Ex-Real Housewives star Anjali Rao explains her reality TV return on Survivor

Fans of Australian Survivor have demanded to know one thing since this former Real Housewives of Melbourne star joined the cast.

As the cast list for the upcoming season of Survivor was drip-fed to fans over recent weeks, one name stopped some reality TV viewers in their tracks.

Anjali Rao, former CNN journalist – and the most short-lived Real Housewife in Australian history.

Rao infamously crashed out of Real Housewives of Melbourne midway through season five, lasting only a few episodes before she refused to continue with the show, exhausted by fiery clashes with several of her established cast mates.

If she can’t hack swapping bitchy bon mots over champagne lunches as a Real Housewife, some asked, how on earth is she going to go with the starvation, deprivation and extreme physical challenges of Survivor?

Anjali (far left) had a short run on the most recent season of Real Housewives of Melbourne.

Speaking to Rao ahead of this season’s Monday debut, it seems she found Survivor a much less complicated task than Real Housewives.

“The whole thing about Real Housewives was yes, I loathed every minute of it, but I never regretted it, because it has given me other opportunities. I’m not blaming reality TV at all – I’d love to do reality TV,” she told news.com.au.

“And like Real Housewives, I’d never, ever considered doing Survivor until I was approached. I thought, you know what, I’ve already done the most painful, sadistic, disgusting TV with Housewives, how much worse could Survivor be?

“It was very daunting, but I love daunting things. I like scaring myself.”

Rao joins the Villains tribe for this season, playing alongside returning Survivor favourites like Shonee Bowtell, Jordie Hansen and ‘King’ George Mladenov. Fellow Survivor newbies joining the villains tribe include a real estate agent, an Olympic athlete, and a former Miss World Australia.

Rao said she relished the chance to play the villain role. Picture: NIGEL WRIGHT

Seems not everyone took the news they were going to be villains quite as well as her.

“When I heard it was going to be Heroes Vs. Villains, I thought, ‘Don’t you dare make me a hero. Villains have all the fun.’ I gather that some of the other villains weren’t so happy about it – but I was thrilled,” she insisted.

“Lucky for me, I loved being portrayed as the villain on Housewives. I know who I am as a person, and the edit obviously made me look a certain way – which I loved, it was hilarious.”

But Rao also confessed that she was battling with some personal issues as the season – set back in Samoa for the first time since before the pandemic – started filming.

Before her reality TV stints, Rao was a prolific TV broadcaster.

She revealed that the first day of filming coincided with a “very difficult” anniversary.

“It was exactly 10 years since I had left my marriage and just destroyed a whole bunch of lives. I just couldn’t get it out of my head, and I was privately bursting into tears. I wanted to concentrate on the task at hand, but my head was somewhere else,” she said.

“I’ve spent my whole career in front of the camera, and I know how to get a good edit – to give the funny stuff that’s well-received. But it was very hard to try and deliver that when I was trapped in ‘10 years ago’ hell.”

Will she shake off her demons to excel in her second attempt at reality TV? All will be revealed when Australian Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains premieres 7:30pm Monday January 30 on Ten.

Originally published as Ex-Real Housewives star Anjali Rao explains her reality TV return on Survivor