PAPS! PARTIES! & POTS OF CASH! Would you ditch your 9 to 5 to be a reality star?
Cosmopolitan’s JOSIE COPSON spends a month infiltrating the world of the reality stars to find out what it takes to make it…
IT IS LAURA 31st CARTER’S BIRTHDAY.
She has 53,000 followers on Twitter and, at last count, 101,000 followers on Instagram. I found out this fact when she startled me with a sudden outburst of “Oh my God. Oh my God – I only had 99k yesterday” during our meeting, her perfect red pout transformed into a genuine smile. What a good birthday gift!” She outstretched her hand for a high five, and I, her friend of the past 30 minutes, happily clapped my hand right back.
We’re sitting in Harvey Nichols’ top-floor champagne bar in London’s Knightsbridge. Carter is nibbling on her shop-bought salad that she sneaked in, between sips of her £32 Pecorino wine, much to the annoyance of the waiters. “They hate me,” she silently mouths every time they walk by.
I’m here because I’ve long been obsessed with reality stars and the way they can turn sunbathing and getting drunk on TV into a career. Carter is a reality TV star (you may have caught her having her nipples sucked by Marco Pierre White Jnr on Big Brother over the summer) and due to that exposure (Big Brother, not her braless action) this year, if she’s smart, she could make a whole lot of dough.
Reality-TV stars were once seen as nothing more than liberally self-tanned dilettantes; now they are meticulously managed brands who, with the right entourage, can hatch long and lucrative careers. The Kardashians, who, back in 1995, were best known for having a father – Robert Kardashian – who defended OJ Simpson in court, are a prime example. Thanks to the success of their reality show, Keeping Up With The Kardashians (and a shitload of squats), each family member now has their own multimillion-dollar empire.
It’s happening on this side of the pond, too. Geordie Shore’s Charlotte Crosby, now widely accepted as a shrewd businesswoman, rather than a bed-wetting girl about town, has earned hundreds of thousands of pounds thanks to a bestselling fitness DVD, autobiography, clothing line and by becoming the face of Easilocks hair extensions (Shane O’Sullivan’s brainchild), not to mention the product endorsements on her social media. It’s the same for her on/off boyfriend Gaz Beadle, who’s revealed that he makes around £40,000 a month just from personal-appearance gigs across the country. This involves turning up to a nightclub, encouraging the crowd to get ‘mortal,’ and taking one lucky girl home for a buck.
A PIECE OF THE REALITY PIE
An appearance on a reality show is no longer seen as the shallow pursuit of the nascent narcissist, but rather as a canny hack to creating a personal brand and business. Love Island, the sleeper reality-TV hit of the summer, had more than 1.35 million viewers for the finale. Almost all the finalists now have their hands in some sort of entrepreneurial enterprise. Olivia Buckland, a sweet blonde from Essex, was selling branded stationery before she entered
the show. Now, thanks to a little help from her agent, Freddy White of White Label Mgmt, she has her own clothing line with high-street brand Quiz (she’s the sixth Islander to do it) and regularly indulges in sponsored posts across her social-media platforms (reported to make around £500 per 100,000 followers; she has almost a million on Instagram).
Youth unemployment in this country is the worst it’s been for 20 years. Once, university was a guaranteed gateway to a steady, successful career; now it can feel like a debt-ridden millstone around our necks. A quarter of all graduates are still unemployed six months after leaving university. As for the property ladder, owning a house by the time I hit 30 is about as likely as Daniel Craig coming over to my east-London houseshare and popping the question. So it’s no wonder a whole heap of young men and women across the UK want a piece of the reality pie. Last year, Love Island had 7,000 applicants in total, while 2017’s series received 30,000 applicants in the first month.
But it’s not quite as simple as applying to be on a show. If you’re a professional socialmedia stalker like me, you’ll have noticed that many of the contestants already know each other. Coincidence? Not one bit, because if you want to be a reality star, there’s a well-worn path you need to follow before you even get a sniff of a show – and I’m on it.
WHAT’S YOUR USP?
