It didn’t take long for Christian cast member Trisha Cummings to raise a little hell on The Real World Sydney. So far, in the first half of the season, she has gotten into multiple fights with her roommate, Parisa Montazaran, over a good looking Aussie guy. She has been accused of cheating on her boyfriend, making racist comments, and being unsupportive of the gay community. Finally getting a moment to speak her mind and set the record straight, Trisha spoke to BuddyTV in an exclusive interview. She claims she’s been portrayed unfairly, saying she never cheated, and many of her less than stellar moments on the show are just clever editing. Keep reading to hear Trisha’s side of the story!
Below, you will find the complete transcript and mp3 of the interview.
Hi everybody, this is Gina from Buddy TV and I’m talking to Trisha from Real World: Sydney.
Hi Gina.
Hey, was Real World something that you always wanted to be part of or was reality TV something you wanted to do?
Um, no. Actually I was always, academically, a freakin’ monster. I was always more into school and everything else than I was into the whole reality television thing so it was kind of weird how it happened. I was shopping at a boutique in my hometown and next door they were holding casting calls and I saw the news camera, so I went over just out of curiosity to see what was going on and then I found out it was Real World auditions and so four months later I was going to Australia.
Had you done a lot of traveling and had you been to Australia before?
No and no. I had been to places like Hawaii, New York once, I think … you know, just local places. Besides that, it was definitely a whole new world for me. I’d never been to Australia. Never traveled outside of you know, maybe, a three hour plane ride max.
This season the house is not as diverse as it usually is, were you surprised that there wasn’t as much diversity?
I was surprised. I was really surprised. I mean, I think all of us roommates kind of have the same idea going as soon as all seven of us got to the house on the first day. Just kinda like: ‘Okay, there’s usually a lot more diversity than what we have in our house which means that every single one of the people that we’re all staring at have something up their sleeve.’ Having such a non-diverse house you kind of wonder ‘Okay, why isn’t there a lot of diversity in here,’ you know?
Now, you and Parisa have this sort of on-again, off-again friendship. Can you tell us, at least now, what the status is of your relationship is with her?
Um, now we’re friends actually. We were in New York together for the premiere and it’s kind of just like made amends and just called it even. You know, it’s just hard when you live with someone that is kind of outside of your box. If we knew each other before the show, we would probably be good friends. But living together, and us both being such strong minded and opinionated people … if you put two people like that in a house that are both really strong minded and both really opinionated but both have very different opinions and are both very strong minded about different issues … you’re going to have conflict no matter what, you know?
Watching the show, Alex seems like such a shady guy. Thinking back on it, was he worth the fighting?
The only thing … I hate watching all these episodes because, to be quite honest, Alex and I never made out, just to let you know. I have my other cast mates in the house calling me, like during these past episodes ,being like: ‘Wait, what!?’ Because, the reason why there’s not footage of it is because it never happened.
When you watch those episodes back so far, how do you feel you’ve been portrayed? Do you feel like we’re getting a good picture of who you are?
No. I think that I’m being portrayed completely a 180 from who I really am. I have roommates calling me being like: ‘If I were you, I would be pissed.’ Because it’s like, it’s just different situations you know. Like the whole … okay, half of my best friends are gay. The whole gay Mardi Gras parade is like, I didn’t go because I got a religious wake-up call that I need to stop partying for myself. So if it was a Mardi Gras parade supporting straight people or supporting any type of organization whether I’m pro or against … I wouldn’t have gone because my mind was just telling me: ‘Trisha, you’ve been partying too much, you need to cut back.’ And they made it seem like I was against gays and everything else.
In the very beginning, I was even more distraught because the whole McDonald’s thing. They made it seem like I cussed out this poor lady but in reality, when Kelly Anne and I were in there, I was like: ‘Thank you. Have a good day,’ you know, yada yada and walked out. They made it seem like I cussed out this poor lady but we were all in the car talking about how people were misinterpreting our accents as well as us misinterpreting theirs. And why even does it make a difference … and, I don’t know. I don’t even know. It’s just really upsetting to see yourself being portrayed in a way that you know is not correct, you know. But the main thing that really irritated me more than anything was the whole Alex thing. Because they made it seem like I cheated on my boyfriend and made out with this guy and everything else and I’m like, ‘I never even made out with the guy’! I was like: ‘What’s going on?’
Has it been difficult to try to explain the episodes to your boyfriend? Or are you still together?
We are still together and it hasn’t been too difficult because he’s like … Shauvon has been down to visit me in Thousand Oaks like, four times, so he knows that it’s not just me lying because he hears it from another one of my roommates, you know? Jared is not a stupid guy. He knows the way the editing works. He knows how professional these people working for reality TV are. I told him everything that happened while it was happening which the full extension when I was leaning back on the couch and Alex came over and kissed me. And I told Jared all about that, so now it’s kind of like we’re reliving it. I think it’s more hard for him to see it happening than just me telling him about it before. But it’s not like it’s all a huge surprise to him because I did tell him as it was happening.
Okay, well I just wanted to thank you for your time. I really appreciate you doing the interview and I wish you good luck Trisha.
Well thank you, Gina, and thank you for having me.
– Gina Scarpa, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of MTV)
Staff Writer, BuddyTV
