Ex-Bachelorette star Sam Frost on her changing perspective about social media: ‘I wouldn’t have a clue what’s going on’

Ex-Bachelorette star Sam Frost has opened up about her decision to detach from Instagram - and find a new perspective.

As she cradles her growing belly and crosses her fingers that her second child isn’t born on her first son’s birthday, it’s not lost on Sam Frost the difference a decade can make.

Back in December 2014, she had just shot to fame for harnessing reality television as a vehicle for finding love, taking the nation along with her as she became engaged on season two of The Bachelor Australia.

But when that relationship ended by the time the finale aired in October, such was our investment in the sweetly vulnerable finance manager from Melbourne, she was chosen to front the inaugural series of The Bachelorette Australia the following year.

Yet however much we cheered her on – the show was a ratings winner – Frost remained living proof of the Shakespearean adage that “the course of true love never did run smooth”. Or, as the 10 years since have eventually revealed, perhaps she just needed to try a different path.

‘I now have a different relationship with Instagram!’ Sam Frost says her approach to social media has changed. Picture: Steven Chee for Stellar

“It feels like I’ve had so many different versions of me and I’ve grown up so much as a person,” says Frost, whose rocky traverse from dating show darling to short-lived breakfast radio host, to soap opera favourite and passionate mental health advocate eventually landed her back where she started.

Namely, in her hometown, dating one of her brother’s mates, the easygoing Jordie Hansen – who just happened to be a fellow reality television alumnus, having appeared on Australian Survivor: Blood V Water in 2022 and Heroes V Villains in 2023.

Now the couple are expecting their second baby, a little boy whose due date is alarmingly close to the March 7 birthday of their two-year-old son, Ted.

Listen to the latest episode of the Stellar podcast, Something To Talk About, below:

“They might be birthday twins!” says the former Home And Away star who, despite suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum, the acute morning sickness that was famously experienced by the Princess of Wales, is thrilled with the upcoming addition to her treasured little family.

“I spent the first three months literally in the foetal position,” she recalls.

“I was unable to eat or even swallow water without throwing up, so it wasn’t a fun ride, especially while trying to look after a toddler. But it’s an enormous privilege to be able to carry a baby so I don’t like to talk about the negatives too much.”

Picture: Steven Chee for Stellar

Now 35, Frost acknowledges that she couldn’t be more different to the 25-year-old ingenue whose life hung on roses and date cards.

“I started out as this vulnerable, naive young girl and I’ve grown up a lot in front of people,” she tells Stellar.

“Sometimes I think about things I did or said, or choices I made throughout my career in the public eye, and I think, what was I thinking? I lay there at night and cringe over the dumb moments no-one else will remember except me.”

Yet for all her reflections, the soon-to-be-mum-of-two is deeply happy.

Her relationship with 28-year-old Hansen, a content creator and landscape gardener, has anchored her, moving to Noosa has allowed her to build a nest after years on the move, and motherhood has brought a sense of calm.

“I feel really peaceful and fulfilled,” she says.

“I love being a mum. I’m a family person and an introvert, so home is my safe space. And being down the road from my sister and nieces and spending so much quality time with the people that we love really matters to us.”

‘I love being a mum!’ Picture: Steven Chee for Stellar

In fact, despite spending months at a time in a caravan on the road as they film Jordie, Sam & Ted’s Adventures for the Seven Network, Frost says these days she rarely suffers from the mental health battles she chronicled in Believe, the memoir/self-help book she wrote with her sister Kristine Ross and published in 2022.

“I used to tell myself that I was a really anxious person and I would always feel quite anxious, but I haven’t felt anxious for a really long time,” she reveals.

“Living this kind of lifestyle of being with my family and having a safe space and travelling around places where you don’t have phone reception so you’re not on social media has completely transformed my life.”

Even though she has 576K followers on Instagram, a TV show to promote and other commercial partnerships, Frost will often delete the Instagram app for days at a time.

While travelling through remote Australia, she says whenever she arrived at a town where there was internet reception, she’d start getting notifications and feel her anxiety rising.

“I wouldn’t have a clue what’s going on in social media,” she says.

“I now have a different relationship with Instagram. I use it as a business tool to promote what I’m doing or to show little titbits of my life, but I don’t scroll on it.

“It’s not worth disrupting my peace, my mental health and my joy.”

Read the full interview with Sam Frost inside the new issue of Stellar, out on Sunday. Picture: Steven Chee for Stellar

While Hansen is employed to film and photograph content for caravan companies, Frost says she has firm boundaries around how much of their travels they document.

As they wrap up a second season of their adventures before their baby is born, she reveals that the family intends to continue travelling once he’s six months old.

“We’ll have a toddler and baby so it might be a big fail,” she admits, pointing out that Ted is sometimes a great traveller, while other times he screams while driving and they have to adapt their plans.

On the road, they live by nature’s rhythms, going to bed at sunset and getting up at sunrise. And while she and Hansen, who proposed in 2022, have no immediate plans to marry because of the cost-of-living crisis, she says her happiest moments are watching her fiance with their son.

Sam Frost and Jordie Hansen with their son Ted. Picture: Instagram

Sam and Jordie are preparing to welcome baby No. 2. Picture: Instagram

“He’s so gentle and playful and Ted is obsessed with Jordie. He watches his dad all the time.”

Despite coming from a family of six, Frost says she’s content with two children and wouldn’t rule out a return to acting or reality TV once the boys are older – if the right project came along.

But for now, she’s grateful to have removed herself from “toxic workplaces and some not-so-genuine friends”, and be enjoying her new-found self-acceptance.

For more from Stellar, listen to the new episode of Something To Talk About below:

“No matter what path you take in life, you always find hurdles and tough moments and storms, and you just find the resilience somewhere to keep on going,” she says, pausing to laugh as she spots a kangaroo bouncing across the road.

“Through trial and error, you figure out what’s healthy for you and what’s not,” she adds.

“I love the way Ted will say ‘Mama, cuddles?’ and whatever I’m doing I’ll always stop and give him a cuddle. It’s the smallest thing and it means the world.”

See the full shoot with Sam Frost in the new issue of Stellar, out via The Sunday Telegraph (NSW), Sunday Herald Sun (VIC), The Sunday Mail (QLD) and Sunday Mail (SA).

For more from Stellar and the podcast, Something To Talk About, click here.

Originally published as Ex-Bachelorette star Sam Frost on her changing perspective about social media: ‘I wouldn’t have a clue what’s going on’