She made her mark as the woman who proudly declared she was a Gemini when Dr Matt Agnew revealed he was an astrophysicist, but in the years since, The Bachelor Australia star Abbie Chatfield has delivered a masterclass in turning your TV role into a wildly successful career.
WATCH: Abbie meets Matt for the first time on The Bachelor
The 26-year-old contestant went on to star in Bachelor In Paradise Australia, I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here, host Love Island After Party, launch her own podcast It’s A Lot, and take on a new radio gig as the host of Hot Nights With Abbie Chatfield on The Hit Network.
She also recently announced a live tour called A Hot Night With Abbie Chatfield, where she’s set to travel to five Australian cities later this year. Not to mention, she created her own vibrator with Vush, launched apparel collections with the likes of Raq and Souszy Intimates, and spruiks the occasional product as an “influencer” to her 380k+ fans on Instagram.
Abbie was right, it is a lot. Especially considering it’s all happened in the span of three years.
Though the star has arguably become the most successful person to springboard off of Bachie, she reveals there were actually some pretty strict rules about what the contestants could and couldn’t do immediately after the show – despite the fact that it’s the peak time to transform from a reality TV star to full-blown influencer.
She says they couldn’t make money from paid partnerships on social media for three months after the show.
“I had a job and didn’t really care, people were like, ‘how do we make money?’ And I was like, don’t quit your job to go on a reality show!” Abbie said on her radio program this week.
She continued on to explain the rules were in place to protect the network from a conflict of interest, since advertising partners pay the big bucks to promote themselves on the show.
“They have advertisement agreements. [It’s] not because they want to be mean, people are like, ‘it’s cause they don’t want us to be influencers!’ Um, no it’s not,” she said.
Abbie also revealed she walked away from the show about $10,000 richer, despite the fact contestants are paid a low daily wage during their time on the show.
“I got paid $90 a day, but for me it was much more… I didn’t work for three months… it’s tax free, I got money back on tax that year, I came out with no expenses. I came out with $10,000, it was great,” she said.
Reality TV shows are not known to pay their contestants top dollar, with Married At First Sight Australia star Domenica Calarco revealing they make “close to minimum wage” during their lengthy stint on the show.
The 28-year-old revealed she was happy with the pay, saying it’s just enough to take care of your rent and expenses back at home.
“I feel like the show does get a bad rap, and I’m not getting paid to say that. Because I didn’t get paid enough, to be honest, with what I went through…” she said in an interview with Kyle & Jackie O.
“It’s enough to just cover your rent, your living expenses, kind of thing. Because when you’re living [on the show], all of that is taken care of. You don’t have to pay for anything. It’s pretty much maybe like an average wage I would say.”
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