The former popstar spills the beans on marriage and her TV obsessions

Sophie Monk’s been married for nearly four years, so the host of Love Island Australia and Beauty And The Geek knows a thing or two about love. But while the one-time Bardot popstar and her husband Joshua Gross have a solid union, Sophie admits they still argue just as much as the rest of us – although perhaps not about what we’d expect!

“When Married At First Sight is airing, that’s the time we fight the most in our relationship,” the 45-year-old confesses. “I’ll take someone’s side and he’ll take someone else’s, then it’s on!”

Her hubby, who never watched reality TV before meeting Sophie, is now as hooked as she is. In fact, reality and true crime are the only genres they watch at home on the Central Coast, just north of Sydney.
Sophie and Joshua married in secret.

From reality TV skeptic to superfan

“He hated reality TV before me and now he can’t watch anything else,” laughs Sophie, who was the leading lady on The Bachelorette Australia in 2017, as well as appearing on Celebrity Apprentice Australia and as a judge on Australia’s Got Talent. “We watch everything together.

If we’re apart, we’ll only watch crap TV we don’t like – never our shows.”

And when it comes to filming Love Island Australia – “one of our shows” – Joshua comes along for the ride, travelling to the Spanish island of Majorca, where the series is shot, and other European countries before and after filming.

Living and breathing Love Island

“We went to Amsterdam before Spain,” tells Sophie.

“But when I’m in Spain, I live and breathe the show. We’re normally filming until 1am, then I sit there and watch it afterwards. I invest in it!”

Sophie reveals that this seventh season of Love Island – themed around all things wicked, sinful, and tempting – is “by far the toughest year yet”.

She explains, “We’ve tested the contestants to the limit. It’s so entertaining to watch, but it also serves such a good purpose. When you push people to see what they do, it’s the ultimate test
for every relationship.”
This season of Love Island is the spiciest yet!

Testing love to the limit

Such testing challenges include the controversial “Hotel Amor”, in which participants can spend the night with someone outside their couple to check their connection – something Sophie reckons would’ve been fun back in her dating days.

“I wish I got to do something like this or watch a show like this when I was single,” she shares.

“It’s amazing how fast we see the red flags!”

Although the villa is filled with temptation this season, Sophie teases there are also plenty of strong women who won’t tolerate bad behaviour – and they’re more than happy to put
any misbehaving men in their place.

“The women are very strong this year,” she declares.

“They’re not putting up with much. I love watching strong women – it makes for fantastic TV.”
It’s 25 years since Bardot struck fame.

From Bardot to the Love Island villa

Sophie was born in London and at age two, moved to the Gold Coast, where she trained in classical opera, before working as a Marilyn Monroe impersonator at Warner Bros Movie World. It was then she applied for the fledgling reality series Popstars, where she got her first taste of fame as part of girl group Bardot, the Aussie version of TrueBliss. Bardot had hits with Poison and I Should’ve Never Let You Go.

That was 25 years ago and Sophie explains that as time’s gone on, she’s finally started to reflect on those days fondly.

“It doesn’t feel weird to look back,” she insists.

“It’s pretty cool. I love thinking about Bardot these days. I even listen to our albums every now and then!”