For a single moment in time, perhaps a month or two, these women are the most famous faces in the country. Their name is brandished in headlines, their face on every newsfeed. Their actions and their mannerisms and their mistakes are picked up, analysed and thrown back in their faces with the force of a nation sprouting their hate.
They may be unlikeable, they may even be mean sometimes, but like a modern-day stampede, we force their head onto a pike and march through the streets, our indignation and our anger loud and public. Their actions don’t affect our lives, but they certainly elicit emotions.
They are our reality TV villains, and their reputations are our entertainment.
This year, it’s Davina and Dean of Married at First Sight. The year before that, it was Jen and Leah from The Bachelor. There was Chloe and Kelly from My Kitchen Rules and David from the Bachelorette and Jono from Married and First Sight and the list goes on and on and on because no season of reality TV can exist without the casting of at least one.
In 2016, it was Keira Maguire.
She knows, more than most, how absurd reality TV can make a contestant’s own reality.
“I had no idea that I was going to be a villain, none at all. But at the same time, I’m not someone who holds back on what they say. I didn’t really care what people thought and I am quite honest,” she tells Mamamia, reflecting on an experience that made her as equally famous as it did despised.
Mia Freedman interviewed Keira Maguire right after her time on The Bachelor. This is what she had to say. Post continues after audio.