Episode one.
The Uncancellable Influencer, Sky Wheatley became a household name when she came third on Big Brother Australia in twenty fourteen, It's Time to Go Sky. While most housemates faded into obscurity, Sky turned her fifteen minutes of fame into nine years of notoriety. The former barista managed to cultivate an online following by sharing every element of her life and we mean everything.
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Sky's ditzy personality earned her a legion of fans on reality TV, her uneducated opinions have got her in hot water. Online controversy has plagued her influencer career, from racist remarks to blaming domestic violence victims. The scandals just keep coming, but somehow Sky remains relevant online. She is still inundated with sponsorship deals and has over six hundred thousand followers on Instagram. In this series, we investigate what makes Sky
Wheatley the Uncancellable Influencer. We are journalist Sophie Kate and Amy Torbert and this is outspoken plus. Now I want to take you guys back to twenty fourteen, when Sky Wheatley first shot to fame on season eleven of Big Brother, because I think a lot of people don't actually realize
this is how she became famous. So she was just twenty years old at the time and working as a barista on the Gold Coast, and she was actually the youngest contestant to enter the house in that series and was often called shallow and naive by her fellow housemates.
I remember the producers used to try and niggle her into reacting, so one time they took away her makeup bag, and she also used to hate it because in those series of Big Brother, they didn't allow the contestants to have hair straighteners or hair curlers, and she used to get so upset because she wasn't able to do her hair and make herself look presentable. I remember all of them were wearing braids in their hair at the time,
and she always went off about her regrowth. I remember Sophie said, you'd never go into the Big Brother house just based on the fact that you couldn't bring hair straighteners.
Oh, definitely.
I mean it's kind of interesting now on Love Island that they literally have the makeup and hairstation for all of the contestants because they know how vital it is that they look attractive on TV. Because it's obviously more marketable. It's also a good opportunity for them to get sponsors through those brands. Now, Sky did have an in house
romance with the Canadian intruder Leo. It's funny because his name was really Ryan, but he couldn't be called Ryan because there was another Ryan in the house, and he went on to win the show. I actually had to google who the hell one Big Brother that year. I actually have no recollection of Leo, but I do remember the winner Ryan. I think Sky had a crush on him.
Yeah.
He was asked about whether he would pursue a relationship outside of the house with Sky and it was a big fat no. Well, despite getting nominated a lot in the house, Sky was very popular with the outside world and she ended up finishing third behind Travis. And also Ryan isn't Travis al from the past, Do you remember what happened?
Yeah?
He was that real nerdy guy that had a find voice. Was now he was that hot guy.
Yeah, he was just your typical buff Trady And I feel like this was a time where you could only be male and twenty years old and attractive to win Big Brother for a long time. I think it was because a lot of younger girls watch Big Brother, So that's why ultimately it ended up being the hot Trades that would win.
Doesn't it just.
Show that I can't actually remember any of these other people?
Bass guy?
Of how successful she has been coming out of this show. Yeah, Well, when she left the house, she said that she felt like she was born to be on Big Brother, but concluded that she wasn't smart enough to have a strategy, so was just herself. And I think that's why she did so well on the show, because she truly was herself. She wasn't putting up a front for anyone. It's quite hilarious to watch some of this vision back of her
on the show. To a certain extent, I think that's why a lot of people like her now, because she doesn't put up a barrier between her and the followers. She does share a lot about her life and it's not edited, and I think it was quite clear how excited she was to be on Big Brother. Years later, in a Q and A, she said it's still her biggest achievement, and she said I couldn't describe to you guys the joy that I felt when they called me
and said you're in. It was the most amazing thing ever I achieved that out of thousands of people, they chose me. What was interesting about Big Brother twenty fourteen was it coincided with the rise in popularity of social media. I mean, we did have Tarlie Smythe the season before. I think she was one of the first Big Brother contestants to actually build a following off the back of the show, and she has been so successful now she
is still relevant today. I wonder if Sky took any tips from Tully, because while she says she wasn't very intelligent and couldn't come up with a strategy for Big Brother, she actually cultivated an amazing strategy to stay relevant and big on social media. She paired up with influencer Kurt Coleman. And I still remember the photos that emerged in the Daily Mail of this pair because she was wearing this very fluo bikini and they were giving each other piggybacks.
And it turned out this whole photo shoot was staged by Kurt Coleman because he was trying to push his own TV show at the time. He was trying to do a simple life TV version, and I I wonder if Sky was maybe going.
To be a coast.
