Kate, she of the large breasts and unprofessional vocal outbursts, was finally given the boot this week on Stylista, after weeks of enduring verbal abuse from nearly every corner. She spent many hours on the show crying and licking her wounds, but then she would buck up and defend herself. Rarely has there ever been a reality show contestant so willing to speak her mind.
I got the chance to speak to Kate this week about her time on the show. I know that I spent a lot of time this season poking fun at her melodramatics and unprofessionalism in my recaps, but after speaking with her, I came to respect her a lot more. She takes full responsibility for everything she did while on the show, good and bad. She owns up to the mistakes she made.
At her elimination, Kate famously told Anne Slowey and Joe Zee exactly what she thought of three of her biggest nemeses. She outed Dyshaun for being abusive, Megan as wicked and she said that Johanna was so insecure that the fashion industry would break her. Given that much time has passed since the taping of Stylista, I asked her if her opinion of them had changed. The answer is an emphatic no.
Reality TV is a funny world, and it’s not always representative of real life. First, footage can be edited to skew the public’s perception of one particular cast member or other. And second, the entire experience must be surreal for the contestants. They are put into an artificial environment, in close quarters with complete strangers, followed around 24 hours a day by a camera crew. You might not behave in this kind of situation like you normally would in real life. However, Kate insists that all of the histrionics that we saw on Stylista were definitely real and not a product of editing. She challenges any of her former castmates who might hide being the editing excuse. She was careful to explain that the only judgments she made of her peers on the show were based on how they behaved during taping. For all she knew, she said, they could all be perfectly nice people in their normal lives. She also made the good point that you very rarely have to live with the people you work with, and conflict was bound to arise because of this.
Looking back on her experience on Stylista, Kate says that there aren’t very many things she would do differently if she had the chance. She is extremely proud of the work that she accomplished, despite not having as much experience in fashion as some of her competitors. She does admit, however, she wishes she kept her mouth shut a little bit more at judging. She believes that her and Ashlie’s layout for this last challenge was definitely better than the other team’s, but she felt that the judges had finally gotten fed up with her outspokenness and that was why she got sent home.
You can catch up more with Kate and see what she’s up to these days by checking out her blog: StylistaKate.com.
-Debbie Chang, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of the CW)
Staff Writer, BuddyTV
