Rugby league and union star Mahalia Murphy has laid bare the impact of a devastating family tragedy that broke her heart and rocked her world when she was just a teenager.
In an emotional moment on SAS Australia, while taking time out by the camp fire, Channel Seven sports commentator Abbey Holmes asked Murphy about her sister.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Rugby star opens up on tragic family loss.
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“What happened to your sister ... if you don’t mind me asking?” Holmes said to Murphy.
Murphy’s response was direct: “Oh, she had a heart attack. She was only 24.”
Holmes was shocked: “Had a heart attack at 24. Oh s***.”
![Murphy opens up to Holmes by the camp fire.](https://images.7news.com.au/publication/C-12376530/0b86f18db59dcae7a32a5a3a28091151d71c2fc2.jpg?imwidth=650&impolicy=sevennews_v2)
Murphy: “Yeah, she was on a lot of medication. She came down to Sydney for like a week because she had to see the liver doctor, a liver specialist, because her liver was bleeding.
“And in that week she passed away before the appointment ... at home.”
Holmes: “Just at home?”
Murphy: “Yeah.”
Holmes: “I’m so sorry. That’s awful.”
Murphy: “It sucked.”
Murphy was only 13 when her sister died.
Australian actor Craig McLachlan overheard the conversation and said, “That’s tragic.”
Then Murphy revealed it was in fact a double tragedy and the impact on her mother was immense.
“My poor mum suffered heaps, like she even lost the daughter after (that) at birth ... a couple of days after birth. Dominique her name was,” she said.
Holmes: “What a traumatic time for your mum.”
Murphy: “Yeah.”
Murphy has represented Australia in both union and league and recently signed with the Parramatta Eels in the NRLW.
![Later in the episode, Murphy burnt a family letter.](https://images.7news.com.au/publication/C-12376530/4477ec3609ffbc2f635c1851705cb948f429b6c7.jpg?imwidth=650&impolicy=sevennews_v2)
She has also represented News South Wales, the Indigenous All Stars and played for Australia in rugby sevens.
She said losing her sister hit her “family hard” and they had to find their own way to grieve in the weeks and months that followed.
“Experiencing that kind of (taught) me the importance of appreciating your loved ones,” she reflected.
“It’s definitely made me build resilience and character as a person. And I appreciate life so much .... and now I think not taking things for granted, and really using your opportunities, (they are the things that) are really important to me.
“You know, appreciating your loved ones around you, stuff like that. I really think I’ve learnt to appreciate life and people around me a lot more.”
But later in the same episode, after another challenging day on the course, chief SAS instructor Ant Middleton had personal, handwritten letters “from home” to hand the remaining SAS contestants.
![Murphy said she didn’t want the letter to distract her.](https://images.7news.com.au/publication/C-12376530/af3ef1042dd54a93ca6b30f0180b00014a590f45.jpg?imwidth=650&impolicy=sevennews_v2)
But before he passed them out, he said: “It’s down to you whether you want to read them or not. Hopefully they give some of you the strength to push through, others, you may not want to read them, that’s completely up to you.”
Middleton said when he was on “operations” he wouldn’t allow any distractions to come through and any letters from home he would burn “just in case an external distraction altered” his mindset.
All the contestants wanted to read the letters, except, surprisingly, Murphy.
“No? You don’t want to read yours?” Middleton checked.
“Come here. Grab it. Run around the parade square. Burn it. Go back into the accommodation.”
And that’s exactly what Murphy did, destroying the letter in the camp fire.
Murphy said she loved her family but admitted she was “guilty of being distracted very easily”.
“When you lose focus, you can go off track and I want to be at the end and I will do everything I can to be at the end,” she said.
She later told the others she thought the letter was probably from her mum and she knew it would have hit her hard.
SAS Australia continues Tuesday 7.30pm on Channel 7 and 7plus.
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