An Exhaustive Explainer Of The Drama Going Down Between Brooke Blurton & Abbie Chatfield
Two of Australia’s most popular TV stars are feuding and unless you live and breathe reality TV (like us!), there’s probably a good chance that you’re a little confused right now.
The Bachelorette wrapped last week, but the drama has continued off-screen with Brooke Blurton spectacularly calling out former Bachelor star Abbie Chatfield for hard launching her relationship with Konrad Bien-Stephens during finale week. Brooke has described Abbie’s timing as “narcissistic” and displaying “white privilege”, leading to Abbie issuing an apology.
So who are these people and what the hell is going on?! Strap yourselves in! We are deep-diving into this whole Brooke/Abbie drama.
Who is Brooke Blurton?
Fans first met Brooke on The Bachelor in 2018, as a plucky 23-year-old from WA who stole Nick ‘The Honey Badger’ Cummins’ heart. In a historical moment for the Australian series, Brooke told Nick she dates men and women. Many expected Brooke to win the show, but she ended up leaving on her own accord when she reached the final three.
After exiting the season, Brooke appeared on Bachelor In Paradise where she dated both (American) Alex Bordyukov and Alex Nation, before once again leaving the show prematurely after realising she wasn’t going to find The One. In short: Brooke has had a rough time in her journey for love, but Australia has been rooting for her all the way.
Following BIP, Brooke started dating Nick Power before they broke up in early 2020. In her years between reality TV stints, Brooke has advocated for mental health awareness, been an ambassador for suicide prevention, and she even presented her own TEDx Talk about living her life being defined by labels.
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This leads us up to 2021: Brooke was chosen to front Australia’s next season of The Bachelorette in a historical moment as both the first Indigenous and pansexual person to date both men and women on any version of the series. While the season was not a television ratings success, it was critically praised — especially among those who actually watched it, such as queer viewers seeing themselves represented on The Bachelor franchise for the very first time.
In the finale, Brooke chose Darvid Garayeli over Jamie-Lee Dayz. The cute couple are currently living in Melbourne together.
Who is Abbie Chatfield?
Abbie first rose to fame as a contestant on the 2019 season of The Bachelor. Even before the first episode aired, Abbie gained attention for her now-notorious clapback to Matt Agnew: after he told her he was an astrophysicist, she replied deadpan, “OK, I’m a Gemini,” with the moment even reaching international news outlets.
While on The Bachelor Abbie divided opinion, with fans of the show either loving her, or well… not. And the same went for her fellow contestants. Throughout the season she got quite a few castmates offside, especially when she told Agnew that intruder Monique Morley had called him a “dog c*nt”, which led to Monique’s early elimination. Abbie went on to form an intense relationship with Agnew, reaching the finale, and was left brokenhearted when he chose Chelsie McLeod.
Since The Bachelor and then a short stint on Bachelor In Paradise, Abbie’s career trajectory has soared to unprecedented heights. Most Bachy stars have a short shelf life, but Abbie changed the game when she started her It’s A Lot podcast, named after one of her many trademark expressions made on the reality show. The podcast has been a huge success, praised for tackling issues ranging from sex-positivity to mental health.
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Abbie has also proven to be a vocal advocate for the COVID vaccination program this year, calling out anti-vaxxer influencers frequently on Instagram. She’s become known for calling out influencers who promote problematic ideas to their followers, such as damaging diets and rape culture.
Abbie’s growing fandom and status as one of Australia’s biggest influencers led to her being cast on this year’s I’m A Celebrity, which she ended up winning.
Abbie’s latest career highlights also include hosting the aftershow for Love Island and launching her own vibrator range through Vush.
Are Brooke and Abbie friends?
If Instagram can be believed, Brooke and Abbie appeared to be friends. At the start of the year, Brooke appeared on Abbie’s It’s A Lot podcast where she admitted she had previously asked out Abbie on a date. “I’ve asked Abbie on a date twice, and she’s not politely declined nor accepted,” Brooke joked. Abbie clarified that she said yes, but due to the pandemic she could not travel to Brooke’s hometown of WA.
Ahead of The Bachelorette starting, Abbie was posting often about the season. When Brooke was first cast, she wrote on Instagram, “The best decision made in casting in a LONG time. The Indigenous representation! The queer representation! The icon representation!”
Abbie also posted about the premiere, joking that she was “proud of The Bachelorette casting reflecting real life, average men and super hot wonderful women.” This comment is especially funny considering who she is now dating.
