TV fame is a double-edged sword, says Sam Thompson
Sam Thompson has opened up about his experiences of reality TV fame.
Sam Thompson thinks being a reality TV star can be a "double-edged sword".
The 33-year-old TV personality shot to stardom on Made in Chelsea, the hit Channel 4 show, but Sam feels like reality TV success brings unique challenges.
Speaking at a screening of his new YouTube documentary, Sam explained: "It's a weird thing isn't it? Because when you do reality TV, I started in my early twenties, and you do this sort of thing and at the start there was no social media, right?
"So you do these shows and right after that, it's go and get a different job, whatever that may be and it's been a fun time in my twenties.
"And then, you do this show and the industry as it were appears in front of your face when all these doors happen, you try and walk through the doors and they're very firmly shut.
"It's like a double-edged sword, because you wouldn't know the doors existed unless you did reality TV but then it becomes doubly hard to walk through the f***** doors because no one's there, everyone's locking it like that ... that's my experience of it anyway."
Sam co-hosts a podcast with Pete Wicks, who feels similarly about reality TV fame.
Pete explained: "Fundamentally, and it's slightly different now, but when we started reality TV, it was only really Made in Chelsea, Geordie Shore, TOWIE ... you didn't have Love Island, you didn't have as many shows as what there is now. And I think when you have a reality TV background, you're seen to be the ones that get produced, you kind of do a lot of things that you're kind of told to do, and you're told what directions to go in.
"Sometimes, especially doing some of the things that we've done, for two complete f****** doughnuts to go and do some of the things that we've done, especially like the O2, off of our own back and not having writers or people to do the show or people to do that.
"We just thought, 'f*** it, we'll do it ourselves.' I think a lot of people thought we would fail, there's probably people in this room that thought we'd fail."
