“And that was the moment where I was like, ‘Oh no, it has been 10 years, because you are an adult and you were watching in primary school’.”
As the only couple from The Bachelor franchise in New Zealand to make it work, that’s already a win for the two, but they have turned their reality TV experience into a successful marriage and family, complete with three children.
For Green, she has also developed a successful media career, with brand deals, podcasts, and recently debuting as the co-host on The Hits Drive show with Matty MacLean, while PJ Harding is on maternity leave.
Green said there are a lot of reasons why they are both still working 10 years after the show.
“I often see comments on news sites and whatever being like, ‘Oh, still, still riding the wave, trying to be relevant, when’s it gonna end?’
“And it does irk me a little bit because I think, sure, The Bachelor gave me a start, and I wouldn’t have a social media career without it, but I also think that I have skills and I have built on that myself.
“Because I wouldn’t be doing a lot of the things that I’m doing now if I wasn’t the type of person that I am. So I think, absolutely, I have The Bachelor to thank for a lot of that stuff, but not all of it.”
She said that it never ceases to amaze her what people think they can say to people, just because they have a public profile, and often feels like they are being reduced to a character rather than a human being.
While her life has been on public display for a decade now, Green said that she is careful what she puts on social media as things can be misinterpreted, or things can be used against someone later on.
And she has found a lot of misconceptions with how people view her, including thinking that her and Art must have a perfect marriage due to the setting in which they met.
“Our marriage is just like anybody else’s. You know, we have ups and downs and we have arguments and whatever, and sometimes we have to work at our marriage just like anyone else. And so that misconception I think is the main one that people think we’re in this fairytale.”
Green said that a lot of that comes down to not having time for each other, and negotiating parenting together.
“Probably the main thing we’ve argued about over the last five years is when we have different approaches or different perceptions of a scenario, how we should deal with something that’s been really tricky to navigate of, [and] when to let go and to think, actually you are allowed to take this one, and when to push back and think, actually I feel strongly about this, I think we should do it this way.”
And the other major misconception is that people see her as a “vacuous influencer”.
“You know, you hear the word influencer and you instantly just think like skinny tea, flogging products, just self-indulgent, self-promotion, whatever.
“And sure, there’s a lot of that in the influence industry, but we are all also complex human beings with a lot of different facets of our life that we don’t show.
“And so I think it’s unfair to judge people on the however many squares on Instagram that they have, because ... you are never going to understand a whole human being from what they share on social media.”
Listen to the full episode for more from Matilda Green about her experiences on reality TV, and the show she still wants to do, and how she plans to tackle telling her kids about how they met.
You can listen to Matilda weekdays on The Hits Drive show.
Ask Me Anything is an NZ Herald podcast hosted by former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett. New episodes are available every Sunday.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