While Abbie posted about the reality show when it first debuted, she has fallen silent about The Bachelorette in recent weeks. This is especially weird as she appeared in the finale as Brooke’s close friend, yet Abbie did not post about her Bachelorette cameo anywhere.
Why is Brooke upset with Abbie?
Brooke and Abbie’s friendship seemingly took a turn for the worst when Abbie was papped kissing Konrad Bien-Stephens. The photos were released when Konrad was still a frontrunner on The Bachelorette, and the images were an obvious spoiler that Konrad wouldn’t win the season.
Then on the Wednesday morning at the beginning of The Bachelorette finale week, after days of Konrad appearing subtly on Abbie’s Instagram Stories, she hard launched their relationship. Abbie posted a bunch of cute couple snaps and videos — and obviously, fans lost their goddamn minds.
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While most of Abbie’s followers were thrilled with the relationship hard launch, some other reality TV fans questioned the timing of Abbie’s post: it wasn’t just on a day that The Bachelorette aired, but it was during finale week, which is the big finish that the entire season had been leading up to.
Within hours, people noticed that Brooke no longer followed Abbie on Instagram.
But seriously, what’s the big deal?
Some fans might label Brooke’s issue with Abbie’s post — and a lot of fans’ issues with Abbie’s post — as petty and trivial. After all, this all comes down to just 10 photos and videos posted on Instagram, right?
However, Abbie’s influence and ability to grab headlines cannot be underestimated. It might seem like an innocent enough post, but this is the first time Abbie has ever confirmed a relationship on her Instagram since her appearance on The Bachelor, and it happened to be with arguably this season’s most popular The Bachelorette contestant.
Anyone with even a tiny bit of media training would recognise that Abbie’s post would garner massive media interest — the kind of interest that could easily eclipse news about Brooke finally finding love in the finale.
It’s also worth considering just how much time and effort goes into making The Bachelorette — there’s casting, pre-production, filming, post-production, and media briefings. And the biggest payoff is the finale, which is often the highest-rated episode of the season. Of course, there’s a whole other layer to this season being something worth celebrating, as Brooke is the world-first Bachelorette to date men and women, and she’s the first Indigenous Bachy ever cast on the Australian series.
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This all combined means that the finale was not just a culmination of months of hard work, but it was about Brooke. Viewers have followed Brooke since 2018 on her journey to find love — and this was her time to shine.
What has Brooke said about Abbie?
After the finale aired, Brooke then had to face a barrage of questions about Abbie and Konrad, along with being asked why she unfollowed her former friend. When we asked Brooke about it, she was pretty vague and evasive, simply saying that unfollowing Abbie “wasn’t intentional” and adding that they were “still friends.”
But it turns out that Brooke was just saving her best clapbacks for Instagram, posting a statement directed towards the Abbie drama exactly one week after The Bachelorette finale.
“I hate to bring it up but personally and mentally I’ve been disrupted by all the crap that came with finale week,” Brooke began. She then listed some of her grievances with Abbie’s choice to hard launch her relationship during finale week, which Brooke described as now “tainted”. She said that she saw Abbie’s actions as “a very clear display of narcissism,” and an example of “another white woman displaying what white privilege looks like.”
Read Brooke’s statement in full below:
According to Brooke, she had tried to reach out to Abbie to explain why she was so deeply hurt. “This person’s actions show and take away from NOT only me but what it meant for a queer woman of colour,” she wrote. Brooke finished her post with an especially pointed comment: “Now go give them more air time in which is what this is exactly about.”
In a following (since-deleted) repost, Brooke clarified that the person in question was Abbie.
Why isn’t Brooke mad at Konrad?
Who says she isn’t? It’s unclear what has gone down privately between Brooke and Konrad, but Brooke is not following him on Instagram — so they’re hardly best pals. Some critics have said that Brooke’s criticism of Abbie is unfair, as Konrad gave interviews about his relationship with Abbie before the podcaster ever spoke about them dating. This is true. After being evicted, Konrad did speak openly in interviews about dating Abbie.
That being said, because the papped photos of them kissing had already leaked, Konrad would have faced a barrage of questions about Abbie in his interviews, so it’s doubtful he did anything more than answer his questions truthfully. Konrad didn’t post anything about Abbie on his social media, as he didn’t have access to his Instagram as the show aired.