Dave Read, agent to the reality stars, has suggested we meet at Sugar Hut, the Essex nightclub at the centre of all TOWIE drama, for our meeting. The ex-club promoter has been an agent for 17 years. His name and his company Neon Management appear on many a reality star’s Twitter and Instagram bios, so I hunted him down for a meeting. Ross Kemp was his first client, but now he has the likes of Joey Essex (of Reem fame), TOWIE’s Chloe Lewis and the most popular members of the Love Island cast on his books. Read is a big deal – he turns reality stars into TV personalities that exist outside of their respective shows.
I already have a drink, but he orders me a lemonade, and himself a pot of tea. A young blonde girl follows us over with the drinks. He flashes his fluorescent smile. “I’ll take a sugar too, when you’re back this way.” She’s back within a minute. “So…” he says, switching his attention to me. “What do you want to know?” “What makes a good reality star?” He smiles as if it’s a college exam and this is the question he’s revised the hardest for. “Every reality star needs a USP [unique selling point]. It doesn’t matter what it is. They can be the moodiest one. The one with the biggest boobs. Joey Essex hams up the stupidity because that’s his USP. That’s his hook.”
He stares at me hard, as if he’s deciding what my USP would be. I suddenly feel conscious that I haven’t washed my hair for four days. I hope that isn’t my thing now.
Read doesn’t wait around for people to just find fame, either. “We find the stars and then we put them on the shows. I put Cara de la Hoyde on Love Island. I met her at Cirque Du Soleil, she was a performer there, and then I sat right here with her and convinced her to do the show. I put Terry Walsh [the guy who
932,000 people follow Olivia Buckland on Instagram £40k is what Gaz Beadle earns from gig appearances per month More than 1.35 million viewers tuned in for this year’s grand finale of Love Island
cheated on his girlfriend on national TV which, by the way, Read said was a good move for establishing his ‘bad boy’ USP] on the show too, after he contacted me pitching himself to be famous. I put Hannah and Jon in there last year, too [Love Island 2015 runners-up; Jon has since gone on to have a permanent role in TOWIE].”
“What are my chances of hitting the big time on the small screen?” I ask. He slowly looks me up and down. “I can give anyone 15 minutes of fame with my connections. But whether that becomes credible, and you’re happy with it and your parents are happy with it, is a completely different conversation.” He pauses. “I’d never let my daughter do it. She’s just got As in all her GCSEs – she’s way too smart.”
Read tells me the company’s inbox is “overloaded” with people of all ages asking to become reality stars. “They’re not even asking for a particular show or saying they’re talented. They want fame and they want it instantly. Of course, the hardest thing is telling them yes, you could be successful, but the most likely thing is you will be back in your job at Asda within a few weeks. Big Brother producers call it the ‘talk of doom.’ That’s just the reality of reality.”
THE STAR-SEEKERS
Making it in this world is also about knowing where to be seen in order to get ‘spotted.’ Kate Maddigan is a commissioning editor at ITV, and has worked on TOWIE for over four years and Love Island for two. Part of her job involves whittling down the thousands of hopefuls.
“You have to find people that you think the public are going to fall in love with. They can see a bit of themselves in them. They aspire to be like them. They fancy them. They want to be their best mate. The people who are the stars of their own friendship group tend to make the best reality stars.”
Casting involves a lot more than just looking through the plethora of online applications. “We have a young team who just go out and tread the streets. They hang out in nightclubs, sports clubs, gyms, shopping centres,” says Maddigan.
Later, I ask Carter where I should go if I want Maddigan’s team to pick me as their next Vicky Pattison. “We all go to the same events and clubs. Libertine is Wednesdays and Sundays, Dstrkt is Tuesdays and Mahiki is Thursdays. The best nights are when normal people are in bed. Sorry, not normal – nine-to-five-ers.”
Suddenly her phone flashes. It’s her paparazzi ‘friend.’ “He always makes sure my photos get published,” she says as she checks her pristine lipstick in her phone’s front camera. He’s given her strict instructions to get to Harrods so he can get a photo of her before she goes to the Jeans For Genes charity event down the road. “Sorry to ask, but do you mind holding my bag while I have my photos taken?” The flashes start. Carter effortlessly strikes different poses while slowing down her walk into a bewitching slow-mo for maximum exposure, while I struggle to walk in a straight line behind her.
