As former wife of Billabong CEO Matthew Perrin, Nicole Bricknell is adjusting to life without her fortune After losing a fortune, Nicole Bricknell, former wife of Matthew Perrin, is grateful for the support of friends and family. NICOLE Bricknell lost her husband, their estimated $130 million fortune and despite successfully fighting the Commonwealth Bank, the millions of dollars from selling her Surfers Paradise mansion. She has lost days and weeks in the past five years, sitting with lawyers inside courtrooms, where the final acts of a public tragedy for a very private former wealthy Coast couple are still to be played out. It soon becomes obvious, sitting at her new office at Chevron Island's Knobel and Davis agency, that the 40-year-old daughter of former top bookmaker Laurie Bricknell has not lost her warm laugh. "There is so much of our story that has never been talked about," says Nicole, discussing for the first time the impact of the marriage break-down, financial losses and legal battle on her health, and how she survived. For me, it's nearly coming to five years. The way I have got through ... I've looked at it, I'm me, I haven't changed. I'm still the mother of three kids. What was played out in the media and happened, I separated myself from that. I separated this as an issue I have to deal and work with, but not something I've done myself. What I made sure I did during the really difficult times when it was very public, I made sure that I was at every school event. I still picked up my kids, dropped them off at school. Matthew Perrin was her childhood sweetheart, a TSS prefect, headed for a successful legal career in Brisbane until catching an incredible financial wave during the late 1990s, when as Billabong CEO, he obtained the shares of owner Gordon Merchant's wife Rena, who left due to ill-health. At 30, in 2002, he hit the headlines after offloading $66 million - about 60 per cent of his portfolio - without telling the board. Four years later he was approached by friends Ben and Nathan Thynne to invest $10 million in a Chinese grocery chain. In June 2010 at his bankruptcy hearing, Matthew admitted Nicole had warned him against doing business with the brothers. Nicole owned the couple's Cronin Island waterfront mansion and when the Commonwealth Bank sued her for allegedly guaranteeing almost $13.5 million in her husband's loans, she was forced to front the courts. Defence documents alleged her signature was forged, that she had been concerned about financial security after discovering her husband was in a long-term affair. Of that time, she said: "I still met my friends every morning for coffee. We would just sit for an hour or so. I just trusted my friends. They helped me a lot. They were friends before I had money, during the time when I had money and now, after money. Her parents have provided "amazing" support. I'm very sad for my father. Unfortunately he has become involved in my problems. He's another innocent person brought into it all," she adds. Laurie Bricknell often repeats to his children the old adage of "sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me." He has told Nicole: "You walk out and hold your head up high because you've done nothing wrong, and I can do that too." Nicole says she and her children rented a home after they sold the Cronin Island property before moving into a home owned by her parents. What about the reported $6.1 million sale of the mansion in January last year? "Put it this way," she replies, before pausing to laugh. There's not a lot left after paying the liquidators and resolving all the financials. When asked again, about her own health, the answer is typically straight, succinct but upbeat. I developed two separate conditions. One that I'm on medication for life until they find a cure for it. It's not serious or life threatening. Another is stress-related, but I've got that under control now. Given the subsequent health issues, why did she continue with the marriage after details of the bankruptcy and affairs became known? Next to the computer on the office desk is a small framed photograph of her three young children. "It was for my children," she replies. What about the money - how do you recover from losing so much financial security? It wasn't important to me or to us. Other than having a bigger home, our life didn't change. We still did the same holidays we had always done as a family. Really, I look back now and think 'Gee, we could have done so much more'. That laughter returns as she recalls how in September last year a girlfriend, who was also separated, encouraged her to sign on for a real estate agent course. After gaining her agent's licence, Kerry Davis approached her about work but she initially declined, putting her new career into a holding pattern. Three weeks ago she was ready, and so were her children who have a working mother as a role model, even if it means some interruptions to family life on weekends. One of my sayings is 'I live without regrets'. I believe that the things I've been through in my life have happened to make me a stronger and better person," Nicole says. You're only dealt with what you can handle. I'm hoping very soon that I won't be thought of as Nicole Bricknell, former wife of Matthew Perrin, that I will be thought as my own self and own name.