Nasty gossip ... convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby says she is humiliated and crushed by the untrue claims of her having jail lovers and or being a prostitute printed in Australian magazines

In an interview for The Bulletin magazine this week, Corby describes stories in women's gossip magazines about her as complete fiction.

“I've been a prostitute, I have jail lovers, I'm now a slut, a weirdo, all these horrible things printed about me and it's not true,” she said.

New Idea reported Corby had a “secret jail lover” while Woman's Day claimed she had a love affair with Bali Nine ringleader Andrew Chan.

“The whole nation, my home, reading degrading gossip ... it crushes me and devastates me,” Corby said, questioning where she was supposed to have sex in the crowded and filthy jail she was being held in.

“I will never understand why this constant degrading of me goes on.

“I've been humiliated – exceedingly – way over the normal limits of life's humiliations.

”I have a 20-year sentence. I've been hurt beyond belief. Why do these people keep attacking me, insulting me? I won't be quiet and stand for it any longer. This is why I've written a book.”

Corby, 29, is serving a 20-year sentence in Bali's Kerobokan Prison for smuggling 4.1kg of cannabis inside a boogie board bag in October 2004.

Her book, My Story, was co-written by former TV producer Kathryn Bonella and is based on a series of secret interviews Bonella conducted with Corby inside the jail.

In the Bulletin article, written by Bonella, Corby described Kerobokan as a “soul-sucking dump” and did not want anyone to think her life was in any way OK.

“I may wear make-up and I may look OK but I'm not OK,” she said.

“I'm hanging on tightly to a knot at the end of a rope and I know I could slip off anytime.”

Corby, who has maintained her innocence, said she was hopeful “the person who did this” would finally speak out and the Federal Government would do more to help.

“This is slowly killing me, I am losing who I am,” she said.

“I don't want to be lonely anymore. I want this heartache to be over. I want to live again.”

Schapelle Corby Case Information

Close ... Schapelle and Mercedes. / The Daily Telegraph

Article from: The Daily Telegraph

MERCEDES Corby is pregnant with her third child and will return to Australia for the birth as other family members head to Bali to support her sister Schapelle.

Doctors feared Mercedes, 31, could miscarry because of the daily stress she was under as she looked after her sister, who is serving a 20-year sentence in a Bali prison.

Mercedes has two children, Wayan and Nyeleigh, to her Balinese husband Wayan Wid- yartha, a former champion surfer in Indonesia.

Mercedes will return to Australia shortly for the birth of her third child while her mother, Rosleigh Rose, will tend to Schapelle's daily needs inside Kerobokan prison.

Mercedes has been a strong supporter of her jailed sister throughout her drug-smuggling ordeal, often seen during her court appearances protecting Schapelle from large crowds and the media.

DRUG smuggler Schapelle Corby hopes the success of her book will help get her home.

More than 17,000 copies of My Story were bought in its first eight days on sale, making it the week's top seller.

Corby said it was "really great" so many people wanted to read the account of her trial and imprisonment in an Indonesian jail.

"It's great to know so many people are still interested in my plight," she said. "Hopefully, they can see the case against me is full of holes and that I did not get a fair trial.

"I hope my book will open people's minds to the truth and help me come home."

Corby, 29, released a statement via her brother-in-law from Bali's Kerobokan Prison, where she is serving a 20-year sentence for smuggling 4.1 kilograms of cannabis in October 2004.

"It is really great that so many people are reading my book," she said. "I have been betrayed by so many people and for two years so much rubbish has been written about me. This is the truth. This is my voice. I put my heart and soul into it.

"I often cried writing it. It was hard to do but I wanted people to know the truth, know the hell, know the lies and betrayals."

The book was co-written by former television producer Kathryn Bonella and is based on secret interviews with Corby in the prison.

Corby's publisher, Pan Macmillan, said Corby wanted to use the proceeds to fund the legal battle against her conviction.

