I’ve had enough of Abbie Chatfield.
Every week there seems to be a new target. Former friends, reality stars, celebrities, politicians, and, of course, the Australian media.
According to Abbie, we are all out to get her, ruin her career, bring her down, and are currently running a ‘smear campaign’.
Quite frankly, it has gone too far – and it is also just not true.
Abbie knows exactly how this game works. She played it brilliantly. She used the media to become a household name. Why is she suddenly pretending she does not understand the rules anymore?
And look, she has every right to change her mind. She can absolutely decide that the paparazzi she once tipped off to photograph her at the beach in a bikini are now ‘creepy’ and ‘stalkers’.
‘I work in a newsroom, Abbie, and I can assure you nobody is sitting around plotting your downfall,’ writes Daily Mail senior reporter Jonica Bray
When Abbie first stepped onto our screens in season seven of The Bachelor, something genuinely rare happened. People liked her. (She is pictured on the reality show)
She can decide the media outlets she once wanted coverage from are now ‘twisting facts’ and creating ‘false narratives’.
But I work in a newsroom, Abbie, and I can assure you nobody is sitting around plotting your downfall.
In fact – and this may sting a little – you barely come up at all.
The last time I heard your name mentioned in an editorial meeting was after it had already ended, when someone casually said: ‘Can we just acknowledge that Abbie Chatfield’s boyfriend has been kicked out of America?’
(A US immigration spokesperson has since clarified that Adam Hyde wasn’t deported. He was denied entry at the Canadian border due to national security concerns).
A few people briefly chatted about it while everyone else picked up their notepads and walked out of the room with very little interest in the latest chapter of your ongoing drama.
And there has been a lot of drama.
Even legal cases. None of which the media created, I might add.
Abbie has admitted to staging a paparazzi shoot when she was ‘skint’ early in her career. (Above: one of the snaps she orchestrated for publicity with her then-boyfriend Todd King)
But let’s rewind for a moment, because when Abbie first stepped onto our screens on season seven of The Bachelor, something genuinely rare happened.
People liked her.
In the cynical, manufactured world of reality TV where contestants are usually forgotten the second filming wraps, Abbie stood out.
She had all the ingredients. Funny. Smart. Sexy. A genuine triple threat in an industry that usually only requires you to be one of those things.
She attended events. Agreed to interviews. Posed for photos. She instinctively understood that fame is not simply handed to you in Australia.
It is built headline by headline, then social media takes care of the rest.
Back when I worked on glossy magazines, I was rooting for her.
I remember saying at the time that she would be perfect in a chaotic, fun breakfast television role similar to Paula Yates on UK smash hit The Big Breakfast, interviewing musicians and Hollywood stars from a bed on live TV.
After the Bachelor finale aired, with Abbie finishing runner-up and earning a sympathetic send-off after a season flirting with a villain edit, public interest, unsurprisingly, began to wane.
Historically, if you finish second on a dating show in Australia, you get gifted a few beauty products, maybe an influencer campaign or two, and then quietly drift back to your normal life.
The Aussie public is a tough crowd. Unlike Britain, where standout reality stars regularly transform into mainstream television presenters and household names, we tend to move on far more quickly.
But Abbie refused to disappear.
I remember hearing about her meetings with would-be managers who simply did not see the value in representing her. It is hard enough finding long-term opportunities for the winners of these shows, never mind the runners-up.
When that fizzled, a journalist friend of mine tried to help her carve out a media career and stay in the spotlight, but admitted she was struggling to gain traction.
That was around the time Abbie made what she says is her one and only foray into the world of staged paparazzi photos.
Yes, she once worked with the same paps she now condemns as ‘creepy’ and invasive.
She has confessed as much, revealing on her podcast last year: ‘We set up with some paparazzi to take photos of us at the beach. We were going anyway.’
The memorable set, which ran in magazines before landing on sites like the Daily Mail as second-rights content, showed her canoodling with then-boyfriend Todd King.
Fresh off his own runner-up heartbreak on The Bachelorette, a beachside shoot featuring the pair was always going to command top dollar.
It would have been a nice little payday. And there is nothing wrong with that, by the way. It happens all the time in this industry.
Once upon a time, celebrity shutterbugs were coy about such arrangements. These days, they are far less concerned about who knows.
For Abbie, the collaboration was calculated and strategic, and I, for one, admired it.
