When Abbie Chatfield first arrived on our screens in the seventh season of The Bachelor, no-one knew what a huge media personality she was about to become.
After taking on so many gigs, something had to give.
The jack-of-all-trades has a podcast, It’s A Lot, hosts reality show FBOY Island, is a judge on The Masked Singer and was a radio host of Hot Nights With Abbie Chatfield until recently, stepping down due to mental health issues.
“I needed to detach from the pressure,” Abbie tells TV WEEK.
“I needed to stop caring what was written or said about me. For the human brain to be constantly thinking about the million different perceptions of things that you do [from the public] really isn’t good.”
After years of managing an “insane workload”, the 28-year-old decided to take a break and head to Thailand for a wellness retreat to unwind. It was at this retreat that she started to seriously assess her future in the media.
“My career aspirations now are to be more measured in what I take on,” Abbie says. “I don’t want to be panicking all the time, I don’t think that I need to grind as much as I have been. It’s not good for me, my social life or my health.
“My goal is to have at least one night where I have the time to eat something other than Uber Eats.”
The Masked Singer judge Chrissie Swan and host Osher Günsberg have been an immense support for Abbie throughout this transitional time.
“I talk to them about everything, and they’ve been such a wonderful help,” Abbie reveals. “I also have amazing managers who I just vent to for two hours a day. I’m very lucky.”
A career highlight, so far, for Abbie is her national tour, The Trauma Dump, which takes the audience on a journey through the highs and lows of her entertaining romantic experiences.
Despite taking a step back from some of her work commitments, Abbie reveals she still wants to tour the show next year.
“I’ll have to wait and see what material I have from my dating life,” she says with a laugh.