Making It: Truth behind Kat's reading comment: 'Joking around'
It's been dubbed the most wholesome reality show on TV but Channel 10's Making It is still a competition and, sadly, one of the 13 crafty contestants was sent home in episode one.
Children's entertainer Kat Halligan was the first to say goodbye after her creation, a Gaelic harp in memory of her late grandpa, failed to impress the judges.
'Everybody was crying'
In an exclusive chat with Yahoo Lifestyle, Kat shares the emotional experience of watching Wednesday night's episode with her family.
"It's been about a year and a half now since [grandpa] passed away and it's still pretty fresh for everyone," she explains.
"Everybody was bloody crying!" she adds.
While Kat has taken the feedback from judges Deborah Riley, production designer on Game Of Thrones, and world-renowned paper engineer, Benja Harney on board, she knows she did her grandpa proud.
"I know that he would have loved to see it as well," she says.
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Read the room
Even though she was only on screens for a short time, Kat definitely made an impression with her eyebrow-raising opinions about books and reading.
For the first challenge, Kat chose to make a decorative book filled with paper bumblebees instead of pages which kicked off a reading-related chat with hosts Susie Youssef and Harley Breen.
It turned out that Kat wasn't much of a bookworm herself, having purchased her first paperback ever a short time ago. Not only that, she left Susie and Harley speechless when she boldly claimed that kids didn't need to learn to read in schools.
Kat set the record straight, telling Yahoo Lifestyle that her comments were a mixture of nerves, 'word vomit' and her playful personality.
"I was definitely joking around, I mean, I'm a bit of a joker," she says. "Everybody there would have been able to see that and everybody knew that I like to make people laugh."
"I had a little bit of word vomit and the nerves were getting to me and I just kind of spewed out this statement but what I thought I was going to say was that kids learn everything on the internet these days anyway so, you know, who needs books but it definitely didn't come out like that!"
While she hasn't yet finished the book she picked up pre-show, Kat is ironically hitting the books to study a certificate III and IV in fitness with the aim of becoming a personal trainer.
"And I'm also planning to take my photography hobby a bit more seriously and starting to actually do photo shoots and stuff like that for friends and family," she adds.
Australia might not have seen the last of Kat yet. Making It viewers who watched right to the end would've seen Kat pop up at hosts Susie and Harley's 'Comedy Shack' — so does this mean she'll be back?
"I definitely can't give anything away but you will see my face again soon, that's for sure," she hints.
Making It Australia airs 7.30pm Wednesdays And Thursdays on Channel 10 And 10 Play.
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