MIKAELA & ELIZA
The surfing Greene sisters – Mikaela is 24, Eliza is 21 – admit to WHO that they gave up a lot to appear on House Rules (continues Sun., May 12 at 7pm and Mon., May 13 to Wed., May 15 at 7.30pm; Seven).
As professional surfers, how much did you sacrifice career-wise to be on the show? MIKAELA You have no idea the amount of FOMO [fear of missing out] I had! I was getting so many messages from my friends while they were competing, like, “Where are you guys? Are you competing?” And I was like, “I’m injured”, “I’m out of the water”, “I’m going to start competing later, I have to rehab.” I was lying through my teeth to make sure we kept everything about the show under wraps.
All these competitions I’d won a year before, I would have been going back as defending champion, and I was missing out on them. What about sponsorship deals and things like that?
MIKAELA I feel like we definitely [missed out]. Even with our social media channel, we had to deactivate and weren’t really allowed to post any current content, so we were definitely limited but our sponsors were pretty understanding. They didn’t know what we were filming, they just knew we were filming something. Was the FOMO the hardest part of House Rules? ELIZA So, Mikaela and I are competitive athletes. We travel all round the world competing, and
I take control of our schedule. Mikaela does, too, but I book the flights and accommodation. I have a full grasp on everything and Mikaela does as well, and I feel like it was probably the hardest thing for me to let go of control and be emailed the flights the night before, or the day before, not knowing where we’re going. That was an adjustment when we first started.