SuppliedLucciana Beynon is not your average Girl Next Door. Unless, of course, you happen to live at 35, River Cove Place in Helensvale, Australia.
You see, at number 36 on this exclusive street, nestled beside the saltwater creeks which wind between Surfer’s Paradise and Eden Island along the Coomera River on Australia’s Gold Coast, lies the Candy Shop Mansion.
Here, Lucciana lives with her dog Spartacas, her brother, two sisters, her dad – the multi-millionaire businessman Travers Beynon better known as The Candyman – and his wife and girlfriends.
The mainstream media would have you believe their home is a den of iniquity in which the Beynon family lead lives entirely alien to the rest of us, somewhat under the thumb of the apparently patriarchal head of the family.
But in an exclusive UK interview with UNILAD, Lucciana claims her voice for the first time at the cusp of official adulthood, aged 17, to debunk some of these myths about the mansion they call home.
They might have a lot more money than you or I. They might have fostered an attitude of freedom of expression within the four walls of the familial home from which most of us would probably benefit. But, that’s where a lot of the differences end.
Lucciana tells UNILAD living in the Candy Shop Mansion is ‘insane’, but not for the reasons you’d assume. Rather, she’s grateful for and humbled by her privileged life.
In fact, she elaborates:
I am truly blessed, however, it is still a normal family home. Yes, dad has a wife and a few more girlfriends than the norm, but we are all family and we make it work.
It’s a lot of fun. We do a lot more as [we have] a big ‘family’. Living with my dad is so much fun – he knows how to live and shows everybody how to get the best out of life.
There’s no doubt Lucciana, who is enjoying a burgeoning career as a full-time model, is living her best life. Unlike some 17-year-old’s, however, her best life involves a lot of graft.
Much like her dad, she has a work hard, play hard attitude. Since she took her first step on the career ladder aged 14, she has ‘always had jobs’, even pulling shifts for a stint under the golden arches of McDonald’s.
Lucciana, who credits her work ethic to her father, says:
What people might not understand is that my dad is very old fashioned and one of the very important lessons that he taught my brother and I was that hard work pays off, and nothing will come easy. That’s why it was important to me to start working early.
Now, she’s motivated to pursue her modelling career, having already amassed over 50,000 followers on Instagram – a surefire way to walk for big name fashion houses these days.
Lucciana Beynon/SuppliedIt comes as no surprise that her social media updates from the sun-drenched Gold Coast are intertwined with little homages to high end fashion favorites.
She admires the likes of Naomi Campbell and Versace, the house for which her dad modelled – as well as Moschino, Valentino, Paul Smith and Calvin Klein – during his twenties.
In fact, she says, her dad helps her with hair and make-up and all her ‘beauty needs’, passing down everything he learned from his time in front of the camera. But she’s not resting on her laurels – or her good Aussie family genes.
She follows a regime most models have become accustomed to in this cut-throat industry, particularly in the world of swimwear location shoots which she enjoys the most.
It consists of ‘strict healthy eating’, a lot of training in the gym – where she’s often joined by equally buff family members – and a busy schedule of shoots.
It seems she goes by the Candy Shop Mansion motto of ‘Work Harder, Play Harder’. She tells UNILAD, ‘the more photo shoots I do the better I get and the harder I train the more my body improves’.
No doubt Lucciana has been approached for various #spon deals and advertising contracts via the picture-sharing app, but she remains ‘picky on what products or brands to promote on social media’, preferring to concentrate on building her own profile as an individual before peddling other company’s wares to the masses.
For now, she’s happy keeping control over her own public persona and social media accounts, which represent ‘exactly who I am as a person as well as the life I live’.
So, who is that person behind the pixelated pictures of an active young woman shooting air rifles, falling off quad-bikes into sand dunes at high speed and getting right back up, surfing the seas, and bungee-jumping , UNILAD asks.
Well, just that, she says, describing herself as ‘adventurous’ and ‘family-orientated’ as well as a little ‘wild’.
Lucciana adds:
I consider myself to be a very daring person. I love to do wild, fast and at times dangerous activities because it gives me a rush and makes me feel alive. I have always been taught to push my comfort zones.
Meanwhile, she’s got the guidance and support of her family, as well as her dad, who she says ‘was always strong on giving me advice and then letting me make the choice’.
Lucciana’s dad, Australia’s answer to Hugh Hefner according to some and dubbed ‘The Candyman’ by local media, inherited his parent’s retail business.
He learned the family trade in his teens, but ended up pursuing modelling after a broken back put paid to his professional Aussie Rules footballing career.
Travers has gone on, in his proud daughter’s words, to ‘build his business and the brand from scratch’, starting small, under the watchful eye of his children.
He’s now estimated to have a net worth of $200 million, from riches to even richer.
But the family haven’t always lived in this particular lap of luxury, Lucciana explains, adding, ‘We definitely did not have the type of money we have now back then.’
Like most happy and thriving 17 year olds she looks upon her childhood with nostalgia, gratitude and the sweet sense her experience belongs uniquely to her family.
She said:
My childhood was the best. My dad, brother and I were inseparable and still are now. All the things we went through together and the memories we have are like no other family I know.