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On the flipside, Abbie had no obligation to post or talk about Konrad on Instagram — that was her choice. She also chose to post about Konrad on Instagram on the day The Bachelorette aired. It’s also worth noting that Brooke had only just met Konrad during filming, they had one solo date, and then she dumped him after hometowns, so protecting her might not have been high on Konrad’s list of priorities. Meanwhile, according to the finale episode in which she appeared, Brooke considered Abbie a close friend.
Why isn’t Brooke upset with Holly and Millie?
Some other fans have also noted that Konrad and Abbie are not the only couple to go public while The Bachelorette was still airing: finalist Holly Langford confirmed she was dating fellow contestant Millie Rubio before the finale. This is correct but again this criticism doesn’t leave room for nuance. Holly did not spoil her ending, as she only revealed she had started dating Millie after leaving the show.
Like Abbie, Holly did post a cute gallery of photos of herself and her new partner Millie — but she did so after the finale. It’s also worth noting that Abbie’s reach on Instagram does not even compare to that of Holly and Millie, who between them share around 20k followers while Abbie has a following of 360k.
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If anyone is going to steal attention, it’s going to be Abbie rather than any of The Bachelorette contestants who have modest followings.
What is Abbie saying about it all?
After a week of silence regarding the unfollowing, after Brooke’s post Abbie issued an apology. “A month ago, a video of Konrad and I kissing was secretly captured by a patron and made public. Following this, Brooke and I had a conversation in which I apologised and expressed regret multiple times for our public affection as this was prior to Konrad’s exit from the show. Konrad had a similar conversation with Brooke,” the post began.
She went on to say that she has regrets about kissing Konrad in public. “We absolutely should have waited to be in private as we are public figures and these are things we need to consider, but we didn’t. We also didn’t consider the possible ramifications of our actions.”
In response to the timing of the relationship’s hard launch, Abbie had this to say. “When I uploaded a post confirming the numerous rumours, it was not with malice. The morning of, I mistook a message from Brooke expressing her happiness for and approval of our relationship as a green light to upload a post. Following the post, Konrad received an equally supportive message,” she said, adding, “I see with hindsight that this assumption was naïve.”
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Abbie did take ownership of her actions and her privilege. “I now understand the timing of publicly sharing our relationship should have been more considered and that is my fault. I acknowledge that impact outweighs intent. I didn’t take into account the Australian media landscape and the inherent privilege that I hold as a white woman,” she said.
“My actions had the potential to undermine the importance that this pivotal season of The Bachelorette holds to the First Nations and LGBTQIA+ Communities. This is an extremely important conversation to be having. In future, this will be at the forefront of my mind and I will continue to listen to and amplify minority communities, and endeavour to learn. I’m sorry,” her post concluded.
Regarding Abbie’s apology, not everyone is buying it. Brooke’s Bachy bestie Alisha Aitken-Radburn left a rather pointed comment on Abbie’s post, claiming that Abbie hasn’t been taking Brooke’s phone calls. Another of Brooke’s close pals, Gabrielle Ebsworth, took to her Instagram Story to address Abbie, writing: “If you post an apology to Instagram but don’t actually apologise to the person you’ve wronged, you’re not actually apologising.”
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What’s everyone else saying?
Feminist author Clementine Ford took to her Instagram Stories praising Brooke for her bravery calling out white privilege and addressing Abbie’s choice to post about Konrad during Bachelorette finale week.
Read her posts below:
Former Bachelorette Angie Kent has been one of the most vocal defenders of Brooke. Angie wrote in her Yahoo recap, “Let’s talk about the TALL, over the top order that I am sure Brooke did in fact not order right before her finale episodes,” she started. “The relationship hard launch that maybe could have waited so that the attention wasn’t taken away from the first-ever woman of colour and pansexual Bachelorette.”
She continued, “This is the first season where it wasn’t supposed to be about white blonde girls. If we wanted headlines about white blonde girls and cisgender hot party boy types, well you can tune into any of the past seasons really.”
In an Instagram post on the So Dramatic! podcast’s page, a few former reality stars applauded her sentiments. Gogglebox’s Yvie Jones added clapping emojis and, rather awkwardly, Abbie’s rumoured ex-fling Todd King commented mic drop emojis.
Another comment on a So Dramatic! post regarding the timing of Abbie’s hard launch read “I mean, she could have waited until Monday, surely?”, with the statement liked by The Bachelor’s Irena Srbinovska, Alisha, Todd (again lol), and Brooke herself.
Phew! That’s everything that has gone down so far! Being a reality TV fan is truly a full-time job.