O’Keefe agreed with his lawyer that his relationship with his children was strained.

Milledge told him he’s “got to love them more than the lifestyle he’s been living for whatever reason he’s living it”.

O’Keefe pleaded guilty to drug possession, breaching an apprehended violence order and entering enclosed lands relating to a visit to the Point Piper home of a woman he was bound by a court not to contact.

His legal team asked Milledge to sentence him to a community correction order with a condition that he spend three months at a rehabilitation facility.

Noting it would not be O’Keefe’s first stint at rehabilitation, Milledge said his life had gone “completely off the rails”.

“I’m just going to talk to you the same way I talk to anyone in the grip of addiction,” she said.

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“The only person who is going to make your life any different is you … I’ve read the sadness you’ve had in your life. Sadly, that’s life.”

Referring to her own personal experiences of people asking her what it was like to have O’Keefe in her court, she said people did not call him a monster.

“I know domestic violence is a factor in your offending, and that is absolutely awful, particularly with the position you came from in being a White Ribbon ambassador,” she said.

“I truly believe you believed it, and then you got into the grips of something awful, and the wheels fell off … the unsolicited feedback is that you’re not a monster, they say ‘isn’t that a shame’.”

Ordinary people had “invested their feelings” in O’Keefe because they felt like they knew him due to his celebrity status, Milledge added.

“These people want to see you succeed, so if there’s anything you can do about the DV issue and the drugs because they’re a scourge in the community, and if there is anybody who can say ‘look at where I came from and look at where I’m at,’ it’s you,” she said.

“I’m personally disappointed to see you where you’re at”.

Last month, Milledge said the former Deal or No Deal host was lucky to be alive following his overdose, as she refused him bail over the most recent drug possession charge and the breach of the AVO.

O’Keefe, whose contract with the Seven Network expired in late 2020, has been in and out of courtrooms in recent years.

In August, he lost an appeal against domestic violence convictions after failing to convince a judge the victim’s injuries were self-inflicted.

He separately faces a charge of driving under the influence of drugs.

O’Keefe will be sentenced later on Thursday afternoon.