I’ve just learned what pushed Simone Holtznagel over the edge. Jono, you fool. Every woman forced to deal with a ‘baby daddy’ will now understand WHY she exposed him: AMANDA GOFF

In the end, one sentence was all it took to push model and mother-of-one Simone Holtznagel over the edge.

Not the long, lonely, sleepless nights. Not the aching isolation so often associated with early motherhood.

Not even the meagre sum of $45 a week child ‘support’ (and I use the word ‘support’ lightly) from her daughter’s father, personal trainer Jono Castano – a meagre amount that he only recently bumped up to something marginally less insulting.

It wasn’t even the fact that Jono had rocked up 45 minutes late for his supervised time with their little girl, Gia – eventually blaming Sydney traffic when he did appear.

No. Not even that, folks. And believe me, that alone would have sent me over the edge. I have zero tolerance for tardiness. 

What finally sent 33-year-old Simone over the edge was a flippant and knuckle-draggingly stupid little comment Jono, 35, made when he finally deigned to bless them with his presence.

According to Simone, he asked in a roundabout way if she was pregnant again because she had a ‘tummy’.

Jono insists his words were ‘twisted’ and he wasn’t actually body-shaming her. What he claims he really said was that he was ‘very happy for Gia if you are pregnant’.

Lol. Okay, Jono. I’ll get to that later.

But whatever his exact words – and his version is still bad – it was enough for Simone to snap.

I have it on exceptional authority that she was prepared to keep the whole matter private – thereby protecting Jono from the ignominy of revealing his child support payments – right up until those maddeningly ill‑judged words left his mouth.

You see, among the gossipy eastern suburbs, we’d heard whispers about Simone’s growing frustrations. It’s the sort of chatter you hear on the grapevine – and stays there because the legal risk simply isn’t worth it.

And then it happened.

Simone went public – blowing apart Jono’s image as a doting dad and Australia’s foremost ‘celebrity personal trainer’ (a title that has long raised eyebrows within the fitness industry).

Jono, unsurprisingly, wasted no time firing back – meaning what was once a private matter with unclear facts has now been thrust into the public arena, opening the floodgates to commentary from those of us who’ve had our run‑ins with Mr Castano.

I’ll be clear: I have history with Jono. He knows it. I spare you the details, but to say this is a column I’ve waited years to write would be a considerable understatement.

Before I go on, let’s recap exactly what Simone said.

Over the weekend, the former Australia’s Next Top Model star posted a video of herself flipping the bird with Gia in her arms, alongside the following message:

‘My purely hypothetical, calm reaction when my BD [baby daddy] rocks up 45 minutes late to his supervised visit.

‘In his new girlfriend’s car, being driven by his current wife – because neither of them own a vehicle.

‘This is also the same “celebrity trainer” who hasn’t had a consistent licence in four years and only just discovered paying more than $40 a week in child support is, in fact, a thing.

‘And then has the audacity to ask if I’m pregnant because I “have a tummy”.

‘The confidence. The delusion. The absolute lack of self-awareness.’ 

It’s the sort of takedown that knocks the air out of you – and one made even more satisfying by how long overdue it was. 

I’d heard whispers about Jono from friends who know him well. Many of them won’t be the least bit surprised to hear about the support payments for Gia, who is almost two.

In response to her blistering exposé, Jono posted screenshots of payments he’d made to Simone ranging from $2,742 to $2,834, between December 2025 and January 2026.

OK, fine, you pay child support. But the couple split two months after Gia was born, in May 2024. Why are we only seeing significant payments since December last year?

Jono, naturally, had an answer to that. 

‘I love my daughter, I would do absolutely anything for her. So when someone says I’m only paying $40 and I know I’m not,’ he said in a video accompanying the screenshots. 

He then went on to admit that, yes, he had in fact been making weekly payments of just $45 until late last year. His explanation? They ‘couldn’t agree’ on an amount and Simone apparently wanted an ‘insane’ sum he couldn’t afford – an answer that may explain the figure, but in my view does little to justify it.