Growing up we were like any other family, my dad was a cool dad so all our friends liked dad and were always over at our place.
But dad was very very strict with us – more than any other dad I know – with manners, respect, maturity, and hard work, all the things that made us who we are today.
Lucciana continued to offer an unusual example of such:
We had our list of chores taped on the roof of our bunk beds saying, ‘These are my laws… not my chores’, which we stared at each night going to sleep.
I think the way my dad brought us up and how we lived made us different because we actually matured very early.
He is very proud of me and I know that because he always tells me and I see it in his face. He tries to help me do better in everything I do.
Lucciana Beynon/SuppliedWith hard work – and a business model some see as controversial – Beynon Senior took Lucciana and her brother, Valentino, from their childhood home ‘to the home we live in today called the Candy Shop Mansion’. But it’s not all work, no play for the Beynon family.
Actually, they’re far from dull, she said:
We have a lot of food fights and dad always wins. He also plays a lot of pranks on everybody… it’s hilarious!
They’re a little like the Aussie answer to the Kardashian Klan, it strikes me as I hear more about their strong code of family-orientated ethics.
The comparison isn’t in the name of fame and beauty. Anyone with a plastic surgeon and a personal trainer can look the way society deems to be beautiful these days – although it’s worth noting Lucciana works hard for her natural physique, which she can perhaps partially credit to her former Miss World mother.
Nope. Rather, the comparison can be drawn thanks to the Beynons’ truly modern business acumen and hustler mentality in a millennium in which they have made money make money.
Then there’s Travers, the sole custody ‘dadager’ answer to Kris Jenner’s ‘momager’. Except he kept his family hidden from the prying eye of press rather than introduce them to the world via the media of a reality TV show on which they grew up.
Of her inherited fame, Lucciana says:
I have always been aware of my family’s status as my dad has always been a larger than life character and he always keeps my brother and I in the loop of what is going on and what his plans are for the future.
But I wasn’t always in the public eye. When my modelling career started – and now I’m only a few months away from being 18 – there is more interest from the public. I was protected from the public eye in the beginning, hence why this is my first official interview.
As Lucciana carves out her own path, which comes with a slice of the limelight, the same obstacles present themselves, however.
When asked about the public perception of her, she answered:
I think the public perception of me is that I get whatever I want. However that’s not the case. It’s far from the truth. We were brought up to work for our own success.
I think in the beginning the perception of my dad was wrong but that’s turned around and through my dad people have a good perception of me also now.
She cites the fact her father is sometimes criticised for his depictions of women on his channels, and at his thousand-dollar Candy Shop Mansion parties, primarily attended by models who adhere to bikini dress codes.
I must admit, as a feminist, I had a slight ulterior motive in-so-far as my interest in Lucciana at least partially stems from my curiosity regarding what it must be like to grow up, as a woman, in this environment.
Her dad gained unfair notoriety when the media picked up on a photograph which many claimed showed Travers ‘walking his wife and girlfriend on a dog lead’.
It was actually bikini straps, many failed to mention, also missing the notion the women were active and willing participants with complete body autonomy in this display, manipulated by the media to disregard their freedom of choice.
Did she see the picture? Of course.
She spoke on the matter of his social media presence, adding:
I don’t avoid looking at his Instagram because I know what my dad is about. Nothing I see is a surprise to me, my dad is very open about what he does and my brother and I accept and love him for who he is.
At the end of the day, he worked really hard for all of his success and who is anyone to tell someone how to live their life? He is out here living his best life and I fully support him!
Lucciana Beynon/SuppliedSince the story hit the news, it’s been hard for the public to disassociate Lucciana’s dad with the label of ‘chauvanist’ for expressing his polyamourous lifestyle choice so freely.
Lucciana – a woman who knows best because she sees it everyday – says the reality is the ‘opposite’.
Somewhat understandably, she points the finger, as 17-year-old’s are want to do, at other instances of consensual and mutually-beneficial commercialisation and self-commodification across the World Wide Web.
She continued:
He surrounds himself with beautiful women and he likes to spoil them and make them feel good about themselves. I think it’s funny that people accuse him of objectifying women.
What about all the millions of women that post half naked selfies of themselves on social media who have millions of followers? Women should have the choice to express themselves.
It’s the logic of fourth wave feminism and – whether she identifies as such or not – Lucciana is symbolic of a new generation of women fighting their fight for autonomy in the online world.
Moreover, her attitude to her father’s polyamory – a still largely misunderstood lifestyle choice associated with religious oppression rather than sexual expression – speaks of a woman wholly accepting of others and their choices.
She declares any relationship between consenting adults ‘should also be acceptable’, just as right-thinking society has come to accept same sex marriage, if only in shockingly recent times.
So, what lies ahead for Lucciana, this young woman who knows her own mind with a confidence belying her age?
Instead of living in her famous father’s shadow, she said she hopes to follow in his footsteps and into business and property, as well as enjoying modelling and overseas travel.
No doubt, we haven’t seen or heard the last of the Beynon family. I don’t know about you but I’m here for the next Aussie Hugh Hefner to emerge as a woman like Lucciana.
If you have a family story you want to tell, share it with UNILAD via [email protected].
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.