'It made me really upset.' The one moment from FBOY Island that Abbie Chatfield wouldn’t tolerate.

When FBOY Island Australia was first announced, host Abbie Chatfield found herself defending the reality show before a single episode had made it to air.

Many people took issue with the name, the premise of the series and even Chatfield's involvement in the production, thinking that the show, which was based on the American franchise, was setting women up to be tortured by F Boys for the audience's entertainment.

If you cast an eye back over the history of Australian reality TV and the treatment of women at the hands of aggressive men who are good for ratings, it has to be said that this concern is not without precedent.

However, when the series premiered in 2023 and the premise of the show was made clear, much of the concern was quickly quelled.

FBOY Island is hooked on three women who band together and are paired with 24 men, 12 of those men are self-proclaimed F Boys while the other 12 are self-proclaimed nice guys and it's up to the girls to figure out who is who and hopefully fall in love along the way. 

"Everyone is much more understanding the tone of the show this time around," Abbie told Mamamia from within the walls of the FBOY Island mansion, while in the midst of filming season two earlier this year. 

"Last year it was hard for some of the guys, particularly the F Boys, who all have big egos and didn't think women should speak. As a female host, I was making fun of them every chance I got. They didn't understand what the edit would look like, or that there would be good options for the producers to use. So sometimes they were getting genuinely insulted.

"Whereas this year, they're coming in with a complete understanding of what's going on and they're getting excited when I insult them. 

"They're just so thrilled to be insulted by me, which I love. I think they are definitely smarter than last year and they've got new tricks. The girls do as well."

One thing that can be said about every version of reality TV dating shows is that the situation is set up to escalate quickly. I tell Abbie during our interview that I have stopped by the girl's villa and they confessed they were already developing feelings for some men who currently dwell in the F Boy house we're sitting in. 

"From being on The Bachelor, the way I described being on that show to people is that on those dates you have no phone and you don't have any distractions," Abbie said. "There's none of that bullshit chat about where you want to go for dinner. 

"So you can get deeper really quickly and that makes you fall in love quickly. I think I know who each of them are going to pick already. 

"I do have my own favourites and my least favourites," she continued. "My biggest hate is when contestants are rude to crew members, it really, really makes me upset. Our crew are actually the best and I've known many of them since The Bachelor days. 

"So for people to be rude to people that I've worked with for so long and who I really care about makes me angry. Some contestants think that because they are in front of the camera that they're better than the crew who are getting them water or doing their makeup or who are telling them where to go. 

"So I go to them 'you've got a f**king ego'. Some of them even look at me like I'm stupid when we're doing things like repositioning cameras. They think they know what we do and they'll even try to beat me to a punch line and I go, 'you have no idea what's going on here'.

F Boy Island season two 

It's at this point in our interview that I bring up an infamous moment from FBoy Islandseason one, where Abbie chastised the men for directly going against her instructions while filming an elimination scene, resulting in an already long day of filming stretching into the early hours of the morning. 

"We'd been there since 7am and it was almost midnight," Abbie told me, a slight glint of fury visible in her eyes as I force her to relive the memory. "That happens a lot on this show because filming reality TV is very different to any other show. We just don't know how long something like an elimination is going to take. 

"On this particular night, I said 'guys don't get up'. I told them not to stand up and hug the people who were leaving. I think their motivation in that moment was to get more screen time, I don't think they were actually upset about someone leaving. What they're doing is trying to be the emotional guy on camera and all they're doing is f**king over the crew and I'm part of the crew. I've also been there since seven o'clock and my feet are f**king hurting.

"But my overall issue is I want to protect the crew because, like I said, our crew are genuinely the f**king best," she continued. "I don't think those men would do this if I was a male host, and that really irritates me.

"It's a sort of misogyny around not seeing a woman as authoritative, where they will literally ignore me to the point where I have to be yelling. 

"I'm the f**king host and they think I'm just there to look pretty and walk on. Not that I have meetings with producers about what we're filming and I also understand how TV works and what needs to be done."

Listen to Abbie Chatfield's interview on The Spill. Story continues below.

Now that Australian audiences are more aware of how FBOY Island works and what the format of the show is, Abbie said they've been able to change up the style of the show a little this time around. 

"I had meetings with the writers and producers about how we push things a bit more this time," Abbie said. "How we can be a bit sillier now that we're not trying to prove what the real intentions of the show are. 

"As I said at the time (regarding the backlash around the show's announcement) when it came to FBoy Island putting women in danger, in shows like Married At First Sight or The Bachelor the men on those shows are using the same disguise, always saying they are 'here for the right reasons'.

"With FBOY Island the point is to question who they are," she explained. "Let's be honest, no one would watch reality TV if everyone was nice and everyone was happy. As an example, I see people commenting about a franchise like Real Housewives and saying 'why are they fighting so much?'. My response to that is would you watch people having a nice dinner? Because I wouldn't. 

"Let's be honest with ourselves, there always needs to be some sort of conflict or drama. This show encourages conflict and drama but in a productive way. 

"And honestly, in terms of the producers and the conversations we have on this show, they are more critical of the men's behavior and the men get called out on it. I feel like on other shows that I've been on, or shows that I watch, the producers will say to the men who behave badly 'we want you to stay for the show'.

"Whereas here we will say to the women 'did you actually like that he did that? Are you sure you're okay with it?'. We're always questioning these men and I'm constantly saying things like 'how incredibly f**king rude was that' and I'm  encouraged to do it. 

"I think the show is a little like Barbie in a way," she told me, as our interview came to a close. "Will really progressive educated feminists learn things from the show? Probably not. Can they still enjoy it? Yes. 

"I think it's more for the general public, that kind of middle ground, who are still getting used to ideas about patriarchy, and about questioning how men relate in relationships."

FBOY Island Australia will premiere on BINGE and Foxtel from Monday August 5.

Feature image: Binge

Laura Brodnik is Mamamia's Head of Entertainment and host of The Spill podcast. You can follow her on Instagram here for more entertainment news and recommendations.