Bachelor in Paradise star who said no way … then yes
Heartbreak at the final hurdle — very public heartbreak at that — and torrents of cruel abuse from people they’d never laid eyes on, weren’t enough to dissuade some reality dating stars from trying it all again. What made them return to do it all again?
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Heartbreak at the final hurdle — and very public heartbreak at that — and torrents of cruel abuse from people they’d never laid eyes on, weren’t enough to dissuade some reality dating stars from trying it all again in the hope of finding that perfect match.
Bachelor In Paradise, a spin-off from The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, sees those unlucky in love from the two popular Channel 10 shows whisked away to a Fijian island and given another chance at finding love.
Some of the contestants — who this season include Ciarran Stott, Cassandra Mamone, Helena Sauzier, Brittney Weldon and Mary Viturino — jumped at the chance to try it all again, excited by the prospect of a luxurious holiday surrounded by beautiful members of the opposite sex with nothing to lose — well maybe their dignity, but who’s judging? (Answer: Everyone.)
But others, such as Brittany Hockley, were a firm no when the invite was extended.
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Hockley, an emergency radiographer, podcast host and actor, wrote herself into The Bachelor history alongside Sophie Tieman when Bachie Nick “The Honey Badger” Cummins chose neither and walked away from his season without handing out his final rose.
That experience traumatised Hockley and the possibility of going through something like that again made her steer clear of an encore appearance in last season’s Paradise.
“After my season, it was a hard no — there was no way I was mentally ready to go and deal with that again, I just had zero interest in it last year and I thought ‘I just need to get myself back on track’,” she tells Insider. “Then I guess I was being super optimistic thinking I would fall in love in that year and I didn’t.”
Producers came knocking on Hockley’s door again ahead of this year’s series and things were a little different this time around — eventually.
“To be honest, I said no again,” she reveals. “I said no right up until the last minute you could possibly say yes — fly out the next day kind of thing and that was a combination of things.”
Hockley’s sister Sherri, to whom she is very close to, was one of the people who encouraged her to get back into the reality dating game.
“I think I felt like my personality was a little bit subdued on The Bachelor, I don’t think people really got to see who I was so Sherri told me it was time to A, go and try to fall in love again because there’s 10 times more chance of that happening, and B, go and enjoy myself and try and show people who I am.”
It was Sherri, in her own unique way, who helped Hockley get over the heartbreak of not being chosen by Cummins.
Sherri was the first person Hockley told about the result and if she was hoping for some sympathy she got something else.
“I started crying and I told her and I was really upset and she just starts hysterically laughing,” she recalls.
“I’m like ‘I’m sorry have I missed the joke?’ and she said ‘c’mon Britt, if there’s anyone in the world who’s going to win The Bachelor and not win anything it’s going to be you, you have to see the funny side of this!’
“And I just did, I just started laughing — if you don’t laugh you’re going to cry.”
Hardcore reality TV fans are an interesting subset of the community — many are unforgiving and hold back nothing when it comes to the feedback they give those they are following on TV.
Social media has provided a platform for what is often horrible abuse and it can be difficult for contestants, who have often been plucked from relative obscurity to appear on the myriad of shows that free-to-air TV has produced in recent years.
Abbie Chatfield, who was runner-up last year when astrophysicist Matt Agnew was The Bachelor, copped an onslaught of abuse from those who weren’t fans of hers.
It was so horrific, the influencer later revealed she became suicidal leading up to the finale.
“I’ve talked about this before, I was actually suicidal the week before the finale aired because I thought everybody already hates me and then once this airs, everyone’s going to be laughing in my face and going to be happy that I didn’t end up with Matt,” she says.
Chatfield, who last week ripped shreds off someone who commented on cellulite they thought they could see in one of her Instagram posts, has now developed a thick skin, but says it still hurts, especially when you know who is behind some of the worst posts.
“People think they’re fake accounts and they’re these psychos sitting in a dungeon somewhere, but it’s actually people who are ‘normal’, a lot of the accounts that send me horrible things are the people with a few thousand followers and they’re someone’s mum or someone’s daughter or friend so it’s hard to dismiss it.”
She believes viewers have a warped view of the contestants and see them not as real people taking part in what is essentially a game, but as characters in some kind of soap opera.
“I’ve always said that with the editing on the show, if you took the most prominent parts of your personality … you’d be an extreme version of yourself,” she says. “A caricature of yourself, and people find it easy to project their insecurities on to a caricature.”
Despite that, and admitting she “doesn’t get along with men that well”, Chatfield felt Bachelor In Paradise would come with less stress than The Bachelor.
“I felt like Bachelor In Paradise is a different set-up, you’re not as isolated, there’s a group of girls and a group of guys,” she says.
But, unlike others who have appeared in both, it didn’t quite pan out that way.
“I thought it would be much easier,” she says. “I thought it would be much more relaxing and so much more chilled but I found myself panicking a bit more.”
One of the guys on the island this year is Timm Hanly, who missed out at the last stage with Angie Kent in the last season of The Bachelorette.
Hanly who admits he took the rejection hard, doesn’t hold anything back when he explains why he was ready to do it to himself again.
“I was definitely on the fence with it but then I thought … it’s a holiday in the sun with a heap of cool people and a heap of hot chicks,” he laughs. “It’s a good way to bounce back.”
Bachelor In Paradise, Channel 10, Tuesday to Thursday, 7.30pm, from July 15