But where most reality TV graduates flame out after their 15 minutes of fame, Chatfield has parlayed her profile and social media following into success as a podcaster and broadcaster.Her raunchy, raw, honest and open It’s a Lot is frequently near the top of the podcast charts, tackling sometimes thorny subjects including sex, dating, feminism and mental health and she also hosts the nightly radio show Hot Nights With Abbie Chatfield on the Hit Network.After enduring the wrath – and death threats – from anti-vaxxers through Covid lockdowns, Chatfield is now taking her show on the road for the first time.What can you tell me about the coming live shows?Podcast recordings can be a bit boring if it’s an hour and half of the same chat so we wanted to make it as exciting and hyperactive as possible so there will be live performances, two or three interviews, Q & As, games. It’s been in the works for a while and I am so excited to finally do it.It’s an over-18 show and I’m guessing not very safe for work … how loose will it get?It will get pretty loose knowing me. I mean, me toned down on radio is apparently the edgiest thing in the world I have been told, so I think it will be pretty wild. Definitely not safe for work – but bring your boss, lighten them up, bring your co-workers, it might break some barriers.How does your mum feel that your first show is at the Sydney Opera House?She literally texted me and said ‘it’s on a Mummy’s bucket list’. How cute is that?You’re a self-confessed over-sharer – where does that come from?Everyone is like ‘wow, how do you speak your mind’ and it’s just because I have anxiety and I get nervous when it’s silent.Do you attract and are you attracted to oversharers?100 per cent. I think all my friends are oversharers as well. When we have drinks, we have to remind each other to not talk over each other – which is why we get along so well I guess.Is there even such a thing as an oversharer – in general being open and honest is a good thing, right?You know what? You’re right – I think oversharers are shamed. Maybe everyone else is just an undersharer.Do random people in come up to you and spill their deepest darkest desires and secrets in public?Only when they are drunk in bars. If it’s a sober interaction like at Westfield, then it’s like ‘oh I love you’ but if it’s late and they are drunk it’s ‘my boyfriends cheated on me and I used your (Vush partnership) vibrator to get over it’.What did you hope to achieve when you first started It’s A Lot?I started it because one night at 3am I couldn’t sleep and started posting all these stories and asked ‘should I start a podcast?’ And the next month I had my first episode. A lot of people were saying on my Instagram stories that they didn’t have conversations like that with their friends and it was the first time they had heard a word like ‘slut-shaming’. I wanted them to be at a party listening in to the conversations I have with my friends over dinner.You talk about topics like sex and self-esteem and body image and mental health that traditionally haven’t been talked about much – do you consider yourself an educator in that regard?Not really – but when something spikes my interest like the vaccine thing last year. I was going on rants about anti-vaxxers and people thought I had planned it. But I was sitting at home alone through four months of lockdown and anti-vaxxers were telling me I was going to get a blood clot in my brain and die because I was vaccinated and Bill Gates was going to control my mind via microchip. I am very reactive – I’m not an educator, but I appreciate that title.Why was calling out anti-vaxxers so important to you?Everyone in my family – except for this generation – is either a doctor, a dentist or a teacher. So it wasn’t that my family was pro-vax but it was ‘yes, you get vaccinated’. And also, I have common sense. I mean, just take the vaccine. Just do it.One of the reviews for your podcast describes you as “our Beluga feminist queen” – what does feminism mean to you?Feminism to me has evolved and I am sure will keep evolving. It’s a much more intersectional idea now that hopes to lift up all minorities and not just women and really focuses attention on people who need it like disabled people and trans people and non-binary people.Having strong opinions in the social media age can put a target on your back – how do you deal with the negativity?Everyone wants this genius ‘how does she do it’ answer but I just go to therapy and that’s kind of it.Does it ever make you question what you do?No. I think most people who are trolling me are wrong – with the anti-vaxxing stuff. But when people abuse you every day and with the death threats I get, I can’t sleep. I’m scared of people hurting me rather than disagreeing with me.How confronting were the death threats?When I bought my house up in the Northern Rivers, photos were leaked and you can do a reverse Google image search and people found my address. I was getting death threats with my full address in it so I wouldn’t stay there alone and now I am going to Airbnb it out, I think. I just don’t feel safe there.Did your early days on reality TV give you a thick skin?100 per cent. On The Bachelor I was the villain and I was trolled relentlessly for the entire series so that was like a baptism of fire. I’m a Celeb was different because it’s more of a family show and I ended up winning, which was lovely. The biggest thing I learned is that the media will move on and people will move on no matter what happens.Podcasting didn’t even exist until 10 or 15 years ago – what did you want to be when you were a kid?I wanted to be a dentist. My grandma was a dentist and my grandpa and uncle. Everyone was scared of the dentist growing up but I loved it because grandma used to get her old tools out from university and play dentist with us.A Hot Night With Abbie Chatfield tours nationally in May. Dates and details from frontiertouring.com
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