A spokesman for federal Justice Minister Chris Ellison said any profit could be confiscated under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

ONE of the nation's best-known convicted drug smugglers has just become its best-selling author, but it is unclear whether she will be allowed under law to profit from her book.

Schapelle Corby, My Story sold more than 17,000 copies in its first eight days. That puts it in the No. 1 spot this week, according to the book sales monitor Nielsen BookScan.

In a statement provided by Corby to the Herald - via the husband of her sister, Mercedes, who visited her at Kerobokan jail in Bali yesterday - the author said she was thrilled that her book had sold so well.

"It is really great that so many people are reading my book," she said. "I have been betrayed by so many people and for two years so much rubbish has been written about me … I hope my book will open people's minds to the truth and help me to come home."

Corby wants to use the proceeds to fund her legal battle in Indonesia , said Tom Gilliatt, her publisher at Pan Macmillan.

But a spokesman for the Justice Minister, Chris Ellison, said any profit Corby made could be confiscated by the Commonwealth under the Proceeds of Crime Act. It applies to crimes committed here and overseas.

Mr Gilliatt said he had legal advice that Corby was not in violation of the Act. "Schapelle did not commit a crime - she's writing about what it's like to be jailed for something you didn't do."

Dylan Welch

Mercedes Corby, sister of convicted drug smuggler Schapelle, spoke with Sydney radio duo Merrick and Rosso at 7am today, raising the possibility that airport security footage was tampered with, declaring her sister's innocence and quashing rumours about the high profile case.

Mercedes, who is currently based in Bali and is pregnant with her third child, told Tim Ross and Merrick Watts she spent much of her time caring for her sister and appealing to various authorities against the case.

"I've spent a lot of time writing letters to the [Australian] Government and to Indonesian Government people as well," she said.

She also suggested that foul play may have been involved in the missing security footage of the three-hour period Schapelle was at Sydney airport before she flew to Bali on October 8, 2004. Schapelle was later arrested at Bali airport with 4.1 kilograms of marijuana in a boogie-board bag.

"We've quite a few different answers, but bottom line is there is none (footage)," she said.

Asked Tim Ross, "So it was lost or ... "

" ... Removed?" Watts interjected.

"Lost, wiped, they have no footage," she replied. "And it was in Sydney airport, three hours. No footage of somebody, so where do all our security taxes go?"

She also revealed she had never questioned her sister's innocence, and had never asked whether the marijuana had been hers.

"I know it's not, I don't have to ask her ... she told me herself, so there's no need to ask."

Mercedes described arriving at the Bali police station where Schapelle was being held on the day of her arrest and finding her sister slumped over a desk.

"I walked in the room ... Schapelle was slumped over a desk. And then I thought OK I'll go find out what's happening and the policeman just pointed back into the room and I seen the stuff just lying in the middle of the floor. I screamed and just practically collapsed - I couldn't believe what I was seeing."

Mercedes repeated her belief that Schapelle was the innocent victim of a third partywho put the drugs in her bag.

"Somebody else put it in her bag. At first I thought [she] might've been a decoy ... but then with everything that's come out about [Sydney] airport, I think that's what it is."

She described the conditions in Kerobokan prison - where Schapelle is currently sharing a cell with six other prisoners - as deplorable. She said it was overcrowded, hot, with no electricity, little water and "inedible" food.

"If you don't have family who can give you your food it would be so much harder."

She said she visits Schapelle five times a week, bringing her food such as chicken and pasta bakes.

Asking people to send letters to Schapelle ("She likes getting letters, it takes up a lot of her time"), Mercedes also denied some of the rumours floating around the case.

"Schapelle hasn't been to Bali 33 times, my husband and I aren't drug dealers, we have never owned a surf shop in Bali, the [Australian Federal Police] never searched our house and because they never searched our house they never found 20 hollowed-out boogie boards."

Ross and Watts also played to Mercedes a song they made for Schapelle, asking her to pass it along to the jailed Australian.

The song included lines such as, "Some might say that you're a little flawed/ when you let that potpourri in your boogie board ... you just went to Bali to get your hair braided."