Struggle Street reality TV star Bob Quinn, who made international headlines with his pregnant bong-smoking girlfriend Billie Jo Wilkie, has died aged 56.
The couple, whose drug use was featured in the controversial SBS television documentary about western Sydney, later admitted they were “crushed with ice” during filming.
Quinn spent time in the hospital and suffered serious family problems after appearing on the show.
But he He has been remembered by his family throughout his life. that ‘it was a tapestry of rich experiences, full of ups and downs’.
He was the expectant father of Wilkie’s baby when she was filmed in the show’s most controversial scene, just before she gave birth.
But despite being heavily pregnant and sitting on the toilet with her mother Carlene, Wilkie was seen smoking cannabis from the bong.
Filmed over six months in 2014, the first series of Struggle Street, shot in Mount Druitt, sent shockwaves across the country when it was first broadcast in May 2015.
Wilkie, then 21, was nearly eight months pregnant with Quinn’s child when she was caught on camera chatting with her mother and casually smoking cannabis.
Bob Quinn and Billie Jo Wilkie’s drug use was filmed on Struggle Street, giving them public infamy to the point where they were shouted at in the street as “bloody bogans”.
The shocking scene of Billie Jo, pregnant and smoking a bong in the bathroom with her mother, sparked strong criticism, with some people calling it “disgusting” on the Internet.
Bob Quinn’s son posted this photo of his father, who died at age 56 after a long battle with drug addiction.
The confrontational scenes prompted people to express their anger on X and later on Twitter, describing the pair as “disgusting and disgusting”.
Wilkie’s relationship with Quinn was a common thread throughout the documentary, as both battled drug addictions and kept their relationship intact.
Quinn told the documentary makers that he had been “a functioning heroin addict for three decades, but has recently turned to ice as well.”
The couple later admitted to the Daily Mail Australia that they had both consumed ice during filming and bought methamphetamines with welfare money left over when SBS paid for their food and phones.
“Ice is crap,” Quinn told the Mail in 2016. “That time[filmed on Struggle Street]when I didn’t want to open the door, I was pretty out of it that day.”
“We were drunk,” Wilkie added. “SBS gave us a card to put Maccas on and our phones and stuff, so, yeah, we were buying ice.
“It was disgusting. They gave us money and took us to sell drugs. They (SBS) took us so we would get along. It was shit.”
Quinn admitted: ‘I fell into oblivion with drugs. It’s a terrible life being on the ice. It’s just misery.
‘I still have a daily struggle and we have these morons who still come and say: can we get something and we’ll give it to you for free? The motherfuckers.’
Bob Quinn’s son’s touching tribute to his father who died aged 56 (left) and Quinn leads Nine’s ACA (right) to hit back at Struggle Street with Billie Jo, who said she didn’t know she was being filmed smoking a bong while pregnant
Bob Quinn and Billie Jo Wilkie in 2016 after she was released from prison and they both stopped taking ice, with Bob revealing he “fell into oblivion with drugs.”
Following the show’s success, SBS made two further series of Struggle Street, in Queensland and Victoria, which followed people who were largely unemployed, dependent on welfare and living difficult lives.
Later in 2015, Wilkie was jailed for driving offences, after being caught driving without a licence four times, twice in one day, but was outwitted by fellow inmates while behind bars.
The pressure of notoriety and her drug addictions drove the couple apart, but Quinn went off the ice while Wilkie was in jail and they briefly reunited before she moved on with other partners.
She was jailed again in 2018 on multiple charges relating to a shoplifting spree with another friend, who was not Quinn, at Westfield Mt Druitt.
Quinn has had his own battles with the law, pleading guilty to five counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception in 2018.
The couple have since managed to stay out of the public eye for the past four years, with Wilkie appearing to have relocated to Queensland.
Quinn died on June 26 of this year and a month later his adult son, Cameran Titheradge, posted the news on Facebook.
“It is with great sadness and deep pain that I share the passing of my father, one of my closest companions in life,” he said.
‘He lived fully within his means and made the most of every moment.
‘Through him, I carry with me my proud Scottish heritage, and I would never have chosen a different father to travel this land with.
‘His presence will be deeply missed and the void left by his absence will take a long time to overcome.
“I love you, Dad. Your memory will always light my way.”
Bob Quinn (pictured above in a photo posted to Facebook in 2023) revealed his decades-long drug addiction while on Struggle Street, but managed to get off the ice the year after the show.
The real street of struggle: the house in Lethbridge Park where Billie Jo’s mother, Carlene, lived during the filming of the series in which mother and daughter starred in controversial scenes
In response to Quinn’s death, many posted their condolences, with one family member saying: “Rest in paradise unk.”
SBS rejected the couple’s claims that they had been encouraged to take drugs during filming and denied they had participated in “poverty pornography”.
He said the show was intended to contrast their existence with the image of wealth and glamour in Sydney, Australia’s “Emerald City”.
The documentary’s production company, KEO Films, said it had filmed the “stories of people living on the outskirts of Sydney, in some of our most socially disadvantaged communities, (who face) the enormous challenges… of being born into a generational disadvantage.”
‘Rather than being an exercise in voyeurism… this expanded look at the lives of our subjects will – we hope – provoke not only a change in public perception, but a debate on the direction of public policy.’
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