Abbie Chatfield shot to fame as the villain on The Bachelor Australia in 2019.
Five years later, the 29-year-old has built a successful career around being outspoken and sharing 'trauma dumps', UTIs, political rants and sexcapades.
She's gained the love of many fans — including almost 500,000 Instagram followers — but her openness has also made her the target of threats online.
Chatfield spoke to Ladies, We Need To Talk about how she manages living a life in the spotlight while staying grounded in the real world.
We've curated her best anecdotes and life advice to share with you here.
On applying for The Bachelor as a joke…
I applied as a joke to The Bachelor. I thought it was silly.
I'd broken up with this guy. He'd moved from Scotland to be with me.
We tried for two weeks, and we were like, we don't like each other at all.
He's still here, though, with a beautiful girlfriend and I'm very happy for him.
I was with my housemate, and we were kind of like, oh, The Bachelor's casting. This would be funny.
I was the last audition in the country. Then I got on and five weeks later, I'm in The Bachelor mansion.
And then suddenly I'm just being myself on TV, and everyone f*cking hates it.
So that was a strange thing.
Fame and staying grounded with old friends…
It was crazy … like I was working corporate [in commercial real estate] and then the next month I had 70,000 followers.
Then I'm getting trolled and I turn on the radio and people are saying that I'm an awful person.
It's really strange having hundreds of thousands of people give their opinion on your life.
Like, your brain isn't made to have 480,000 people know what you're doing and have an opinion on it.
As humans, I don't think evolutionarily we're supposed to have that many people impact our lives, because it feels sometimes like I'm paralysed.
But it's also that there are really nice things. Like when I meet people in person that are listening to the podcast (It's A Lot Podcast) while they're on a walk.
With my new friends … it's not like I'm putting on a mask … but when I see my friends from [hometown of] Brisbane, or from the era before all of this, it just feels so much more at home and at peace.
Before she hits post on social media…
I share a lot [online], but not everything.
There's a lot about my childhood that people don't know anything about … because I just don't want to speak about that.
But it's weird that people assume they know everything.
I don't actually owe [them] an explanation and a detailed account of my childhood, but then I get in trouble for not giving it.
Everything that I post, it gets criticised … positive or negative.
My therapist made a little rule that anything that upsets me or that is a little bit wobbly, I really shouldn't talk about it publicly until it's sorted.
I feel like [my boyfriend] Adam [Hyde] is having a weird awakening of how I'm treated on the internet.
I get called a bitch by one person and Adam's going, "Can you believe someone said this about you?"
And I say, "Yes, I can believe it … there's think pieces written about how awful I am."
Knowing when to put the phone down…
If I upload something, I'll look at the comments for the first 20 minutes … I want to know if I f*cked up … [then] if there's nothing that's obviously wrong … then I'm not going to look at any more comments.
I've seen five people say I look hot, I've got my little validation.
That's kind of when I put the phone down and try to not look.
People only see a snippet of her relationship…
We (Adam and I) are together all day, every day. We actually post maybe 2 per cent of the things that we have together.
But every day we're just more in love with each other and every day we just care less about what we're posting and what people see and know.
We haven't really spoken about what I'm not allowed to post, because he's like, "It's your work. You can post whatever you want. I don't really mind. I'm proud of you and I love you."
[But] it's not like I'm going to tell everyone about a fight we had.
Ending sex is not like the school bell…
My manager and I always laugh about how I'm the quote unquote "sex girl".
People think because I talk about sex I must be some kind of like sex fiend.
Realistically, I don't really think about sex that often. I'm very neutral. It's like body neutrality, like sex neutrality.
[One of the things I do try to talk about regarding sex] is know what your boundaries are.
That's something I really didn't get a grasp on until even the past 18 months … knowing what I am OK with and not OK with.
And those boundaries can change per person [you are with].
[During sex] you're allowed to leave, and you're allowed to say "I'm not enjoying this sex".
You don't have to wait for the person to have an orgasm for you to have permission to leave.
It's not like a school bell.
Better to be alone than in a bad relationship…
My advice if someone is being boring, bin them. If they're mean to you, bin them. If they're neglectful, bin them. If they're not listening to your boundaries, bin them.
Because it's better to be alone and have a filled life by yourself and with your friends.
What you'll do then is have your light on to be dated by someone that is actually all those things that you want.
