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Home and Away star reveals impact of sudden fame: ‘Difficult to process’

After making his Home and Away debut at just 21 years old in 2006, Bob Morley has now opened up about the heavy impact his newfound fame had on him at the time.

The Australian star, who played Drew Curtis on the Channel Seven series, spoke candidly with TV WEEK about how he struggled to deal with his sudden celebrity status at the beginning of his acting career.

Bob Morely on Home and Away.
Bob Morley has opened up about the impact of his sudden fame. Photo: Channel Seven

“For me it was very difficult to process, the lack of anonymity,” he told the publication.

Bob spent two years in Summer Bay, even scoring himself a Logie nomination for Most Popular New Male Talent, and was later cast as Aidan Foster in Neighbours.

His profile rose to new heights in 2014 when he played Bellamy Blake on the successful US series The 100, but he says it was important for him to leave the show in the final season to take care of his own wellbeing.

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“I had requested to take some time off for my own mental health,” he explained.

“Throughout my life it's been something that I've been working on, but it came to a point where I felt that I needed to put my health before the job.

“It took me some time to get over the guilt of not fulfilling the story the way that I felt it could have been for Bellamy, but I knew that it was something that I had to do, and I was very lucky that my wife Eliza [Taylor] was very supportive and helped me through that.”

Bob Morely on Home and Away.
Bob was previously very critical of Home and Away. Photo: Channel Seven

Bob was famously very critical of Home and Away after his departure in 2008, saying that the show made him feel like a “meat puppet”.

“It's nice to be in a show where it's not based on taking your shirt off,” he told the Herald Sun at the time when he had moved on to star in the police drama series, The Strip.

“It wasn't a good place to be in. Home and Away is a great place to learn, but it's a machine and it can chew people up and spit them out. I stepped out not really caring whether I had another job.”

Six years later, Bob apologised for his comments and said that he regrets being “completely and utterly rude”.

“I’m still young and dumb, but I was even younger and dumber then," he told news.com.au. “Upon reflection and after these years, it's one thing I regret doing. It was just my ignorance and my lack of experience and I projected that onto them.

“They were nothing but great and kind to me and looked after me. For me to turn around and be like that is completely and utterly rude.”

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