Candice Warner trolled by fans at cricket match in South Africa

Candice Warner has recalled the ‘appalling’ experience she faced at a cricket match in South Africa, where fans wore Sonny Bill Williams masks to remind her husband, David Warner, of her infamous toilet tryst. 

In 2007, before Candice was dating David, the Ironwoman was photographed getting intimate with Sonny in the bathrooms of Sydney‘s Clovelly Hotel.  

South African cricket fans attempted to weaponise the incident in 2018 by wearing Sonny Bill Williams masks in the grandstands in the hopes that it would get under David’s skin and cause him to lose the match. 

Candice, who had joined David for the South African test, spoke to The Sunday Telegraph this weekend about almost refusing to go to the match due to the taunts. 

‘I remember going to the game scared, anxious, frightened and thinking, ”OK, what do I do? Hey, do I turn around and not go?’,’ she recalled. 

‘If I did that, David would be thinking, where’s Candice? And then he would have known it affected me and then it would affect him and it [would have] had the spiralling effect.’

Despite feeling ‘broken inside’, she decided to attend the match to support her husband. 

Candice also claimed the South African officials allowed the cruel taunts to continue and even participated by taking photos with the masks on. 

‘Some Australian supporters were having their photos taken. It just escalated. And it was appalling that they thought it was OK to laugh at someone’s past like that, to make me feel so little in front of my kids, my mother, my husband.’ 

Candice explained how the then-coach, Darren Lehmann, had to come out and support her, while others advised her to remain silent.

The infamous hook-up between Candice and New Zealand All Blacks star Sonny occurred 13 years ago, years before she met her now-husband David Warner.

The pair were photographed in a compromising position inside a toilet at the Clovelly Hotel in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. 

After the encounter, Candice told the ABC in 2008: ‘I wasn’t in a state where I didn’t know what happened, but you don’t think of how your actions, when you’re drunk, can have an affect on your life’.   

In the lead-up to the Cricket Australia ball tampering scandal in 2018, Candice was taunted by South African fans for her brief sexual encounter. 

South African player Quinton de Kock was fined for allegedly provoking David with a sledge regarding Sonny and his wife, while South African fans wore masks featuring Williams’ face. 

Cricket South Africa was forced to apologise after two officials posed for a photograph with fans wearing the masks.  

Candice has claimed that the pressure her husband David felt to silence her critics inspired him to mastermind the ball-tampering plot.   

David was banned for one year by Cricket Australia after he helped mastermind a plot to cheat in the Third Test against South Africa in March 2018.   

The star batsman devised the plan to get rookie opener Cameron Bancroft to secretly rough up the ball with sandpaper during the March 2018 test tour.

Bancroft was caught on camera, and the pair along with Australian captain Steve Smith were banned from first-class cricket for up to a year.

Candice told The Australian Women’s Weekly that she had miscarried just a week after David apologised for his role in the conspiracy.  

‘I was bleeding. We knew I was miscarrying. We held one another and cried,’ Candice told the magazine.

‘The miscarriage was a tragic consequence, a heartbreaking end to a horror tour,’ she added.  

The mother-of-three also reflected on the scandal that made her a tabloid fixture for years – extending an apology to Sonny Bill and his family.

‘I finally received a weak apology from Cricket South Africa [for the fan taunts]. I realised they’re the ones to feel ashamed, not me,’ she told the magazine.   

‘I’d like to extend that apology to Sonny Bill. He’s a husband and father, so imagine how his wife would feel and his kids.’

Sonny Bill married Alana Raffie in 2013 and they share four children, daughters Imaan, Aisha and sons Zaid and Essa.

Candice and David married in 2015 and have three daughters, Ivy Mae, eight, Indi Rae, seven, and Isla Rose, three.