‘It felt like a different planet’: Sophie Monk on the pitfalls of reality TV fame
Sophie Monk is a reality TV icon, but she wishes she had the same support in the year 2000 that reality stars have now.
It’s been two decades since Sophie Monk wowed judges at her first reality TV audition.
With encouragement from her mum, then-19-year old Monk answered a magazine ad for a little-known singing competition called Popstars, aired in 2000.
While Monk thought it would be a “TV special that might last a week or something”, it was in fact the show that catapulted her to stardom in girl band Bardot, marking the beginning of her path to becoming the undisputed queen of reality TV.
“I had no idea what I was getting into with the Bardot thing,” she laughs from the lobby of her hotel in Fiji, where she’s staying with her partner Josh Gross while filming Love Island Australia season two.
“It was this tiny little ad my mum found and said ‘here, apply for this’,” she says.
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Dressed for the humid weather in white shorts, a white singlet and nude pumps, which she kicks off shortly after sinking into the couch with a relaxed sigh, Monk, 39, is as candid as they come. A woman seemingly so comfortable with fame, it’s hard to imagine it’s a status she never yearned for.
“I never had the ego to want to be a celebrity,” she says.
“It just kind of came to me then I couldn’t get out so I was like ‘OK I guess I better embrace it’ and now I love my job so much.”
But it took her a while to get used to it, she admits.
“I always wanted to be an actress and singer, but it never took. People just liked me being me more,” she shrugs.
A day out from filming the first episode of the globally-popular fishbowl reality show Love Island Australia, Monk says in many ways, she’s envious of the stars sitting nervously in nearby resorts during their final day of lockdown.
“They’re so lucky to be so well looked after, all these people from reality shows,” she says, comparing it to her own experience on Popstars.
“Ours was kind of the first (reality show), and The Mole, so I just didn’t understand it at that point. I thought it was a TV special, then I was like ‘oh wow it’s your whole life, they’re showing everything’. Reality TV just wasn’t something we knew a lot about back then,” she says.
She says the depths of the unknown only grew deeper after filming, going from living in front of a camera, to suddenly adjusting to overnight fame.
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This, Monk says, certainly wasn’t dealt with as delicately as it is in 2019.
“Now, (reality stars) have someone talk to them about what will happen after before they even start filming, and they have therapists they can speak to during and after, all the stuff we never had.
“I wish we did,” she adds, “it would have been nice to have that support because it was like moving to a different planet, everyone just changes around you. You walk down the street and people know your name. No one warned me about that,” she reflects.
In a time when ex-contestants face vicious trolls on social media, it would be reasonable to assume Monk feels lucky this was one thing that didn’t exist post-Popstars.
Instead, she says she wishes she had that instant access to the public.
“I think it’s a positive thing, because you can answer what’s written about you on Instagram,” she explains.
“Back in the day there’d be a story run and it sits around for six months until your next interview. Now you can answer to a story and say ‘that’s not fair’ on your own platform.”
As for the harsh online criticism so many recent reality stars have shed light on, she says;
“Bullying has been around forever, it’s not just on social media. It’s everywhere.
“Social media has made everyone famous to some degree. You’re getting judged whenever you put something out there, and that’s what happens when you’re a celebrity.”
Since Popstars, Monk’s years on our screens have been sprinkled with spots on talent judging panels, not to mention winning the Aussie version of Celebrity Apprentice in 2015 and her stint as The Bachelorette in 2017.
She also enjoyed a successful Hollywood stint in the mid-noughties, with supporting roles in big screen comedies like Click and Date Movie.
With experience, she says, things definitely got easier.
“Being on The Bachelorette was so different because I had all this experience with fame by then. Plus I wasn’t a contestant going in this time, or looking for anything else. I was on the show because I wanted to find someone.”
While her hosting role on Love Island Australia is different again — tasked with sending hopefuls packing after a public vote or harsh recoupling — she has wise words of advice for all future contestants.
“Be yourself,” she says simply.
“It sounds lame, but people like honesty whether it’s good or bad.
“People like to blame producers on a ‘bad edit’, but you can’t put words in someone’s mouth. If you’re coming off badly, maybe take a look at yourself and take some responsibility, or just own it.”
Love Island Australia season 2 airs Monday night at 8.45pm on Channel 9.
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