Reality TV fans have seen some stars navigate the difficulty of fame and pay a price for being exposed to the worldwide audience.
While being popular on a reality TV show might be seen as an achievement, some stars have admitted that they're having difficulty dealing with fame as they made themselves available for scrutiny to the eyes of the public.
Exploring the Difficulty of Reality TV Fame
It's not a secret that there have been reality TV stars who experienced difficulty in navigating their popularity and somewhat paid the price for fame.
After all, while they are now popular and have a bigger social media following, they also have their personal lives exposed to the worldwide audience and face scrutiny for their actions and decisions.
As a result of the sudden popularity that they experienced from reality TV, some stars deal with mental health problems and producers only provide limited support for the contestants.
"It was horrendous, I had no support… I had to reach out to the producers and tell them I was going to find my own psychologist and they were going to be paying the bill. You caused me all this drama, you can pay for it… you did this," Big Brother Australia contestant Tully Smyth shared in an interview.
Fortunately, things have improved in the later years since Smyth was part of the series. "There’s a wellness team, there’s a psychologist. I could tell from the minute we got to Sydney that this time round was going to be different," she added.
The Impact of Reality TV Shows on the Contestants' Personal Lives
Unfortunately, there are reality TV stars and contestants whose personal lives or careers were impacted by their involvement in the shows.
Married At First Sight contestant Olivia Frazer shared that, aside from her mental health problems, her employment was also affected by her appearance in the series.
"It [my mental health] very much ebbs and flows. So I'm a bit like I have really good days where I'm like, 'Oh like water off a duck's back, I'm fine'. And then I have other days where I'm like – I'm sorry to be graphic, but I am suicidal. And I am like, 'OK don't kill yourself because you don't want Jackson to come home on that," she said.
"And it's like – it is at a point where it's like such a severe instability in my moods and my mental health, and it's like I am feeling a lot more myself and a lot more out of the woods... that's nowhere near as bad as it was when the show was airing but I think it's just going to be skating on thin ice for a few more months until the heat dies down."
As Refinery29 explained in their exploration of the impact of reality TV fame, "contestants face divisive viewer reactions and navigate their newfound fame" since the shows are edited down and present a certain narrative.
In the end, there is no easy solution on how to navigate fame, but based on the sentiments of some reality TV stars, providing them with mental health support could help ease the difficulty. Fans should also give them space and empathy on their post-reality show journey.
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