Former Home And Away star Tammin Sursok expresses regret over starring in ‘sexified’ ad

Former Home And Away star Tammin Sursok has expressed her regret over starring in an ad she says was so overtly sexy, it makes her cringe.

Former Home And Away star Tammin Sursok has expressed her regret over starring in an ad she says was overtly sexy.

The Aussie actress reflected on her career while chatting on 2DAY FM’s Jimmy & Nath Show, during which she admitted to being horrified she agreed to star in a “sexified” commercial when she was younger.

“It was me in a cab, pulling the door, and it was really painful and they had me in this really tight Alex Perry Dress,” she recalled to hosts Jimmy Smith and Nath Roye on Monday morning.

“And I’m pulling the door open and now I think about it, it was so sexified! I’m like, ‘Oh Pepsi all over my face and body’ and they were like, ‘Yeah, just pretend the Pepsi is going everywhere.’ You know, you’re young and I was like, ‘Yeah, I love this ad!’ Now I think about it, it was all sorts of wrong!”

However, Sursok’s mother was beyond proud of her famous daughter, who at the time was about to leave Home And Away to embark on a Hollywood career.

Tammin Sursok says she regrets starring in an ad back in the early noughties.

The Aussie says she looks back now and thinks the ad “was so sexified”.

“[The ad] was on all the bus stops and my mum would be like to all her mum friends, ‘That’s my daughter right there,’” the actress shared.

“It was right at the end of Home And Away when and I was like the face of [beauty brands] Biotherm [and] L’Oréal, so my face was everywhere,” she laughed, before joking, “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”

Sursok was indeed on the rise after leaving H&A in 2004, quickly making her mark on Hollywood with extensive stints on daytime soap The Young And The Restless and teen drama series Pretty Little Liars.

Sursok at the 2004 ARIA Awards in Sydney. Picture: Patrick Riviere/Getty Images

The star at the AACTA International Awards in Los Angeles back in 2020. Picture: Joe Scarnici/Getty Images

Although the actress had to grow up quickly and in the spotlight – she was 15 when she began on H&A and by age 18 she was already living in Hollywood – she wouldn’t change a thing about her career progression.

“The thing is, the times in my life that I look back on and go, ‘Ooh, would I have started Home And Away at 15?’ I was so impressionable, I was so young, I didn’t really know which way was up,” she told news.com.au last year.

“I chose to be an actor at 15. It wasn’t my parents – I wanted it so badly. But would it have been more helpful for me mentally if I had just had a normal high school experience and wasn’t in the public eye?

“But then if I didn’t have that experience and I never would’ve gotten to where I am now, I would never have been on set and met my husband [film producer Sean McEwen], which means I would never have had my kids,” says the star, who shares daughters Phoenix, 10, and Lennon, 5, with McEwen. “So when you say, can you do something over, I guess it would mean could you do it over and still land where you are?”