She was hustling to stay visible in an industry with the attention span of a goldfish. Honestly? It was kind of iconic.
And while Abbie maintains it was a one-off because she was ‘f**king skint’, the trouble with paparazzi is that once you’ve dealt with them, it’s like striking a pact with the devil – and there’s no easy way out.
They think you’re fair game.
Eventually, my journalist mate texted to ask if I knew any managers who might take Abbie on.
As it happened, I did.
A friend of mine, Shane, was managing the Geordie Shore cast at the time and knew exactly how to turn reality TV fame into global profit.
Reality stars like Charlotte Crosby had transformed club appearances and tabloid headlines into multimillion-dollar brands.
I passed on his details and clearly the pair clicked because Abbie signed with him and they are still working together all these years later.
And honestly? Good for her.
She clawed, charmed and hustled her way into genuine cultural relevance – and for a long time, I admired it.
But somewhere along the way, the self-awareness vanished.
Last year, Abbie posted a video declaring: ‘Clickbait journalism is the most embarrassing scum-of-the-earth job you can have.’
It struck me as deeply ironic considering her career and platform were built off the back of reality TV, an industry fuelled by sensational headlines and gossip journalism.
‘Maybe being tangled up in defamation cases, apologising after your boyfriend was barred from a country you slammed, berating teachers for using TikTok, publicly shaming anyone who disagrees with you, and branding journalists as ‘scum’ might also have something to do with the stress you are now under.’ (Abbie is pictured with boyfriend Adam Hyde at the ARIAs)
And it is also an incredibly sweeping statement because many of the people Abbie claims to support are the exact people working in those media jobs.
Women. Single mothers. LGBTQI+ journalists. Young reporters. Minority cultures.
Trust me – journalists are not millionaire media moguls sitting in glass towers plotting the destruction of influencers.
Many are overworked, underpaid and trying to survive in an industry that tech companies are determined to throttle into an early grave.
Sure, maybe some of us once imagined we would be changing the world every single day. But we also have bills to pay and children to feed.
And yes, some weeks I cover TikTok feuds involving former reality stars, but other weeks I cover violent offenders being released into the community, missing children, the housing crisis, or families navigating the failures of the NDIS.
The Australian audience clicks on both. Journalists do not control that.
One comment on Abbie’s latest media rant claimed that someone like Karl Stefanovic would never be treated this way – apparently because the media hates women.
But that comparison does not really work.
Karl is not a reality contestant turned influencer. He is an award-winning journalist and television host.
And besides, it absolutely did happen to Karl.
His divorce and subsequent new relationship dominated headlines. He was photographed kissing a younger woman at the airport. Then there was the infamous Ubergate scandal with his brother Peter and the media frenzy that followed.
That was not a smear campaign either. It was simply coverage of factual events involving a high-profile public figure.
For a long time, Karl’s personal choices affected his professional opportunities, too.
The Australian media is not sitting around obsessing over Abbie Chatfield.
Unless Abbie’s posting videos attacking people, stirring up controversy, or industry sources are feeding journalists tips, she just isn’t front of mind in most newsrooms.
Nobody is hunting for Abbie stories like it’s the next Watergate.
We report on what is happening and what people are talking about.
Of course, it was years ago that Abbie actively chased the media attention she now claims to despise.
And it is absolutely her right to decide if she no longer wants the photos, gossip columns or constant speculation.
But the entertainment industry is not built for half-measures.
Every major television network and radio station in Australia employs entire marketing and publicity departments, many filled with former journalists, whose sole purpose is maintaining relationships with the media to generate publicity.
You cannot spend years using the machine to build your fame and then act shocked when the machine continues operating exactly as it always has.
Maybe, just maybe, being tangled up in defamation cases, apologising after your boyfriend was barred from a country you slammed, berating teachers for using TikTok, publicly shaming those who disagree with you, and branding journalists as ‘scum’ might also have something to do with the stress you are now under.
In her latest plea, she pushed back at a reporter who was preparing an article about her being ‘quietly dropped’ from a deal she was allegedly close to signing. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of that claim – but, broadly speaking, companies do sometimes decide someone isn’t the right fit if they’re deemed too controversial.
Maybe it’s not a media conspiracy ruining opportunities, Abbie.
Maybe it’s simply reputation, behaviour and public perception catching up in real time.
