Sydney’s The Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported that she was found hanged. In 2012, she was admitted to a Sydney hospital later than a suicide attempt following an ongoing tirade of abuse on Twitter. She had taken medicine tablets with wine and tweeted: “you win” in a suicide note to her cyber tormentors.
She later made fighting bullying her individual mission, waging an anti-bullying media campaign on TV and radio and in newspapers and magazines as well as her beloved Twitter. Her efforts and high public profile on the problem were recognized by the National Rugby League, a main Australian football association, which final year made her an anti-bullying ambassador.
The NRL’s One-Community campaign is an extension of its zero-tolerance policy toward racial abuse in football. Dawson revealed in her 2012 autobiography “Air Kiss & Tell” that she was often visited by the “depression bogeyman.”
She had long graced the pages of women’s gossip magazines and scenes in reality TV shows. Her modeling career had taken her to Italy, Britain and Germany during the 1980s. New Zealand Prime Minister John Key tweeted he was “surprised and saddened” by the news of her death.
The Sun-Herald newspaper in Sydney reported Sunday that her body was found only minutes before her luxury waterside apartment was due to be sold at auction. The tragedy was discovered the day after the birthday of her former companion, Scott Miller, an Australian Olympic silver medal-winning swimmer who became addicted to the drug ice and accrued several convictions for criminal drug and firearm possession.
Dawson professed her enduring love for Miller and sadness at his fall from grace ahead of Australian “60 Minutes” broadcasting an exclusive talk with him on Feb. 16. Kate Carnell, chief executive of Beyond Blue, a not-for-profit business promoting depression awareness, criticized Twitter for failing to sign up to an Australian government complaint-handling program designed to eliminate hateful material from social media sites.
Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft signed up to the project final year. “There’s lots additional work that citizens like Twitter need to do,” Carnell told The Sun-Herald.