Abbie Chatfield Has Addressed The Brooke Blurton Drama On Her Latest Podcast Episode
In case you’ve been living under several large rocks, Australian reality TV fans are still reeling from Brooke Blurton calling out Abbie Chatfield after she hard launched her relationship with Konrad Bien-Stephens during The Bachelorette finale week.
For a quick TL;DR: Abbie posted about her new boyfriend, Konrad, on Instagram on the Wednesday of finale week, which followed photos of Konrad and Abbie kissing in a Byron Bay pub being posted online. The pics leaked while Konrad was still on the reality show, which was a massive spoiler that he wouldn’t be Brooke’s winner.
View this post on Instagram
A week after the finale, Brooke posted an Instagram Story directed at a person later confirmed to be Abbie. She said that Abbie’s post during finale week “tainted” her The Bachelorette ending. “I’m not a hostile person and literally do not have any hate in my heart. Everyone who watched the show, or was on the show cast and/or working as crew, will know that I put my heart and soul into it and it meant a lot for me to open myself up so vulnerably like that,” she began.
Brooke wrote that she took Abbie’s decision to post as “another white woman displaying what white privilege looks like” and a “very clear display of narcissism.”
Read Brooke’s post below:
Later that day, Abbie posted an apology on her Instagram.
Read Abbie’s apology below:
View this post on Instagram
If you want a full breakdown of the drama — and there’s heaps more to cover — read our exhaustive explainer here.
Now that the dust has settled on the drama, Abbie has addressed her apology and what happened from her perspective on the latest episode of her podcast, It’s A Lot. “Just to be clear: that wasn’t a PR written statement,” Abbie said regarding her apology post.
She went on to speak about the controversy. “It’s our first episode back and it would be remiss of us not to address the elephant in the room,” she began. “I started dating a contestant, Konrad, a week before he was kicked off the show. A fan took a video of us kissing that was intentionally sent to the Daily Mail. They did an article about it.”
Abbie continued, “Brooke and I had a conversation, I apologised for our neglect at the pub for kissing in public — we shouldn’t have done it. We shouldn’t have been seen kissing in public at that time, but we did! That was our fault. Then he exited the show, my understanding was that the spoiler was the issue, but that was my mistake.”
Abbie then went on double down on what she had already said in her statement: that the whole thing was a miscommunication, as she thought she had Brooke’s approval. “We then went to lunch and had a few drinks, Brooke had texted me saying how happy she was for us, then I uploaded the post. People thought it was a planned thing, that we had waited for this date, but we were literally choosing the photos at lunch,” she said. “We had been papped almost every day, we had been living together since we met, and I mistook that message as a green light to upload a post.”
In response to Brooke’s labelling her actions as “white privilege”, Abbie agreed with her. “People were confused about how white privilege came into it. The white privilege is me not thinking about the impacts of that post to the community. I knew the importance but didn’t think my actions would affect that — and that’s where the white privilege comes in,” she said.
“I was neglectful in not thinking of the impacts of me — as a white woman in the media — uploading that post at that time,” Abbie said adding, “It was a mistake. I wish I had just waited three more days.”
While Abbie copped that she made the wrong call in posting it, she denied that the move was calculated. “It was neglectful timing but it definitely was not preplanned. There’s a narrative going around that I must have preplanned it to get more attention. But I just want to be clear: a friend of mine was uploading videos of us kissing at lunch because we were, you know, in love. But obviously I do apologise,” she said.
“It was not preplanned but it was absolutely neglectful and naive. It’s something that I hope I will never do again. I will endeavour to never do that again.”
Hopefully, this marks the end of this messy saga.