CONTENT WARNING: This article discusses suicide.
Tammy Hembrow’s half-sister Starlette Thynne has opened up about how chasing a career as an influencer led her down a path of substance abuse, heavy drinking, and depression.
Speaking on the Deliverance Down Under podcast, Thynne discussed her relationship with her sisters Tammy, Amy and Emilee.
“I’m also one of seven siblings – lots of fighting for attention and fighting for the spotlight,” she said.
“We settled in Brisbane when I was in grade eight. I have three older sisters and three younger siblings.
“My three older sisters were a lot older and really stepping out in their lives as young women. I really looked up to them.”
Starlette shared that she was still in high school when Tammy’s social media fame began to rise, and admitted she never wanted to live in her sister’s shadow.
Starlette Thynne (middle) with sisters Amy (left) and Emilee (right). (Credit: Instagram)
“One of my sisters started gaining a lot of attention online,” Starlette Thynne said.
“As I went through my schooling years, towards the end, I would get lots of comments from people in school shouting out to me: ‘are you blah blah blah’s sister?’ I was wanting to separate myself from that because I didn’t want to be associated just as someone’s sister.
“But it kind of snowballed into this: ‘I’m blah blah blah’s sister’.”
Starlette explained that she had no real interest in social media at first — until she was brought in to do a photoshoot for one of Tammy’s brands.
“When I got out of school, I ended up doing a shoot for one of her brands. At the time, I didn’t want Instagram, I didn’t want social media – I wanted to lay low, but my partner at the time was like: ‘you should get Instagram’.”
Starlette Thynne sharing her story in an emotional video. (Credit: YouTube)
Starlette said that after joining Instagram, she “started getting all these followers overnight” — an experience that was exciting, but one she wasn’t ready to cope with.
“As my following started to increase, the pressure I was putting on myself was starting to increase,” she said.
“I would see how beautiful my sisters were – I was still really young and not sure what path I wanted to take in life, but I almost wanted to meet their standard.”
She shared that her low self-esteem, combined with sudden fame, led her to rely on alcohol and drugs as a way to cope.
“I had a really shaky, low self-confidence, so when I would attend events, I would end up drinking because I felt insecure,” she said.
“I developed a habit of finding my confidence in alcohol.”
Starlette continued: “I ended up falling into the wrong kinds of scenes, doing lots of drugs like cocaine and, because I had that really broken side to me, it was almost like an escape from the pain that I would feel in my day to day life.
“I would have these really big highs and these really deep lows. I realised pretty quickly that nobody really cares about anyone but themselves in that industry.
“It was almost like I was living someone else’s life or living to try and please the idea of what people wanted from me.”
Starlette also revealed that trying to meet people’s expectations pushed her into some “compromising” situations.
“I’d put myself in these compromising positions, like sleeping with men that I shouldn’t have slept with when I was really intoxicated because I knew it would hurt me and I knew that I would hate myself for it.”
Starlette confessed that she sometimes put herself in these situations as a form of “punishment” and also revealed she struggled with self-harm during that tough time.
“I would put myself in these positions as a form of punishment. I would give myself scars because I knew they would heal really badly and I would have to have them for the rest of my life,” she said through tears.
She also opened up about experiencing suicidal thoughts during a time when her already fragile self-esteem hit rock bottom.
“I was getting to a point where I didn’t like who I was – I had no real value to provide anyone. I had no real importance in anyone’s life. Nobody wanted the Star that was broken, everybody just wanted the Star that they created in their own head,” she said.
“It got to a point where I became really content with the idea of falling asleep and never waking up again.”
She shared that a conversation with a family member who had devoted their life to Jesus was what ultimately helped lift her out of her emotional struggles.
“I was tormented by my mind, tormented by my past and I read about this God who takes away your past. That’s when I first believed I encountered a personal intimate moment with God that filled me with all this light.”
