If we had to choose one breakout star from this year’s SAS Australia, it would undoubtedly be AFLW player Sabrina Frederick who smashed the gruelling SAS selection course alongside Merrick Watts and Nick ‘Honey Badger’ Cummins.
But the 24-year-old has nothing but respect for her fellow recruits and is “extremely proud of everyone that signed up for the show.”
“I think that everyone has their opinions on people that left early and all of that but to even get through the first task on day one, there aren’t many people that would actually do that,” Sabrina tells Who following her SAS Australia experience.
Sabrina became one to watch after she decided to take on rugby player Nick in an intense physical punch-up, impressing the Directing Staff. But when Sabrina’s friend Brooke Blurton, who was one of the contestants on Nick’s season of The Bachelor in 2018, made a cheeky joke about giving the Honey Badger “a good 👊🏽 for me” on Instagram, fans went wild.
In this exclusive chat, Sabrina clears up why she really chose to fight Nick plus, what it was really like behind the scenes filming and whether she’d ever do another reality show.
Congratulations on passing selection! How does it feel now the show is all done and dusted?
It’s surreal. Obviously we recorded it a while ago but to relive it the last few weeks and seeing people’s responses to the show has been unreal. But it’s also been such a weird experience being a fly on the wall, almost an outer body experience getting to watch it back. Super super proud of everyone’s efforts – it’s been a crazy ride and I’m so glad that I had that opportunity.
Chief instructor Ant Middleton said the women on the Aussie version of the show performed better than the ones on the UK version. Did that feel good to hear especially as you were the only woman to pass selection?
I didn’t know that he said that! But if he did say that, that’s pretty awesome especially coming from him. I respect everything that Ant says, he’s incredible. Honestly I’m really proud of all the girls that competed in this course – it’s been pretty cool to fly the flag and really put the best foot forward for women everywhere.
You and some of the other recruits struggled with Firass Dirani who was something of a class clown/villain on the series. What was he really like to film with?
I think that he’s an entertainer at the end of the day and I hadn’t been forced to live with someone like that before, it’s very different for me. I’ve been in team environments my whole life where I’ve been surrounded by people that are pushing for the common goal for the team.
I think it got blown out to be this whole thing that I hate him – it’s not like that, I don’t really know him very well. I just wanted to make it clear that you’re not going to get on with everyone and we’re not best mates and that’s fine but the main learning was that we had to find common ground to work together as a team. From the outside, I thought he wasn’t there for the team reasons, he was there for himself which is fine but I also don’t really know because I’m not him.
I tried to steer clear from saying anything because you didn’t get to see everything, you only see a minute or two of the whole conversation with the team and Firass and that was a 20 minute conversation so a lot more gets said. But at the end of the day I’m just thankful that I made really strong relationships with the people in there and I’m so thankful that opportunity.
You guys did seem to grow very close. Which recruits did you grow closest to over filming?
I think that when you go through something so extreme like that, you can’t help but build strong bonds with those people because they’re the only people who are going to understand what you’ve gone through and you also get to learn people at their truest form. I believe that when you’re under that much pressure, you show your truest form and for me I was really proud of that.
You almost become a family in the end and for me I was lucky enough to build relationships with everyone but I think the ones that I probably got closest to would have been probably Merrick Watts for sure, Ali Oetjen and Shayna Jack but right behind it would’ve been everyone else, genuinely, I love those guys. [Merrick] is a friend for life that guy and he’s incredible.
Your fight with the Honey Badger became one of the most iconic moments of the series. You said that you chose to fight him to challenge yourself but did you secretly do it for your friend Brooke Blurton who was on his Bachelor season?
No! It’s all fun and games, she doesn’t have any bad blood with him either. She was definitely not on my mind when I hit the Badger, that’s funny though! It was genuinely because he was the biggest recruit and I knew that he’d give me a fair fight.
The physical challenges were tough but the interrogations looked just as hard at times. Do you think som
Honestly what you see on TV is all we saw of other’s interrogations so I genuinely don’t know. I think that that’s the beauty of the course – it is the most real thing, we don’t know what’s going on in the course, we have no idea how we’re going or what the DS are saying about us until we saw it on TV.
At the end of the day, they pushed the buttons of each recruit that they needed to in order to get the most out of them. I think the course was individualised and as they learned more and more about us, they knew what buttons to push. These guys are the elite of the elite – the interrogations would’ve been based on the individual and what information they needed.
You’re in a committed relationship so dating shows are out, but would you ever do more reality TV?
Definitely Bachelor and Bachelorette are out! I’ve said it before but never say never. I think it would have to be the right fit for me and it would have to be authentic. I could never sign myself up to something that I didn’t agree with or believe in. I never thought I would ever go on reality TV but this opportunity came up and I couldn’t say no.
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