

The two-time Big Brother Australia winner, 50, is legally blind. 

She suffers from both retinitis pigmentosa, a rare degenerative eye disease that causes severe vision impairment, and stage two Usher Syndrome, which causes deafness and hearing loss.

‘This might be a really obvious question, with your eyesight, but are you scared?’ Matty asked her. 

Currently, Reggie describes her vision as like ‘looking through a straw’, and doctors have told her that one day soon, she might wake up and not be able to see anything at all. 

Matty, 37, who is also a parent to two young kids, asked Reggie what she thinks she’ll miss seeing the most — and couldn’t stop his tears at her candid answer. 

‘Seeing the kids,’ she replied.

Reggie and her second husband, Dave Sorenson, have two children, an 18-year-old daughter, Mia, and their 15-year-old son, Lucas. 

She paused, allowing both Matty and herself, to sit with that heavy truth. ‘Yeah, just, I’ll miss the kids.’ 

The Bachelor star’s eyes welled up with tears for her. 

‘I never know when I’ll have my last day when I can see again,’ she told him. 

‘That day is going to come, and that is why I am so blessed to be here, to enjoy and see all of this stuff and chuck it in the memory bank, to make the most of it.’ 

Matty, already on the verge of tears, said ‘that makes me want to cry.’ 

Reggie quickly apologised, which Matty waived off, as he wrapped her up in a bear hug. 

Reggie told Matty ‘I think I reckon I will probably change when it is all totally gone.’ 

‘I won’t be able to do as much as what I do now.’ 

Reggie returned to Big Brother in 2022 after winning the series back in 2003, and both times left victorious. 

In 2003, she walked away with $250,000 and moved to Sydney to seek new career opportunities, but has been unable to find work because of her reality TV profile. 

Due to the invisible nature of her illness, Reggie revealed she often cops online bullying from people who accuse her of “faking” it. 

‘I posted a video [on social media] of me dancing and [it was], “How can she be dancing? I thought she was blind”‘ the mum-of-two said. 

‘People need to be educated that blindness is a spectrum.

‘Not everyone has to have the big black glasses and sit at home and not do anything. That is what people have in their heads. There is such a misunderstanding about blindness. 

‘Because I try and keep going all the time, sometimes you get knocked down because you try to keep going.’ 

In a piece-to-camera interview filmed after the conversation, Matty broke down again.   

‘Knowing what Reggie’s gone through, she’s a mum who is afraid of never being able to see her kids again because she’s going blind, you know?’ 

Matty and his wife Laura Byrne splashed out $2.19m on a rundown ‘blue chip’ home in a huge renovation project in Ulladulla, about 230 kilometres south of Sydney in 2024. 

The Bachelor couple expanded their multi-million property portfolio in October  by purchasing the dilapidated oceanfront property. He had vented about the size of the project on Tuesday. 

‘All of a sudden, my struggles seem so insignificant,’ he said. 

Both Matty and Reggie have been praised by viewers for their raw honesty and  emotion in the heartfelt moment. 

‘BALLING!’ one viewer wrote. ‘A sad yet beautiful moment between these two. Matty J has an absolute heart of gold.’ 

‘Reggie always have a way of making you feel what she feels,’ said another. 

A third tagged Matty and told him ‘How you held space for Reggie was so special.’