She'd be the perfect coaster for a show like that. She actually said in a recent podcast interview on The Unhinged podcast that she was motivated by Tani, who was one of the Big Brother contestants. She actually had a larger following than Sky at the time, and she said that she was in awe of how she grew her following. It's crazy when you look back at this vision of Sky on Big Brother, it really emphasizes the physical transformation that she has gone through over the last nine years.
She previously said she had an obsession with cosmetic surgery that stemmed from actually being on Big Brother, and in a YouTube video responding to assumptions about herself, she shared her struggles with body image. She said, I was always very self conscious of my weight, very insecure about everything about me, insecure about my eyebags, my skin, how white I was, my hair. I would honestly try to cover up as much as my face as possible with a
hat and lots of makeup. I think when I turned fifteen, I would pack on the makeup and I still hated myself. I hated my teeth, I hated my freckles, I hated my nose, hated it. I never learned to accept my nose and went and had plastic surgery. That's really sad because you do reflect on how young she was to be on Big Brother and the fact that ten years
ago those shows were massive. She was a household name, and there would have been, particularly at that time when the Internet was flourishing, there would have been a lot of criticism held her way. It's crazy because I feel like she looks really good on Big Brother. Well, she's always looked good, and that's the thing. It's nothing to do with her appearance. It's clearly something to do with her self confidence. And I do like that she has
always been very open about plastic surgeries. I feel like she was one of the first influencers who was very transparent about the procedures that she got, and I think that's why she got a lot of traction to her YouTube channel in the beginning, because if you take a look back at some of the first videos, they are talking about her nose job, they're also talking about the cosmetic procedures that she wants to get done, and as you said, Kate, she did it in a really open way,
and people hadn't seen that before online because during that time people were hiding.
Whatever they had had done.
Yeah.
I think a lot of her early videos have actually been deleted though, because she did do a vlog series about her Bangkok boob job and I'd almost forgotten about this. So back in twenty fifteen, she underwent a breast augmentation as part of a promotional deal with a medical tourism company.
Now Sky wanted to get the boob job done because she complained that her breasts were asymmetrical, and she said that Mehdi Makeovers actually approached her to do a contra deal, so in exchange for the boob job, she had to promote the business. However, Sky claims that she had the consultation a day before the surgery and wasn't informed of any possible complications. She also complained that the doctor didn't speak much English, and in the end, Sky ended up
having these boobs that she didn't like. She said she had a noticeable double bubble in her right breast and was in a lot of pain. It's scary to consider that she was only twenty one when they approached her for this contra deal, and in twenty fifteen, I don't think a lot of us were that aware of these contra deals that were taking place. I wonder if the
brand made her take it down. Well, it's very interesting you say that, because in twenty eighteen, Sky actually appeared on the episode of Trial by Kyle, So think of Judge Dudy, but with Kyle Sandalands as the judge. It was a part of Channel ten's pilot series, and in the episode, Sky explained that her botch surgery had made her even more insecure about her breast and was very upset over them and spent nights crying about it. So
I did feel very sorry for her. But interestingly, the company medi Makeover countersued for a breach of contract and defamation. So representatives of the company claimed that Sky didn't wear her compression bra for the suggested time and performed chess
based exercises when she wasn't supposed to. It's quite funny because the evidence they pulled up to back their claims were photos of Sky from Instagram of her walking her dog without the compression bra, and also a photo of her doing a plank at the gym not long after the surgery. So what did Kyle rule? So he actually ruled in favor of medi makeovers and said that you know that she didn't do the right thing and that she needed to apologize. Sky conceded, saying, I did breach
the contract. Yeah, they probably could have sued me for doing that. Well. She actually ended up spending twenty eight thousand dollars on corrective surgery and got that done in Australia, and speaking about the surgery, she said, I'm having to fork out a lot of money to fix my boobs.
They're too big and fake and are still wonky. It is really crazy to look back at twenty fifteen when she had the first boob job to see the reporting, because there was this disgusting article written by The Daily Mail entitled Bangkok Babies out for her birthday Big Brothers. Sky Wheatley celebrates her twenty first by showing off newly enhanced chest alongside pouting power Kurt Coleman. Is it wrong that I still think that that headline would fly on
the Daily Mail? Now? Look, they haven't moved on that much. So in the article, it said Sky Wheatley wanted to showcase her new boobs aka her bangcock babies as she celebrated her twenty first birthday over the weekend. The article went on to say the blonde two roaster fame on the twenty fourteen installment of Big Brother Australia thanks to her airhead person owner and temper tantrums, left little to the imagination in her skin tight cookye dress.
God that took me back.