Inside, it’s like reality-star soup. Big Brother’s Nikki Grahame is in the corner, Sophie Kasaei – the one who screamed “chlamydia” while having sex on Geordie Shore – is there with her boyfriend Joel Corry (the one who drunkenly pooed his pants on said show). Big Brother’s Casey Batchelor is by the bar, and Love Island’s
Laura Carter reportedly makes £500 per sponsored post on her social media platforms
30,000 wannabe reality stars applied in the first month for Love Island 2017 “I live the most glamorous life. I get paid to DJ – I can’t even DJ”
Zara Holland and TOWIE’s Jasmin Walia are queueing for the photobooth. A lot of them look almost unrecognisable and I can’t figure out why. Ex On The Beach’s Charlotte Dawson asks me to take her photo, and I realise what it is. Her cheeks are so heavily contoured, they look like snow just before it begins to melt. It’s make-up made for pap shots, the reality star’s lifeblood. Everyone here hopes their pictures make it onto the Daily Mail’s celebrity sidebar – the ultimate endorsement. Carter is on it every week, usually on her way to a party or opening. These pictures keep Carter and her reality squad in the public consciousness for as long as possible. If there’s a narrative to go with these shots, like a romance that started on a reality show, or a nipple ‘slipping’ out of their dress, even better.
YOUNG, FREE – AND RICH
Before her time on dating show Young, Free And Single, Carter was a respectable actress with parts in Casualty and Emmerdale. Her fame then catapulted after she sold a story on her ‘threesome’ with Justin Bieber. (“It annoys me they said it was a threesome,” she says. “The other girl left after two minutes.”) Next she went on to Big Brother, where she and Marco Pierre White Jnr became the second couple ever to have sex in the house.
“My agent thought it was amazing I had sex on BB because I was on all the front pages. My family were really disappointed, though.” She twirls her ponytail. “My dad had decided to make a scrapbook filled with all the press about me while I was in the house to show me how proud he was, but every one ended up X-rated.”
Why did she switch career paths? She says while she loved acting, she needed to “go with the times”. The fame and money are enough to help her through her family’s disapproval. “I live the most glamorous life. I get sent gorgeous clothes and I get paid to be seen out in them. I get endorsement deals and personal appearances. I get paid to DJ – I can’t even DJ.”
Days later I’m shivering beside a herd of girls in tight dresses and boys dressed in Gym King T-shirts (a brand often endorsed by reality stars), queuing to pay £5 to see Love Island’s Alex Bowen (Olivia Buckland’s boyfriend and Vicky Pattison’s ex) in a Basingstoke nightclub. Bowen is Read’s latest signing and he’s here to do a ‘PA’ gig. Bowen was a scaffolder just four months ago, but after becoming runnerup on Love Island, he’s made around £100,000 from just turning up to clubs for an hour, drinking a couple of Smirnoffs, then heading home. Bowen is cordoned off with a velvet rope. A bunch of girls wait in line behind it – cameraphones poised. Some of them are shaking and screaming. They get around 30 seconds to exchange some pleasantries and get a photo with him before his tour manager moves them along. Bowen is tired, though. “He was in Glasgow last night and he drank,” Read explains to me. He only has to spend an hour in the club and pose for a couple of selfies and he’ll walk away £2,000 richer. I’m finding it hard to be too sympathetic about his hangover.
Later that night, I think of Alex Bowen with his thousand selfies. I think of Carter too, who at this hour is probably doing that slow-mo walk of hers outside a cold, dark club somewhere to the tune of a dozen flashbulbs. Once upon a time, celebrity culture used to be about beauty and talent. Now it’s about a willingness to expose and sell every aspect of themselves and their lives. It might not look like it, but these young men and women work doggedly. Possibly not in the traditional sense of the word, but they are old-fashioned hustlers, seizing every opportunity that comes their way. And, frankly, who can blame them for that?