MKR star Roula Kfoury: ‘We were trying to act like MAFS’
Roula Kfoury was once painted as a villain on My Kitchen Rules. Now the Melburnian, who was recently eliminated from the show, explains why the show needs change.
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Exclusive: Roula Kfoury was once painted as a villain on My Kitchen Rules when she competed for the first time two years ago.
Now the reality TV contestant from Melbourne, who was recently eliminated from the competition in MKR’s current season with her best friend Rachael Hammer, thinks the show needs to change.
Kfoury told News Corp she felt the show needs a new format — or it has to change its timeslot if it has any chance of beating its rival Married At First Sight.
“I think they have to do a whole new show altogether because I think people are getting over it,” she said.
“It’s been 11 years, it’s time for a change. It’s so repetitive, people get over it.”
Kfoury said that while filming the current show, it felt like they were trying to act like MAFS.
“I don’t feel it was a lot about the cooking this time,” she said.
“Definitely a lot of drama happened. I feel like we were up against MAFS and we needed to try to beat MAFS by acting like MAFS if that makes sense.”
“I think people used to watch it because they really enjoyed the cooking and their target market is older women and men and they really enjoy home cooking however it’s done a whole 360 and it’s pretty much all about the drama and that’s why that clientele aren’t watching it.”
While Kfoury said she has seen a lot of “nastiness and manipulation” of the way contestants are filmed during her time on the show, she has no regrets about going back for a second shot at winning the series.
Despite losing in a sudden elimination challenge to Sophia Pou and Romel Kouyan from Sydney, NSW, she said she got what she wanted — to change the public’s negative view of her.
“This season was fun, we bonded a lot more and I would do it again,” she said.
“I wanted to redeem my self and I did and so did Rachael.
“Social media portrayed us in a bad light last time and so did Channel 7, we wanted to go in this time and show the public who we really are.”
She also praised production staff on this year’s season, saying they had “pulled back … with no manipulation” of what they were doing on camera.
“In season nine, were filming for like 17 hours a day, we were in and out of hotels, with not much sleep,” she said.
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“But this time we were filming 10-11 hours a day but we were in a house together like Big Brother and it was much better, we had more sleep and we were able to form friendships.”
She said they also spent a lot of time with their house leader, MKR judge and chef Manu Feildel.
“The message we got from the judges was we’re not here to save lives, it’s just a cooking competition and to do it from the heart and try your best,” she said.
“I learnt a lot … Manu would come and hang out with us and he was great in giving us lots of advice.”
While Hammer has gone back to her job of being a property manager and dance teacher, Kfoury, who is a nanny by trade, said she would be open to other reality TV options before she goes back to her day job.
She would love to be on I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! and Dancing With the Stars.
But that could be a bit of a problem for her, after her Instagram account was recently hacked.
Kfoury, who now uses her new Instagram account @roulzi, said she backed Jake and Elle Harrison from Brisbane or Jac and Shaz from Mount Isa in Queensland for winning the title.
My Kitchen Rules continues on Seven.