Shonee Bowtell knows exactly what her season of The Bachelorette Australia would be like if she were offered the chance to star in the dating show.
”That would be so chaotic,” she tells TV WEEK from Bali, where she’s on holiday.
”Because I’m so friendly, and perhaps flirtatious, the guys would be like, ‘Oh, she’s definitely into me,’ and then they’d come to the rose ceremony, and I’d drop them like a hot potato.”
Shonee hasn’t been offered The Bachelorette just yet, but she’s ”definitely open” to doing more TV.
The 30-year-old from Queensland has now been on Australian Survivor a record three times – and fans can’t get enough of her.
”I get so many DMs [private direct messages sent via social media],”she says.
”I’m just like, ‘You guys are so sweet.”’
Shonee has been dubbed the queen of Heroes V Villains for the way she’s been controlling the game along with ”King” George Mladenov.
She went into the season ”guns blazing”, expecting the other players would see her as a threat and send her home early. To her surprise, they didn’t.
”I think they should have voted me out in the first vote,” she says.
”They should have been like, ‘This chick is the only person who’s been asked to play for a third time, so surely that says something in itself.’ But no.”
Not only is Shonee playing a great strategic game, she also has incredible endurance, as she proved when she and Olympic pole vaulter Liz Parnov won a challenge for the Villains that involved holding up a box between their feet.
”That was probably the most pain I’ve ever felt in my life,” she admits.
”I still have a scar on my lower back. My feet were burning – it felt like I was on coals.”
And yet Shonee’s face barely showed a flicker of pain.
”A Pilates teacher once told me that if you relax the face, you relax your body,” she explains, ”so I just made sure that my face was calm.”
Shonee first appeared in the 2018 Champions V Contenders season of Survivor.
Back then, she was married to pro skateboarder Benny Fairfax, and said she was doing the show to step out of his shadow.
Now, she describes herself as ”single and looking”.
So what is she looking for in a partner?
”My energy healer told me I’m basically asking for crumbs, because she asked me this question and I said, ‘A driver’s licence and a job,’ and she said, ‘Shonee, you need to ask for more!”’
Shonee is prepared to meet the love of her life on The Bachelorette – or at least have fun trying.
”Imagine all the outfits I could wear,” she says.
”I’d be bedazzling out there!”