health podcasts

'Anorexic. Annoying. Bogan.' Sam Frost has been torn apart. So she put herself back together.

Anorexic, annoying, bitch, bogan, bones, skinny, thin, ugly, unhealthy, vile, weight.

These are just some of the words Sam Frost has put into her Instagram comments moderator so she never has to see a hurtful message containing them ever again.

Sometimes a new one crops up (the joy), so she adds it to the list.

Sam wears her heart on her sleeve during an interview on No Filter. Post continues after podcast.

Sometimes a keyboard warrior spells their insult wrong, so it gets past the 30 year old’s defence mechanism.

Five years on from Sam’s catapult into stardom on the Channel Ten franchise The Bachelor and then The Bacheloretteshe’s still copping daily abuse.

“For me my biggest one is people love to comment on my weight,” Sam told Mamamia.

“It still comes up. It baffles me…It happens all the time. It’s a constant, constant thing,” she said.

Often after years in the limelight, stars, influencers and actors talk of “growing a thick skin” to withstand the intense criticism levelled their way.

But Sam doesn’t think she has developed that at all.

“I think I am still as sensitive as I have ever been.

“I don’t think you get a thicker skin, you just get a better understanding of why it’s happening,” she told Mamamia.

For instance, she’s worked out who these supposed ‘trolls’ are.

“I always think people who write those comments are the same people who toot the horn as soon as the light goes green,” she laughed.

ADVERTISEMENT

“They must just walk around angry, that must be so exhausting.”

She’s also figured out that it’s just people projecting their insecurities on her instead of dealing with it themselves.

It has nothing to do with her.

And in 2019, Sam is happier than she’s ever been.

She’s got a partner she loves, a family as tight-knit as ever, and a job she has found her stride in – playing Jasmine on Home and Away.

ADVERTISEMENT

But it hasn’t been the easiest of roads.

Time and time again she’s taken on the scrutiny of the Australian public, and the Australian media.

She got dumped by 2014 Bachelor Blake Garvey after being proposed to on national TV.

Her relationship with her choice from the Bachelorette Sascha Meilczarek also crumbled.

She was axed from the national radio show she shared with Rove McManus on 2DayFM after a brief five month stint.

The glare was brutal and relentless.

“It makes you feel like you’re worthless and not good enough,” Sam said of her darker moments.

Of her radio days, Sam says it was unbelievably hard to turn up to work some days.

“It was a really vulnerable position to be in, particularly when your relationship’s breaking down, or you’re having a really shitty time.

“It’s really difficult to go to work and they say ‘so what did you do on the weekend’ and I feel like saying; ‘I slept and cried all weekend’.

“Having to be upbeat when you aren’t is hard,” she admitted.

Acting is a huge reprieve.

She works off a script now on the set of her hit Channel Seven show, not a script formed from the goings on of her own life.

ADVERTISEMENT
Sam Frost
Sam and her Home and Away co-star Sarah Roberts. Image: Instagram froO1

Sam's lowest moment came in 2016.

"To the fake accounts heavily trolling me online & into my personal life. If you wanted to break me, Congratulations you've won #broken ," she wrote on Twitter.

On her radio show she opened up about that time, admitting that she didn't want to be here anymore. Or wake up every day anymore.

Sam hit rock bottom.

One of the most uplifting nuggets of advice she received as she weathered that storm was from former reality TV show contestant turned media personality, Chrissie Swan.

ADVERTISEMENT

"She told me she looked up to comedian Hamish Blake and even on his comments people were writing negative things to him and she was like 'ohhhh it happens to everyone,'" Sam told Mamamia.

Chrissie told her to do the same to someone she admired.

"So I thought about the people I look up to - Carrie Bickmore, Chrissie Swan and Fifi Box and all of these beautiful Australian women. I realised they'd all received negative comments. It made me feel more at peace," she said.

More importantly it was years of therapy that really helped Sam get back on top of her mental health.

"I feel like I have evolved a lot and learnt a lot about how our brains work and the psychology behind depression and anxiety, and worked with my psychologist to feel at peace," she explained.

"It has allowed me to objectively see my experiences and where I've come from and talk about it honestly," she added.

It's how and why she's in a place to start her new venture Believe by Sam Frost, a mental health initiative for young girls and women focusing on depression, anxiety, toxic relationships and navigating the challenging world of social media.

Over the years Sam has been inundated with women's stories.

In between the hate and the trolling, there have been heartbreaking admissions, pleas for help and stories of triumph.

Women going through divorce, fertility issues, PTSD, cheating boyfriends, bullying at school - the stories were endless.

ADVERTISEMENT

"My sister told me; 'don't feel like you have to reply and take on all of their problems, because it's really affecting you'.

But Sam knows she is a sensitive soul and couldn't help but take on everyone's pain - and the stories kept coming.

So her sister Kristine suggested a website.

"I don't have the experience and the tools to deal with mental health. I just know from experience," said Sam.

ADVERTISEMENT

"So we lead people to a fantastic list of trained professionals which can be hard to find sometimes all in the same place in a way that's really easy to understand.

"Sometimes you get lost in clinical explanations of what things are, when you just need to hear it in everyday words and through people's stories," she explained.

And Sam and Kristine's website is exactly that.

"A lot of people look up to me, and I take the responsibility of being someone in the public eye seriously.

"I feel like the best thing I can do is tell my story truthfully because that's what I would have wanted when I was younger and struggling with depression or not being able to fit in, or even just feeling comfortable with weird quirks," she said.

Sam and Kristine
Sam and her sister Kristine. Image: Believe.
ADVERTISEMENT

They've only been live for just short of two weeks, and already they're making a difference.

"I had a lady contact us who said she read our toxic relationships section and she said, 'omg I have been in a toxic relationship for three and a half years and I've just realised he's been emotionally abusing me and I am getting out so thank you'.

"We both had goosebumps and we got really teary, it's exactly why we started this," Sam told Mamamia.

Speaking to Sam, the passion she has for her new venture is obvious.

Of course she still has bad days, but now, she just transforms those feelings into lessons that she can put on her website.

But she hates that trolling is still a thing, a thing that doesn't seem to be going away.

"No one knows what's going on behind closed doors.

"We say this all the time people love splashing it on Instagram, but it's true. You don't know - so don't make a comment. You don't know people's battles", she told Mamamia.

Her advice to keyboard warriors?

"Don't make assumptions and don't be an arsehole," she replied.