The Jennifer Hawkins story no one knows about. I swear to God it happened.

Chapel Street used to be my hood. 

I used to be one of those hip kids who, when asked how my weekend was, used to say, “Partied at Boutique, carried on to the Q-bar until sunrise, had Mars Bar cake for breakfast at Cafe Greco, and then bought an Ed Hardy shirt on the way home to replace the one I had on, which had irreparable alcohol stains on it from the night before.”

Jokes, that only happened once, and Chapel was never my hood. 

What isn’t a joke is how one afternoon during the summer of 2006, I headed over to Chapel Street to buy a couple of tees of a different brand.

I’d heard about this label called ‘Roy,’ and was keen to check out the boutique they had in Prahran.  

I parked about 150 metres from it. On the short walk from my car to the boutique, I spotted this attractive female walking with some bloke (who had a pretty decent rig too), on the other side of Chapel Street.

She looked like the archetypal girl next door, in a shirt, skirt and thongs, but due to the distance between us, I couldn't get a clear look at her face.

‘Is that?’ Nah can’t be,’ I thought, ‘She lives in Sydney.’ 

I got into the Roy boutique and loved the joint. Within minutes I had two tees picked out to try on. I was about to clasp a third when a female hand reached onto the same clothing rack nearby and started pushing the clothes hangers across, as if browsing the tees. I looked up just to give her a friendly smile and was like, ‘Holy fk it’s Jennifer Hawkins.’

‘It was her I saw across the street.’

Her beau stood at a nearby clothing rack and I recognised him as well; he’d been on the TV show Dancing On Ice earlier that year. 

Normally I’d have freaked out at being so close to an attractive woman, but the rarely cited ‘cool guy’ persona within me rose to the surface, and I just continued to flick through some tees next to Jennifer Hawkins, and thought, ‘How fkg cool is this?’

‘I’m standing in the same shop… as Jennifer Hawkins.’ 

‘I’m touching the same t-shirts… as Jennifer Hawkins.’

‘I’m breathing the same air… as Jennifer Hawkins.'

I did shortly after find a third shirt I was keen on and head for the fitting rooms. There were two fitting rooms at the back of the boutique. They were both empty. I picked the one on the right. The fitting room was pretty compact and didn’t contain a mirror. The mirror was outside it, on the wall beside it. 

I chucked the tee I was most keen on over my head, and opened the door to see what it looked like in the mirror. To this day, I do this stupid thing where if there’s no mirror in the fitting room I'm in, I always just walk out of fitting room without fully pulling the t-shirt down to my waist, exposing my stomach to anyone who’s nearby. It’s not an ego thing, it’s a speed thing (I just want to get in and get out), and it was something I did on this occasion. I mean, who's there to see me still changing anyway?

Well, on this occasion Jennifer Hawkins was there to see me still changing. Yep, she was now standing at the clothing rack nearest to the fitting rooms, and my eyes met hers immediately after I’d pulled the shirt to my waist and raised my head back up.

And this is not a word of a lie... Her eyes did this:

Now, I’m not vain. And I’m not going to say Jennifer Hawkins was checking me out, because she wasn’t – she was clearly looking for shirts for her boyfriend and simply looked over at the shirt I had on to see if it looked any good. 

But do you think that’s the story I told all my mates? Of course not.

This was the story I told them:

And none of them believed me, because, in their words, they'd "never heard something so incomprehensibly far-fetched."

But I swear to God it happened. I mean the truthful part, not the lies I told afterwards. And no one can ever take that away from me. 

I breathed the same air as a Miss Universe winner, and no one can take that away from me!!!

Footnote 1: I've been asked by a couple of female readers if my abs are still there. My answer is, "no comment... but yes."