With Netflix’s explosive new series Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser going viral, former host Ajay Rochester and contestant Holly Bennett are spilling secrets about the Australian version of the weight loss show to Kyle and Jackie O.
According to Ajay, who famously feuded with co-star and trainer Michelle Bridges, the show is “toxic” and the threat of a contestant possibly dying hung over them.
“I don’t think they intentionally set out to risk people’s lives, but I think through trying to do it under such extremes in an environment that there weren’t really any rules, it was the Wild West. And so, they pushed people and pushed people,” says Ajay, claiming contestants were forced into having secret surgeries and starving themselves, while Holly reveals she developed an eating disorder and suicidal thoughts while on the show.
“It was always just like, when is someone going to die?” 56-year-old Ajay said.
The former host of The Biggest Loser also claimed several contestants underwent secret surgeries during filming to treat conditions caused by the extreme weight loss they experienced.
“There were a bunch of secret surgeries that went on,” she claimed. “People were rushed off… days before the finale [and] had surgery because it’s one of those things that through extreme weight loss can actually be affected.”
“And people had all sorts of [issues] like deep vein thrombosis and thrush,” she added.
Ajay also alleged that during her first day on set she asked the producers to give the contestants a food break and they refused.
“And I was like, ‘It’s five hours, six hours, seven hours in and they haven’t eaten… these people need to eat,'” she recalled.
“And they’re [the producers] like, ‘No, they don’t.’ I’m like, ‘yes, they do'”.
The author said that one season there was a sewage issue on the set where the contestants would participate in challenges.
“Basically, there was a sewage issue, and the poop would overflow into the lawn,” she claimed.
“There was muddy poop. I’m talking a river of muddy poop across the lawn. And they had contestants doing those crazy challenges where you had to move a tonne of bricks from one end to the other to win a Mars Bar to get immunity, so you don’t get kicked out. And they were wading through this crap.”
Holly told hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O Henderson that she developed an eating disorder after she appeared on the show.
“I’m fully recovered now, which is amazing. But one example, food challenges. Now, we were told if we were eating, we were cheating. That was one thing the powers above would always say to us,” she claimed.
Holly, who appeared on the show with her sister Mel, also recalled purging after the food challenges.
“But it wasn’t just purging of food that we were eating,” she said. “There was also easy access to laxatives. I mean, there was all sorts of things on that side.”
Now, she wants an apology from the people behind the show.
“I’m great. I’m really good. I’m happily married. I have two beautiful boys with one on the way. I am so good,” she said. “This is where I’m at, and I’m ready to speak out and to try and get at least an apology for all these people that have been so hurt by such a toxic environment.”
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