Sophie Monk has revealed she was branded “the chubby one” during her time in the girl band Bardot.
WATCH Sophie Monk attempts to woo her fiance
The 41-year-old TV personality was propelled to stardom after appearing on the hit 1999 reality talent show Popstars and soon afterwards became a member of the girl group.
In an interview with The Jess Rowe Big Talk Show, Sophie admitted she was “extremely insecure” during the early days of her career.
“People in Bardot would call me ‘the chubby one’ because I was curvy. I had boobs and the [other] girls were teensy. That was in fashion back in the day,” she said.
Sophie said that if women were curvier back then, they wouldn’t get booked for magazine covers.
“The fashion has just changed dramatically. It’s so good that girls love having big boobs – that’s how it should be,” she said.
“It was encouraged – not directly – but it was encouraged based on the work you received [to be] straight up and down, so I was self conscious.”
After Bardot broke up in 2002 at the height of their fame, the Beauty and the Geek host moved to Los Angeles to try and make it big in Hollywood, an experience she described as “soul destroying”.
“I can only talk from my experience. Your friends are your agent. You kind of feel like, ‘Are your friends your real friends?'” she told Jess.
“Everyone wants to become famous, and that’s when it becomes lonely. I had someone I trust take a lot of money from me. I had a lot of hits there emotionally.”
Sophie said her name constantly being in the tabloids and her string of high-profile relationships, including Jason Statham and Benji Madden, hampered a Hollywood big-break.
“It hindered a lot of roles, because then you become a socialite so they don’t take you seriously. Now, you can come off a reality TV show and become an actress,” she said.
“The paparazzi would always be chasing you. In LA everyone gets chased. They could be waiting for Britney Spears and they would chase you.”
Despite her bumpy entrance into LA, Sophie went on to enjoy a successful acting career – appearing in Date Movie and Click alongside Adam Sandler.
Sophie landed the coveted role of Channel 10’s Bachelorette in 2017, which reportedly earned her a cool $300,000.
Following that, she signed on with Channel Nine to host Love Island Australia, which reportedly earned her close to $1 million, and fronted Beauty and the Geek earlier this year.
The beloved television personality and self-confessed “bogan” is now happily engaged to fiancee Joshua Gross.
Sophie revealed she met Josh on a business class flight when, after a few champagnes, she leaned in for a kiss with the “random” man sitting next to her.
“He was so charming and funny and he had no idea what I did,” Sophie told the Kyle & Jackie O Show last month.
It was the unique “chemistry” that Sophie said she had never felt before with anyone that drew her in.
“I just sat down and he had a sense of humour and I was like, ‘Oh how relieving, sitting next to someone you can have a chat with’,” she said.
“I was like, ‘Good sense of humour, hard worker’… it just happened.”
And three years after their chance meeting, Joshua finally popped the question, with Sophie taking to instagram to announce their engagement on January 15, 2021.
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