Big Brother VIP's Jessika Power breaks down over upsetting photo: 'Sorry'

Big Brother VIP's Jessika Power broke down on Monday night's episode after sharing a heartbreaking photo from her childhood.

When asked to discuss a photo of herself, her brother Rhys and her mother Melinda Mackenzie, the reality star quickly teared up.

"This photo is very hard to talk about and I knew I would cry the second I got up here, I'm sorry," she told her housemates.

Jessika continued, "This is my mother years before her addiction. This photo hurts me because it shows my mother in such a beautiful light and what we lost through addiction."

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"I knew I would struggle with this, sorry," she added. "And I think it was about eight years later, when we really lost her to addiction. She's come good in [recent] years and stuff but it's so hard to see what addiction does do to people."

She shared how the experience changed her, saying she's a "better person" and more empathetic after going through what she did as a young woman.

Jessika said that she is able to show empathy to people who aren't very kind to her, because she considers what might be going on in their life for them to be acting that way.

"It's shaped me because I had to grow up a lot faster than other kids. I had to be a mum and look after a mum," she explained.

The reality star said that despite not being close with her mother, she still has a lot of family support around her.

"Since 2000 my mother and I haven't had a connection. But I have an amazing family. My mother is one of eight [children] so I have all my uncles and my aunties and my nan, I have everybody that I need," she told the cameras.

In an interview with Yahoo Lifestyle in 2019, Jess said, "I’ve never once done an interview on my mother, purely out of respect for her and the relationship we did have growing up."

Speaking of not inviting her mum to her TV wedding, she explained, "She’s upset obviously that she hasn’t been invited to my wedding. Even if I was getting married in real life, I would never invite her to my wedding."

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