Abbie Chatfield is hosting a cheeky new reality television show in what she has described as a full circle moment after rising to fame as a runner-up on The Bachelor four years ago.
In Chatfield’s first taste of reality TV back in 2019, she had no control over how she would be portrayed to the world.
These days, she has cemented herself in the Australian media landscape as a well-known radio presenter and television personality, and things are very different.
In the new series, a Binge* original titled FBoy Island, three women try to find a potential partner among a group of men – half of whom are self-proclaimed “nice guys” and the others, “f*** boys”.
The three women are occupational therapist Molly O’Halloran, 26, professional DJ Sophie Blackley, 26, and model Ziara Rae, 21. The men are yet to be announced.
The women must figure out which men are “F boys” who are just there to take home a cash prize, and which ones are genuinely there to find love. It is based off a successful US format.
Chatfield told news.com.au she had two conditions to sign on as host.
One: She wanted control over what she said in her scripts.
“Sometimes the jokes in the overseas versions are a bit sl*t-shamey towards the guys,” she said. “They are a bit like ‘ah, I bet he has an STD’ so we tried to flip it here like, ‘who has been tested recently?’ And they all don’t want to admit it and it’s like ‘you guys should get tested, that was a trick question.’”
Stream FBoy Island from May 29 on BINGE. New customers get a 14-day free trial. Sign up at binge.com.au
Two: She wanted diversity.
“I really encouraged not having an all-white cast. That was another thing I really cared about,” Chatfield said. “I think we’ve done a pretty good job of representing Australia. We’re not tokenising a person of colour like a lot of other shows do in this country.”
Chatfield said fortunately because the production team knew her well, they were on the same page.
Many of the crew on FBoy Island also worked on Chatfield’s season of The Bachelor, including her producer.
“We all sat around laughing like ‘isn’t it funny you got sl*t shamed for saying you wanted to have sex and now you’re hosting a show where there is penis snails everywhere?’” she said, speaking to news.com.au on set, which has genitalia themed decor.
“It’s funny in four years how much media has changed … I got sl*t shamed to s**t for even saying I wanted to have sex with someone on TV and now we’re here doing water gun fights and saying the word squirting every two minutes and me making creampie jokes down the barrel of the camera.”
FBoy Island premieres May 29 on Binge
*News Corp, publisher of this website, is majority owner of Binge