They also quoted her as saying that she wants to pose for Maxim in a bikini, but she doesn't find topless modeling classy. She was then quoted as calling Kim Kardashian money hungry and fame hungry for posing nude and said I'm not that desperate. Hopefully I can get publicity
in a classy way now. In December twenty sixteen, Sky shed her nose job vlog, which was very new for the time, and she started off by saying, I'm not trying to harm this generation by putting it out here, and she documented each day of her recovery process and spoke about how painful the surgery was, and she kept
talking about being worried about having a pig nose. It did make me laugh because her nose was very swollen, and she also spoke about the not so glamorous sides of plastic surgery, talking about how constipated the medicine made her. I feel like this really was the beginning of people using YouTube as somewhat of a Google search in terms of looking up what will it be like if I want to have a nose job, what will the process be like?
What will the recovery be like?
It's ironic that you say that, because at the end of the vlog, Sky said, I've been frantically googling stuff about rhinoplasty, which is what I should have done in the first place. So I didn't freak out. But when does Sky Whitley ever do her research? Never so was this a gifted nose job? No, she actually paid for this one. She flew to Sydney to have it done, so she wasn't trying out any more plastic surgery overseas. I do remember a vlog where she entitled it that
her nose was falling off. I mean, obviously to get views, but I mean I think everyone was really curious to watch this process. I did like that she was pretty honest about it, like it did look horrible, and she spoke about being in a lot of pain and showed all the swelling. I think it would have probably put a lot of people off. I think another huge part of Sky's ability to stay relevant was the friends that
she hung around. So in twenty seventeen, she befriended the girl Shanni Grimman, as well as their bestie Michael Finch, and Sky quickly began infiltrating Shanny's famous friendship group through Michael Finch, who used to be a bit big fan of Big Brother. Now Michael Finch became a permanent fixture of Sky's channel, and she often appeared in the background
of some of his vlogs. I feel like she would really try and turn it on whenever she was in Michael's blogs, also on her own like she seemed to be a bit of a performing monkey, like I remember she used to be famous for making these orgasm sounds. And there was this iconic vlog I was watching while I was researching this topic about Splendor in the Grass, and she kept screaming famous, Actually, let's throw to a clip because I'm not doing it justice.
Whorum Baum, Famous, Famous, Famous, Famous, Famous, Famous Simouth Tamas famous claws.
It was pretty obvious she was in awe of this group of friends. And I did some digging and I found an old Q and A that Sky had done after coming out of the Big Brother House, and she actually revealed that Sharnie Grimmond was her celebrity crush.
Let's have a listen.
Who are your celebrity crushes? Probably Tammy Hambrow and Shiny. Would you classify down celebrities?
I don't know.
I don't really follow celebrities as such. I just stalk people on Instagram, So for me, they are like celebrities. They are like the two cheeks that are stalk daily.
Yeah.
Do you guys remember that infamous trip that they all did to New York.
Oh, wasn't that the beginning of the end for this group?
Yeah?
You could tell that they were also pissed off with each other, and it's come out in numerous YouTube videos since they all had massive fights with each other. Yeah, we're actually going to get into that friendship bust up in another Outspoken Plus episode. For those who can't remember, the people that were on that group trip were Shani Grimman, Michael Finch, Lilly Brown, and Rannie Bransbey. Of course, Skuy Wheatley was there annoying everyone.
They all know it, we know it, you know it.
Actually, yeah, you're right. I'm gonna get it.
Shut a vanilla syrup because.
I mean new yucka no, no, made.
You care?
Now we're renew ya.
I think she was really getting on Shanny's nerves.
You could see in her face because there is a clip where Sky is vlogging and you can tell that Shanny just wants to get the fuck out of there, and not being a vlog you just basically snub Sky in the videos. To be fair to Shanny, I think that's because she was apparently being left out by Michael Finch for the entire trip, but we'll go into that in another series. I also think it's because Shanny is
an introvert, whereas Sky is clearly an extrovert. She probably needed some time away from the group recharging her batteries. Well have you ever watched Sky's blog and it literally seems like it's not been edited and goes for like an hour and I can't watch anymore.
Now.
In a time where phrases like couple goals were trending and influencers were only sharing highlights from their relationships. Sky Wheatley again was bucking the trend, so she wasn't afraid to share the ups and downs of the relationships that she was in, and she really did give her followers an all access pass into her life to the point where she would include full blown arguments with her partners in vlogs. And in the early days, she shared about
her relationship with this trade called Cam. I mean, there were a million red flags with that guy in the vlogs.
Oh my god.
I watched one where she was talking about him doing a very smelly pooh and he kind of reminded me of LOCKI like, just the way he spoke was very similar, and the way she spoke to him, She's like Horney.
