[4] Around the time fellow model Erin McNaught and singer Dean Geyer were also cast as Sienna Cammeniti and Ty Harper respectively.

[5] Of this Brisbane acting agency Ego Management chief, Mark Eaton, commented that credible actors were missing out on job opportunities, adding: "This is all done to try to get viewing figures up – the producers are not worried about the quality of the show at all.

When you first see her, she's trying to impress everybody – she's dressed up, her hair is done and there's a lot of make-up, But gradually she feels more comfortable in Ramsay St and realises she doesn't have to do that, so the real her emerges.

"[1] Defending her 'man eating' ways she added: "She does have a bit of sexual prowess but also has a very big heart and she's not coming from a really bad place.

She has a lot of emotional baggage from her childhood, she seeks constant validation from men and is a pretty insecure and messed up woman at her core.

I guess in a way we all have this need but Nicola's quest for love really does rule her life and causes her to make some wacky decisions..."[7] Of her overall changes Bailey states: "She went through many highs and lows in the six months that I played her and the end of her first chapter was pretty heavy, playing her emotional breakdown was exhausting and challenging but I loved every minute of it.

"[7] In 2008 Nicola was involved in a controversial storyline where it was revealed she had been pursuing a romance with her adoptive nephew Riley Parker (Sweeney Young).

[5] The Australian Family Association accused the soap opera of using plots mirroring real life events to attract viewers, branding them 'opportunistic'.

"[5] The storyline aired regardless of the criticism, in which Heather Pryor (Georgina Andrews) and Bridget Napier (Eloise Mignon) discover their affair.

Nicola becomes good friends with Toadfish Rebecchi (Ryan Moloney) and Callum Jones (Morgan Baker) and moves in with them for a while.

Nicola is sectioned and proved to be suffering from mental illness, believing she is Miranda and that Steve is her husband and Bridget is her daughter.

They said "This blonde bombshell tore up Erinsborough a couple of years ago, seducing her nephew, ruining her sister's marriage and wrecking careers.