Brooke Blurton spills on imposter syndrome and 'security' after Bachelorette

Despite spending almost four years in the public eye, in which she has starred on three different reality TV shows and amassed around 300,000 followers on Instagram, Brooke Blurton doesn’t see herself as a celebrity.

“I feel like I'm just this country girl that fell into this crazy reality TV world and now is just trying to navigate it as normal as she can,” she tells Yahoo Lifestyle with a laugh.

Following appearances on both The Bachelor and Bachelor In Paradise, Brooke’s level of fame reached new heights last year when she made history as the first Indigenous and openly bisexual star of The Bachelorette.

However, alongside a much greater public profile came an increased sense of pressure to constantly do the right thing.

“I think I'm realising that now that I get bigger, there’s more expectation and there's more responsibility,” she says.

“Every day I guess I suffer from such an impostor syndrome, like I can always do more and be more and say more, but I’ve actually just got to be really real with myself and my own social and emotional wellbeing.

“Since being the Bachelorette, I think people kind of expect you to be the Bachelorette 24/7. And I've always been Brooke and I think I will always continue to be [the] Brooke [I] was before any of the shows.”

‘Huge life adjustment’

Speaking about the somewhat immediate transition from a semi-known public figure to one of the country’s biggest reality TV stars, Brooke explains that it was “a huge life adjustment”.

“Look, I don’t see myself as any better than the person next to me, regardless of if I've been on TV or not, that’s just not me,” she says.

“I just think the celebrity status just does not fit with me. I get really great benefits from it, I'm able to support my family, do all these awesome collaborations, and partner with really awesome brands. But that comes with obligations and it’s also hard work, and it's constantly putting energy out there.”

RELATED:

• Brooke Blurton doesn't want to be defined by her reality TV love story

• Brooke Blurton on Neighbours, feeling pressure and being her 'authentic self'

• Brooke Blurton announces memoir detailing her difficult childhood

One particularly difficult aspect of Brooke’s newfound fame is learning how to go out in public and navigate a ‘normal’ life.

“I had to sort of up my security at my house,” she reveals. “These are the things that people don't know and don’t see that is an adjustment period from this to that.

“So it was all very unusual. You have to do a really big think about all the things that you can’t do anymore just freely.”

‘If you don't laugh, you’ll cry’

Brooke adds that she’s also received an influx of fan correspondence in her email since becoming the Bachelorette, which often ranges in intensity from “weird” to “absurd”.

“People constantly message me and tell me that I've been in their dreams,” she laughs. “It’s such an unusual thing, and they have this honesty with telling me and I'm like, oh okay, I didn't know we were at that stage but l’ll take it.

“But then some of them have been really odd… There have been some that have been really passionate about the season and have really deconstructed it and been like, ‘You should’ve done this here’.

“I haven’t to the extent had death threats in my email, but I have had death threats more in my [Instagram] inbox and then I just block and delete the person. I think it's just trolls just been quite aggressive.”

While the fan mail has undoubtedly left Brooke feeling somewhat uncomfortable, she definitely hasn’t let it affect her sense of self.

“If you don't laugh, you’ll cry,” she says. “For me, this is all very new and really exciting, but also really unusual. So I’m just always adapting and adjusting things and I'm always growing, so that's the great thing about it.

“TV has honestly changed my life, my family's life, but also, I have got a bit of responsibility to help other people to change their lives as well. So I think that kind of comes with the struggle that I have sometimes, like coming to terms with the responsibility that I have.

“But you can only do what you can do. I’m only one person. One little brown girl just trying to navigate life.”

‘The influencer world’

Following her TV stints, Brooke has turned to the influencer sphere and regularly uses her large social media platform to promote causes close to her heart that feel “genuine” and “authentic”.

“I feel like for me, it's always aligning myself with brands that share similar values in the world, or even just personal values,” she explains.

“I find the influencer world very hard to navigate. I’m still adjusting, always. I don't come from a media or marketing background, I’m sort of like community service. So for me, it's always about community and it's always kind of like, ‘How is this alignment going to benefit myself, my community and other people or other things?’”

Her most recent collaboration is with SodaStream as their Earth Month Ambassador, with the focus on environmental conservation, eliminating plastic and saving the sea turtles from endangerment.

“It kind of fits perfectly with me because I love turtles, it’s actually my totem,” she says.

“It was given to me by my grandmother, before my mother and my grandmother passed, and everyone knows how much I'm passionate about the earth, taking care of country, taking care of the land, and it kind of just fit really perfectly with my values, what I do for work and what I'm passionate about.

“Sea turtles are basically on the brink of becoming endangered. So for me, that's really hard to hear and it’s really disheartening. I feel like in bringing awareness to things that are important to me there's always enough chance that it will also be important for other people as well.”

SodaStream is committed to saving 78 billion single-use plastic bottles by 2025. You can learn more about the campaign here.

Never miss a thing. Sign up to Yahoo Lifestyle’s daily newsletter.

Or if you have a story idea, email us at lifestyle.tips@yahooinc.com.