Clare Verrall is the bubbly, ambitious blonde property manager who was rebuffed by Married at First Sight ‘villain’ Jono on Tuesday night. He’s the “That’s not what I ordered” guy.
No doubt viewers could tell that Verrall is made of seriously tough stuff, but few would have known she also survived a brutal attack, the consequences of which she is still dealing with today.
In April last year, Clare was walking her dog in Prahran, Melbourne, when a man emerged from an apartment complex, grabbed her and shoved her up against a wall. The attacker then threatened to kill her if she screamed or called for help.
via Facebook.
“A guy came up grabbed me, punched me in the face, broke my nose," Clare told AAP, "then I kicked him in the nuts really hard and kicked him in the kidneys so hard he ran off."
The attacker was never caught.
Clare still suffers psychologically. "I still have a little PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) from that, so having people having scream at me still makes me incredibly anxious," she said.
As Mamamia reported at the time, Clare took to her Facebook page after the attack to encourage other women to take up kick boxing or self-defence classes. "They can try to beat you, they can try to intimidate you and they can try to make you feel like your are nothing," she said in a video post, "but women, we are all something and we can all fight back."
Watch Clare the night before she met/'married' Jono.