Jono, I don’t doubt that negotiating child support can be tricky. But forty-five bucks is not an appropriate stopgap while two adults hash out the details. It barely stretches to a bag of nappies – let alone the real cost of caring for a child.

What meat-headed client or ChatGPT lawyer convinced you that it was in any way acceptable? I’m not being glib – that’s a serious question.

Honestly, it’s a small miracle Simone stayed quiet for as long as she did. But then again, perhaps it’s not so surprising at all.  

After separation, especially when children are involved, women rarely explode over the big things. We simply can’t afford to. Instead, we absorb them. We endure quietly, vent to trusted friends, grit our teeth and try – again and again – to make it work.

We try to keep things civil with our exes for the sake of our children. We gloss over selfishness. We swallow hurt. We tell ourselves that stoicism is strength and silence is maturity.

Most women do this because at the heart of it all is a child they want to protect – even as resentment churns beneath the surface. No, we’re not saints. We’re not perfect. But we try. And often, we try for far longer than anyone realises.

And before the single dads come at me with pitchforks, I see you struggling too. I know divorced fathers who cop it from narcissistic ex-wives who weaponise their children against them. Parental alienation is inexcusable, and fathers suffer the most.

And I’m also well aware that there are usually three sides to a story: his side, her side and the truth, which usually sits somewhere in the middle.

But in my view, this story is clear-cut: for many months, a bloke who portrays himself as a successful businessman was spending less than $50 a week on child support.

Only in December – perhaps in the spirit of Christmas – did he start to pay more.

You can’t come after me for saying it, Jono. You admitted as much yourself.

I see you roaring around the eastern suburbs in your Merc with a personalised ACERO number plate – a nice bit of promotion for your Kensington gym where you claim all the celebrities and socialites like to train. You certainly don’t look poor to me.

And that’s why what I’m hearing about why Simone finally snapped rings entirely true. The ‘tummy’ remark may have been the last straw, but the weight of that frustration wasn’t built overnight. It had been accumulating for months – years.

I get it. Women everywhere get it.

Now, Jono is harping on about defending his character and non-disparagement clauses supposedly being broken. It’s the usual refrain of a man with his back to the wall. If child support is such a stretch for him, I do wonder where he’d find the spare cash to find a lawyer to get even.

Now, back to the ‘tummy’ comment (I did promise I’d return to it, didn’t I?). 

Jono, you fool. Every man and his dog knows the rule about pregnancy: you never, ever ask, assume, or even hint that a woman might be pregnant.

Not even if she’s in Baby Bunting looking at prams with a beach-ball-sized bump under her dress with the words ‘I’M PREGNANT’ emblazoned on the front.

Jono is a trainer. He owns a trendy gym where beautiful, thin people go to become even more beautiful and thin. Surely he has trained people of all shapes and sizes and must know that the language he uses matters.

I genuinely struggle to comprehend how he could so much as allude to Simone’s body without appreciating how hurtful – and frankly offensive – that remark would be to someone who is not pregnant. 

And I’m far from alone in thinking this. Social media is ablaze with angry mothers, united in their disgust.

We recognise that comment. We understand what so often sits beneath it. We feel the sting immediately – and we can infer the intent, regardless of later explanations, claims of misunderstanding, or clarifications about what was actually said verbatim.

In the past 48 hours, I’ve spoken to several mothers navigating life with ‘baby daddies’ while doing their best to raise children after separation.

Without exception, they understand precisely why Simone reached her limit last week.

Perhaps the clearest way to explain it comes from a famous line in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. The exchange goes like this:

‘How did you go bankrupt?’

‘Two ways,’ Mike said. ‘Gradually and then suddenly.’

It’s the same here.

What the public saw as a sudden breaking point was, in reality, the end result of a long, simmering build‑up.

Simone’s reckoning didn’t come out of nowhere – it arrived gradually, and then all at once.

Jono, choose your next move carefully. Your ‘baby mama’ is no longer interested in keeping secrets.

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