BONUS: Bachelorette Brooke Blurton on sexual fluidity and making history
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Why is this season of The Bachelorette considered a historic moment for queer representation?
This is an ABC podcast.
Have you been watching the latest season of The Australian Bachelorette? I'm not normally one to watch, but this year it's the first ever mixed gender bisexual season of The Bachelorette anywhere in the world. So it's super huge for queer representation in what has been a very heteronormative space. So obviously I had to get into it. I'm Nat Tenchich, and in this bonus episode, you'll hear my conversation with Noongar Yamaji woman Brooke Blurton. If you're a Batchy fan, you might remember Brooke. We first met her in 2018 as a contestant vying for the heart of Nick Cummins, aka the Honey Badger, in which she came out as having had relationships with women on national TV. She walked out on the final three upon learning that Nick didn't intend on choosing a winner.
And later, she returned to Bachelor in Paradise, where she connected with Alex Nation, but was left brokenhearted. Now she's looking for love for the third time on national TV. But she's the one handing out the roses to guys and gals this time. And it's given this series a whole new life. Well, I caught up with Brooke to find out how she was feeling about pioneering these big changes to the franchise.
don't think I've really processed it to be honest um I think I don't think the whole gravity of it I think I was just really looking forward to doing this season regardless of the titles and everything I think just being broken and and hoping that I would you know hoping for my happy ever like after but yeah I don't think I've actually processed the gravity of it all I think I didn't try also to think about that I think it's really exciting for everyone as much as it is for me but I think you know I love I love the franchise I've been really supportive of you know the success of the show in the early years last couple years has
hasn't
been the greatest but I've always kind of loved the idea of like finding my person regardless of how that happened so
Yeah, and like any option of person that you are sort of available to, I have to say like when that was announced, like as a queer person, it was just so exciting to see this transfer into really the mainstream. We're going to call Batchy as a franchise the mainstream and finally there's queerness on this platform. Like I know you're processing it, but I just wanted to say it's super meaningful to someone like me.
Oh, thank you. I've had so many beautiful and thoughtful messages from both communities, especially in my First Nations mob and the queer community. I feel extremely proud, honestly. I think that's exactly how I feel, is just a lot of pride. I think I really wanted to do this and hold so much integrity to both the communities that I was representing, but also to myself. And I feel like... you'll see it come through, but it won't be so tokenized or like exaggerated, which is what people thought it would be like. I think there's an assumption that like, like, okay, you know, there's concerns that they overemphasize on things, but I don't really, I think it'd be very tasteful.
Did you sort of have a big hand in that approach? Because when it comes to doing something like this and being the first, like how instrumental were you in getting this format going? Like talk to me about how it actually happened.
I think doing it the first time, Look, when I look at how I was in 2018, I feel like I was a little bit fragile. I think obviously I was getting used to being on camera and having cameras around and all that sort of stuff. And then as I sort of grew more into my skin and got really more comfortable in doing camera stuff and media stuff, I kind of looked at it differently in some sense. Like obviously I've always wanted to find my person and I had two years away from the franchise. A lot of people don't actually realise is that When I did 2018, I filmed Paradise the same year. So I had two years of 2019 and 20 away from it. And I was like, if they're going to do it, this is how I want to do it. And I had a lot of say in how I wanted it to run.
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Chapters
3 chapters
1
Why is this season of The Bachelorette considered a historic moment for queer representation?
0:02–7:43
2
How did Brooke initially feel about returning to the franchise and what expectations did she have?
7:43–13:21
3
What role did Brooke play in shaping the format and contestant mix for the mixed‑gender season?
13:21–15:01