I was like, oh my god.
And Sky admits that as soon as she broke up with Cam, she jumped on Tinder and started talking to this new guy, Locky War. So this was around November twenty seventeen, and I really loved this era of the vlogs because Lockie did become a permanent fixture very quickly, and they do look like one of those brother and sister couples.
You can tell a lot of the time.
He does not want to be filmed though, like he is happy to just give her nothing and basically tell her a fuck off.
Well she's filming.
There's been so many iconic vlogs of when Sky and Lockey first started dating. I love the ones when Sky first met Lockie's parents and you could just tell that they still didn't like her. It's like, what the hell, because it's clear that Lockie's parents were quite well to do. Yeah, they had a bit of money, and I remember it was around Christmas time and I don't know if it was on Christmas Day or whatever, but they caught up for this fancy dinner and Sky literally gave zero fuck.
She had the vlogging camera out at dinner, she was filming the parents. She was all over Lockie and you could just see how uncomfortable the whole family felt. I feel like my favorite Lockie and Sky vlog is when they did that McDonald's muk bunk and went off about having no sweet and sour soil. So why didn't you
get why didn't you check Lockie? Well, to be fair, that is very annoying when that happens, and it's just so crazy because she seemed to move into Lockey's house straight away, and Lockie works as a shop fitter and at the time he was recently building his own house. They were doing up the garden together and they were
doing these mini renos. I just remember watching with my partner Brandon, and it's so funny because there was sort of something for the men and the women, because the men liked seeing the reno's and the girls liked seeing
Sky just being hilarious. It's pretty well because they were actually only to get yeah for four months when they discovered that Sky was pregnant, and they did break the news at the three month mark on Instagram, sharing a really cute photo of them sitting amongst a ton of cactus plants, gazing at each other with a baby balloon in the background, and Sky wrote in the caption, We're pregnant. Couldn't think of anything better than starting a family with this handsome man.
They of course, also.
Broke the news on Sky's YouTube channel with a thirty three minute long vlog where they showed them breaking the news to their shocked family members.
Let's throw to Lockie's mum's reaction.
We've got a little surprise for you. What what.
Yeah, Sky clips Sky's pregnant. What Yeah, no, it's not a joke.
Really yeah, yes, she's pregnant. You're gonna have some more grandkids. Yeah, I don't think so not. Yeah yeah sort of yeah, yeah, thank you. You're on the oud speaker too, and you're being filmed.
Hi Jane.
Yeah, So that was Lockie's mom's reaction. I'd say she was like, well, I could tell she was super shocked at the start, and then she started to think about it and it's sunk in. She got like over the top excited because she started crying, which is like really cute.
I feel sorry for Locke's mum because it's a bit harsh that they recorded her without her knowledge. I love how so deep into the conversation, Lockie's like, oh, by the way, you're on loud speaker and Sky's here, and then she's.
Like, hi, Lucky's man.
Do you think Sky was so naive that she actually thought Locky's mum was genuinely excited?
Oh?
I think that maybe Locky's mom sort of brought it back a bit, like maybe we didn't see a bit of the groveling afterwards, because it was quite clear that she was not in press, would you be like, after your son dating this girl for four months who shoved a camera in your face and his family opportunities.
It was just super awkward.
That's the only word di Can needs to describe the audio. Well Sky actually found out that she was pregnant once she and Locke returned from a trip to Balley.
And this is really.
Awkward audio that I will plan a second because she said that she realized she was sick because on the plane she was drinking a lot, and then the next day she felt really unwell, but it wasn't the normal hangover unwell feeling.
Let's throw to the clip.
Well, I could pretty much already tell that I was pregnant because I'd had a bit to drink on the plane, Like I had some red wine on the plane.
I think I had like three or four glasses of red wine. And the next morning I woke up feeling so so sick. So I was like, hm, I might be pregnant because like, normally my hangovers aren't that bad and I don't feel like that shit. So I kind of had a fair idea and I was like, yep, we really need to go get a pregnancy test. So we went and did that, and I peed on the stick and it was positive.
In case y'all thought I was lying, here's the proof.
Probably some of those details could have been left out of the pregnancy announced in it.
I also thought it was.
Classic how she had the pregnancy stick to prove to everyone that she was in fact pregnant because no one believed her. That's how she shocking this news was at the time. Well. During a recent interview on The Unhinged podcast, Guy explained that they weren't using any protection and were open to the idea of having a baby together.
Straight away, Let's row to what she said.
