The Brooke Blurton you don’t see

Brooke Blurton always had reservations about appearing on The Bachelorette. 

At just 23 years old, Blurton shot to national prominence as the first Black and bisexual woman to appear in the reality TV franchise. 

Blurton, who is now a youth worker, author, podcaster and mental health advocate, is clear about her motivations for appearing on the show.

Image Source: Brooke Blurton

“The intent was obviously mainly love, and it might sound stupidly naive, and yes, I was pretty young, but I was also very smart,” she tells Helen McCabe as part of FW’s Too Much podcast.

But she has complex feelings about her time on the show. She describes it as a “very toxic environment” while also maintaining that she is “really glad” to have been part of it. 

“I’d gone from playing AFL footy with a massive group of girls who are competitive, but also working together as a team, to a different competitive environment where the objective is the guy,” she says.

Blurton now sees how a lot was weighing on her shoulders during this period. 

“The reservations [about being on the show] really came from my own self-criticalness,” she says. “I’m very hard on myself … [so my] reservations were, would I be pigeonholed? Would I be boxed? Would I be stereotyped? … Would I be liked?”.

“There’s all these complexities to the scenario … [but] like most of the girls were just signing up there to have a good time,” she adds. 

“There are complexities to exposing your whole life to the Australian public.”

Blurton has struggled, at times, with the media spotlight.

She counts herself lucky the hatred and trolling came “in one wave”, but describes at times feeling “used and abused” in the name of a story. 

“[My] life was so private, and I’ve lost, you know, a bit of privacy,” she says. “But at the same time, I kind of have used that [loss of privacy] to elevate my voice.”

Blurton feels she was playing an important role as a First Nations woman who, in her words, could “just exist” on a dating show. 

“I think that responsibility is really something I take a lot of pride in, but … it’s a burden too,” she says. “And again, that’s why it’s very complex, because it’s not a matter of me being like, I’m just going to sign up for a TV show, become famous and live happily ever after.”

“I think I’ve been able to navigate the media world [by] flipping the narrative, this stereotype and narrow narratives that people have of First Nations people being disadvantaged, or, you know, uneducated,” she adds. “But there are complexities to exposing your whole life to the Australian public and not necessarily always reaping the benefits in a positive world.”

Today Blurton has learned to navigate the media spotlight by keeping parts of her personality private.

“[I’ve] started to realise how much dimension I actually have as a person, and how much Brooke Blurton as a brand is this very like confined version of myself,” she says. “And I think that’s okay – I’ve accepted that Brooke Blurton is definitely a brand. 

“And then when I’m myself, I’m Brooklyn, which is actually my original name, and I can be chaos and mess and complex as much as I want to be.”