Presenter, model, actor and authentic “nice guy” Ben Camille and his wife, the equally delightful Kristina Camilleri, sit down with Adriana Bishop for a chat about making time for each other and their growing family, the meaning of true happiness and the importance of self-love.

It is a Friday afternoon and I am the last appointment of the day for Ben Camille before he switches off his laptop and moves on to the next item on his busy to-do list, an item which is, by far, the most important for him: family time. 

A self-confessed workaholic, Ben has found the key to work-life balance is to take advantage of his flexible yet packed schedule as a self-employed man of many talents to set aside time for his family without any distractions and certainly no cameras. 

For someone who seems to live his entire life in front of the cameras, be it presenting glitzy television shows, fronting high-profile campaigns or sharing snapshots of his life on social media, it comes as a surprise that he craves being away from the cameras. 

But he is very conscious of where to draw the line between public persona and private life. “We put three, maximum five minutes of our day on social media. There are another 24 hours in the day which go unaccounted for. We can select and only put out there what we are comfortable with,” he points out. 

And if you think you know him because you’ve watched him on TV, you don’t. “I often get told, especially by other men, that they had a very different impression of me or thought I was a kiesah (show-off). It is very normal for some people to formulate an idea of someone based on what they see on TV or on social media.
The one thing that does come across irrespective of whether he is presenting or modelling or acting, is his genuine niceness and authenticity. And away from the cameras, it is even more evident and even more authentic. But don’t take my word for it. Ask his wife.

“He is a nice guy,” Kristina says emphatically. 

“I like that. Nice guy. Could be a nice name for a show,” Ben quips. 

I feel I am spying in on a private joke between two people who are completely in tune with each other, who respect each other as equals and complement each other perfectly.

“This is a like a free therapy session,” remarks Ben as I fire question after question about their relationship and get them to talk about each other in front of one another. They huddle together in front of the computer screen in matching black t-shirts, a coincidence they notice only when they spot themselves on the Zoom window. Kristina is cradling five-month old baby George, gently rocking him to sleep while keeping an eye on two-year old Elle via a video baby monitor as she naps in her room.

They seem to have taken parenthood in their stride. They have had to get to grips with many momentous changes in the past four years since their glamorous wedding, not least moving house and welcoming their second baby in the middle of a pandemic. Great timing.

After 16 years together, this couple is used to facing the ups, downs, twists and turns of life’s challenges. And what a journey it’s been so far, literally from the school benches to the spotlight.

Read the full interview here: http://sundaycircle.tom-mag.com/31/index.html#issue/10