It wasn't necessarily an accident because we did talk about it. We were like, we're like happy for it to happen. If it happens, it happens, you know. So we weren't trying, but we weren't preventing. Yeah, so that happened. Felt pregnant first, go took a pregnancy test, found out I was pregnant. I honestly kind of freaked out. Lockie was really happy. He was actually really.
Cute to see.
That's really nice.
It was cute to see.
His reaction, like he was actually stoked. But he was a little bit older than me, but still.
I was quite surprised to hear that this was somewhat planned, that the two of them were open to starting a family so young together, because you don't really hear about that anymore. So it was nice to hear that Locke was really genuinely excited to find out this news. I mean, they probably were in a bit of a honeymoon stage their relationship, and I do feel like once people have kids, they probably want to go and put out on the record.
Oh no, it was kind of planned.
Well.
Not long after the announcement, Sky opened up about a health scare she experience during an early ultrasound. So She said she was concerned about the development of her unborn baby since she was drinking heavily on her holiday before she found out she was pregnant. So Sky told NW magazine that the sonographer couldn't find the nasal bone of the baby, which can be the first sign of down syndrome. She said when they went back for their thirteen week scan,
the nasal bone was then visible in the scans. I had forgotten about this because this would have been incredibly scary, especially for a.
Young couple to find this out.
It brings me back to Sarah's day, obviously telling her audience that something was wrong in her pregnancy. From memory, Sky did open up about this once she had the all clear. It's a real blast from the past to hear about NW magazine, even though it wasn't that long ago now, the early stages of Sky's pregnant see well quite eventful. She did lose her license for six months now.
She had previously lost her license in twenty thirteen before appearing on Big Brother for driving under the influence of alcohol, and in a separate occasion, also lost all but one demerit point for speeding. Sky did open up in a Q and A saying she lost her license for speeding in a school zone. She explained she was on her way to F forty five and thought the school zone was over, however it was still very much in place. She said she drove sixty kilometers in a forty kilometer area.
Not a good look speeding in a school zone. But I mean when you hear that, you think that someone's absolutely fanging it.
But she was clearly doing sixty ks.
Yeah, but you would assume that it was fifty k's in the area. Well true, I mean maybe not on a main road.
Some schools in the main road.
Yeah, well, she had only one demerit point left, so she did immediately lose her license for a month. I do recall just before she gave birth, she was out shopping for like a push present car and Lockie bought her like this flash car even though she couldn't drive. You know what was so funny in the video where she's opening up about losing her license, She's like, as soon as they get in my car, I'm gonna fuck shit. Uh, I mean, I'm gonna stick to all of the road rules.
Do you guys remember the buzz around her pregnancy though, because it was around Christmas time and she was sharing constantly on her stories about you know, is this the day.
I'm gonna give birth?
And it ended up it was Christmas Eve in twenty eighteen when she gave birth to her first child, Forest, and she actually broke the news on Christmas Day, sharing a photo of Forest bundled up in a blanket with the captions so in love and I think there was a bit of debate about whether Sky would actually share a photo of Forest, or perhaps if she was going to set up a magazine deal. Well, in the first photo, she was quite strategic because she did cut out Forest's space.
She also then hours later posted up a photo of Lockie cradling the baby and wrote best Christmas present and you could sort of make out his face. But it wasn't until a week or so later that she uploaded a labor vlog where she revealed Forest. So she didn't have any deal in place, she just announced it immediately. As we all expected, Sky did not hold back in the labor vog. It did go for thirty three minutes, and you really felt like a fly on the wall
as she was going through her first contractions. She also showed herself driving to the hospital and puffing back on morphine, saying she felt like she was off her face. Yeah, and we also saw the first moment that Forest was put on her chest for the first time. Her pregnancy was a couple of months before Sarah's day, so I feel like it was really that time when there was so much anticipation of these influencer kids, and it was the first time a lot of us were seeing these
labor vlogs in full swing. What do we think of the name?
I wasn't a fan of the name.
I say that in knowing our best friend's dog is actually called Forest, I feel like it's more of an animal's name. Yeah, it's a nice name for a dog. I just think of Forest Gump. Yeah, I mean, I do think it suits him. Now, these names always grow on me. It's sort of like Sarah's Day's child Fox. I mean, now, I couldn't think of him being anything else but not my personal cup of tea. Well, that
is where we are going to leave you today. In next week's episode, we will dive headfirst into sky Wheatley's biggest controversies, promaccusations of racism and cultural appropriation to the shaming of domestic violence victims. This episode was recorded on the traditional land of the Ghana people of the Adelaide Plains.
We pay respect to elders past and present, and
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