Former cast member of The Only Way is Essex and Access All Areas host Bobby Norris spoke candidly about his experience filming his last series on the show, saying it was the ‘hardest’ series to film.
Chatting to guest co-host Josh Rom, Bobby opened up about filming the series back in 2021, ‘My low was actually my last series I ever did, and out of ten years, it was by far the hardest one for me… for so many reasons. Reality TV is a very intense situation and for anyone who watched that last series, I think it was clear why it was so difficult.’
When asked by Josh what was the main factor behind this feeling, Bobby revealed that it was the return of his ex-boyfriend Harry Derbridge: ‘So it was Harry [Derbridge] had come back and had basically tried to rewrite history… and this is the thing on TOWIE, you can’t say you’re filming a TV show and you can’t acknowledge the camera. We have to pretend that the camera isn’t there and we are the only ones in the room. ‘
He continued: ‘Why it was so difficult is I relived something that seven years before had been a huge storyline on the show and had been in the press, people who watched the show back in the day. People know what had happened in terms of my relationship, so someone had come back and had kind of rewrote history in a sense and said it didn’t happen.’
The reality star was then asked by Josh whether he felt he was ‘gaslit’ during the series to which he responded: ‘that series, absolutely. I think for me, what hurt as well was… when you’ve been cheated on, even when you’re over that relationship, that kind of stays with you a little bit. But when someone tells you that didn’t happen, and you’ve had to grieve and rebuild yourself because you’ve been done so bad and then someone says that didn’t happen, that’s a real kick in the veneers.’
Later in the interview, Bobby took aim at whether there is any reality left in reality TV: ‘As the years have gone on, I think when people have become fans of the show and they join the show and they’ve been fans of it for years. They kind of know how they want to play it, there’s more to gain from it. But in the early days, none of us had that intention.’
Listen to the full episode, also featuring Amy Christophers here.
