‘It knocked my confidence’.
Farmer Jason tells Woman’s Day he had a crisis of confidence and producers had to calm him down after one of his chosen ladies Jessie quit the show before even getting to his dairy farm in Coolabunia, Queensland.
“I didn’t consider giving up the show, but I was worried, like, ‘Why are they all leaving?’ It knocked my confidence around a bit. Like, ‘Have I done things wrong? Could I do things better?’ The girls leaving wasn’t supposed to happen,” he says.
“The producers gave me a talking-to about it and then the next thing you know, things got worse,” Jason tells Woman’s Day, hinting there’s more heartbreak to come for him.
“I was like, ‘Holy sh*t!’ I was worried they were all just going to keep leaving,” he says. “I was worried what the audience would think as well, like ‘Oh sh*t, there’s something wrong with him! He’s a weirdo off camera or something!’” [laughs].
CAMERA SHY
But the 37-year-old says the real reason Jessie left had nothing to do with him.
“The cameras weren’t for her – she wasn’t really keen on them,” he says of the 36-year-old administrator from WA.
Jason admits he now regrets choosing Jessie to come to the farm.
“She came all that way. If she was thinking that, it might have been good to know that first. I suppose it’s all in hindsight.”
She isn’t the only Jess ruffling feathers on Jason’s farm, though. Viewers watched as Jessica, also 36, had a tantrum and stormed out after Jason chose to not send any girls home this week.
“I was a bit shocked when she acted like that,” Jason admits. “I thought she might have been happy. I wasn’t expecting that kind of reaction.”
Jason says his 12-year-old son has had a better reaction to his dad being on telly. He says the tween is “excited” and has a “bit more of an understanding of what was happening” than his six-year-old sister – and even wanted a spot on the screen himself!
“He wanted to be on the show as well,” Jason laughs. “But we sort of decided, ‘No, I better not chuck him on there.’”
Instead, he’s content tuning in with his dad. “I’ve got my son full-time, so we watched the first two episodes together. He was asking me 10,000 questions and I was telling him to shush,” Jason laughs.
Was one of those 10,000 questions about his dad’s desire to have more kids, which he shared openly about on the show? “No,” laughs Jason, who tells Woman’s Day he fears, even if he finds love on Farmer, it may be too late. “I love being a dad, but sometimes I think as I’m getting older, it probably won’t happen.”
BEHIND THE SCENES
Jason admits it’s “weird and awkward – just looking at things I said and did” while watching the show back at home.
And he’s just as concerned about what viewers may think!
“They’ve [producers] locked us out [of social media] so I’m having a bit of a detox. I was probably enjoying not knowing what was happening in case people were saying bad things about me, but my sister keeps screenshotting things and sending them to me. I’ll probably block her soon,” he jokes.
And when asked what else surprised him about the off-camera action on the show, Jason says having a full house – and fridge – took some getting used to.
“It was a bit weird when I opened up my fridge, because I’m a dairy farmer, and there were five different types of milk in there,” he laughs. “Oat, soy, almond, normal cow’s milk from the shop, plus milk off the farm. All the girls and the producers had their fancy milks.”