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Brittany Bown’s mission to help others live their best lives

Kate Moss was reportedly fighting with her father at an airport when she was discovered by a renowned model scout at age 14. Gisele Bundchen was shopping in Brazil when first spotted. Candice Swanepoel was wandering a flea market. Brittany Bown was 14 when she was approached by a model agent on Hay Street. All long limbs with striking features, it isn’t hard to see why. Life could have been a blur of catwalks and glamorous shoots for the popular Pilates instructor and girlfriend of Eagles legend Nic Naitanui, but the path that saw her working inside a tip in Cambodia couldn’t have been more different. “I did quite a lot of modelling throughout high school, and then post high school I was offered a contract in Milan,” she shares. “But at that time I was thinking ‘do I want to be a model’ and I kind of decided that wasn’t what I wanted to do solely, and I didn’t know what else I wanted to do.” Instead Bown found herself inside a classroom in Phnom Penh. “I volunteered for a few different organisations that I’d previously worked with, and then I found this one school who didn’t have an English teacher unless someone volunteered to stay. I ended up staying,” she says. “This was a school in a rubbish tip, they created a huge community around the tip because they can make a living going through the landfill there, so I ended up working there.” From Monday to Thursday Bown worked over tarps thrown over the piles of rubbish, then on weekends she would explore Cambodia. “Looking back on that now it was a lot more dangerous than it needed to be,” she reflects. For Bown, now 27, the passion to help others outweighs the prospect of danger, with the final year psychotherapist student aiming to use her degree to rehabilitate people coming out of jail. “My dad has a charity, Thrive Integration, and I work with people who’ve come out of prison already,” she says. “When I’m finished I’ll work more on the counselling side of things. I’ve always wanted to work within the community rather than in a boutique office, I think this comes from my strong family values... I’m at my best when I’m working with people.” Rewinding back to the youthful age of 18, Bown returned home from South East Asia with a bad case of the travel bug and quickly embarked on her next adventure — working as a flight attendant across the Cocas Islands, Bali and Thailand. This love of travel continued to grow as she then worked on glitzy boats across Spain, reminiscent of those captured on popular reality TV series Below Deck. “It is exactly like that (Below Deck), but also nothing like that,” she laughs. “It was awesome, there are definitely high highs and low lows. You work super hard when you’re working but then when we had a day off, you haven’t spent money for a month and you have all of this money in the bank. You’re in this beautiful place getting off a million dollar yacht in the harbour,” she says. Despite the luxury lifestyle, Bown found herself craving family and stability. It was upon returning home that she stumbled across the career she has since dedicated herself to. “I volunteered at a women’s prison for six months and the girls in there wanted me to teach them Pilates. I was doing fitness classes from YouTube but they said the last person taught them pilates, so I went home on YouTube and learnt some Pilates,” she says. From here she completed her Pilates diploma, adding extra training such as barre and boxilities over the years. Now based in Mount Lawley with Naitanui, 31, world’s away from Cambodian tips or luxury yachts, Bown continues to build on her passion to help others work on their body and mind. “I’ve always been into fitness but have been the type of person who’s been like ‘I’m a boxer, I’m an attack person’ and I’ve always switched and changed,” she says. “Whereas Pilates has been the one thing I’ve never wanted to give up. “I feel like it is one of those things that you can do so consistently throughout your life, whether you’re injured or tired or your body is sore. You can still do some kind of Pilates, you can move your muscles in a really safe way.” If you’re wondering if Naitanui is also a Pilates disciple, she confesses he has enough on his plate. “They (AFL players) train for a living, so when he gets home the last thing he wants to do is be put through his paces with Pilates,” she laughs. “But during summer we do lots of exercise together; cycling, hikes and walks.” While her 6’7 partner lives and breathes AFL, Bown admits she’d never watched a game before last season. The two met through a mutual friend who took it into her own hands and messaged Naitanui off of Bown’s phone, adamant they’d be the perfect match. “She was like ‘oh do you know who would really suit? Nic’,” Bown recalls. “I’m a Christian, and he is a Christian, and she was like ‘he is really great with the kids, and he is really tall’ and that’s a big one. “He is probably the only guy she’d met who was taller than me.” Despite getting on like a house on fire, Bown says the timing wasn’t right, with Naitanui recently single and she had only recently returned from travels. Then as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold and turned the world on its head, the two reconnected, and have never looked back. She says the two are homebodies who enjoy having friends over or watching a movie. With Naitanui having one of the most recognisable faces in WA, going out for dinner isn’t always the most relaxing experience. “With Nic being recognised everywhere, going out for dinner doesn’t do the same for us than it would other people,” Bown shares. “You go out for dinner with your partner to get away and feel like you have your own space and you’re relaxed. Whereas for us when we go out, people are watching.” Bown is now taking her positive and balanced outlook on wellness, exercise and mental health to the masses as the new lifestyle columnist for STM. https://thewest.com.au/lifestyle/stm/finding-balance-with-brittany-bown-ng-b881999734z “I want to write about wellness from a balanced perspective... the reality is that wellness has to be written about in a way where it can fit into your life, and become a part of your life,” she says. “We all have jobs and family and stressful times and go through different seasons, we have babies and get injured or someone in our family dies and that takes up all of our energy.” She says to expect wellness to be written about in a realistic way so it can be integrated into different lifestyles and people, with some Pilates thrown in for good measure too. “I think as well writing about wellness in a holistic sense, wellness has to do with how generous you are, and your outlet to give back, and take what you need for yourself,” she says.

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Brittany Bown’s mission to help others live their best lives

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The West Australian exclusiveBrittany Bown’s mission to help others live their best lives

The No. 1 source of news for every West Australian

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exclusive
Brittany Bown’s mission to help others live their best lives