Extraordinary Stories

<p>What happens when your entire identity is built on being the best in the world? For Jana Pittman, one of Australia's most famous athletes, the singular goal of Olympic gold was repeatedly torn away by devastating...

<p>What happens when you achieve the biggest dream of your life at 16? After national treasure Jessica Watson sailed around the world solo at 16, she had to figure out what to do next. The world expected more adventure...

<p >All Samantha wants is to understand why her mother wasn’t there for her. All Marie wants is a chance to make things right with her daughter — and to be part of her granddaughter’s life. But after years of distance...

<p>In 2015, Australian con woman Belle Gibson was living the dream. Her app The Whole Pantry was hugely popular and she was about to launch a book of the same name.</p> <p>With hundreds of thousands of followers online...

<p>Belle Gibson fooled not only her hundreds of thousands of followers, but the most prestigious book publishers in Australia, the tech giants of silicon valley and even her family and friends into believing she was...

<p>[Part 3 of 3] A month before Amy Winehouse’s death, her performance at a music festival in Serbia was resoundly panned. She was intoxicated for the whole world to see, but the silver lining of what would be labelled...

<p>[Part 2 of 3] After a celebrated album with her debut, Frank, and with that distinct voice and sound, Amy Winehouse got very famous, very fast. Everyone wanted a second album, but Amy had entered a whole new world...

<p>[Part 1 of 3] You can recognise it in an instant, that iconic voice and a candid style of songwriting beyond her years. The sound of Amy Winehouse was a sound unheard of since the days of Billie Holiday and Nina...

<p>[Part 3 of 3] In the lead-up to the Beijing Winter Olympics, the world began to wonder how and if Peng Shuai would be used in the games, and whether the IOC was going to have anything to say to the Chinese Government...

<p>[Part 2 of 3] For three long weeks in November 2021, the tennis community, news organisations, and human rights advocates the world over had one question; Where Is Peng Shuai? In the aftermath of a Weibo post...

<p>[Part 1 of 3] It was after 10 pm, on November 2nd, 2021 when 35-year-old Peng Shuai - China’s beloved global tennis star - sat down and began typing. Truncated sentences of an open letter, detailing an affair and...

<p>[Part 2 of 2] From 2013 until just a few weeks ago, Amanda’s Bynes life was controlled by a conservatorship, governed primarily by her mum, Lynn. In the wake of Britney Spears’ bombshell revelations about her own...

<p>[Part 1 of 2] She was the queen of Nickelodeon, beloved by teens of the noughties. But just as her movie career was taking off, something happened to Amanda Bynes. In this two-part series, we’re looking back on the...

<p>[Part 3 of 3] Charlene Wittstock had made it through years of tabloid speculation about her marriage to the Prince of Monaco, but in 2020, just as she found some peace, a new, yet very familiar scandal involving her...

<p>[Part 2 of 3] To lock down the future of the Grimaldi dynasty, Prince Albert II needed to marry and produce a legitimate heir. So when he met South African olympian Charlene Wittstock, the palace breathed a sigh of...