Hello everyone and welcome once again to Claude's Corner on iRealHousewives.com. I’m Jean-Claude and today we have Julia Sloane from from Bravo New Zealand’s The Real Housewives of Auckland. The former model talks life after RHOAKL and for the first time she addresses racial slur incident. Plus, Sloane also opens up about her new documentary, "Let's Talk About Sex" and much more.
Welcome Julia, how are you?
JS: Good thank you for having me
Let’s just go for it shall we?
JS: Let’s!
What was your view on the incident on the boat?
JS: It was completely blown out of proportion. I have never given an interview on this incident as I didn’t want to appear I was defending the use of the phrase “boat n****r.” Although it was not a racial attack on Michelle. I should never have used the word regardless of the meaning it has taken on in the expression. Jean-Claude, you are first person I am relating what happened to and only because I found you most engaging and lovely to talk to. Michelle, Gilda and I were on the deck of the boat. The Cameras were setting up and we were laughing and joking around. Gilda was ordering Michelle around to help her up on deck etc and said jokingly “Stop treating Michelle like your Boat n****r.
If you Google the meaning, you will find this: Middle class white girls (usually) who go crewing on a voluntary (usually) basis on larger cruising or racing yachts on their gap year. Occasionally in the hope of meeting a male (usually) crewman from a middle class background and income bracket for likeminded travel, fun and sex. Occasionally this may be the owner, but this isn't the main purpose. (As opposed to "Boat whore".)
Vb: "Boat N****ing" - to go crewing as above, unlike "Boating N****r" which is a racist taunt.
Jemima had such fun boat n****ing last year. She came back happy and sore, in all the right places, so she says. Lucky cow!
As you will see, I did not mean it as a racist taunt but telling Gilda off for treating Michelle like her Boat bitch, which would have been a far more appropriate word and what I had meant by the phrase.
I could tell I had offended Michelle and I felt absolutely awful. I hate offending anyone and hadn’t meant to. I felt really stupid for using the word in front of her. What happened next however went far in excess of anything I could have imagined. The producers did not tell me that the phrase was not caught on camera and asked me to explain to the girls downstairs what I had said. The result was that viewers could NOT see the context it was used. It should have been accurately portrayed as the insensitive use of language but it was elevated to a racist taunt. I would have been happy to have had it shown as it was and a lesson used for people to be more careful with language. However, it was edited and commented on in such a way as to look far worse.
Michelle and Gilda, who had been drinking all day, wound each other up to the extent all rationality was thrown away. I went up to the deck to try and apologize and say I didn’t mean to offend and it was stupid of me but I was physically and verbally abused. I had a glass thrown at me which smashed at my feet, I was called a fucking whore by Gilda. I had them both screaming at me until I was shaking.
It was suggested to me that I press charges for physical assault against Michelle for throwing a glass at me but I felt so bad about offending her that I didn’t want to have the Queensland police interview her which would have happened. The episode was edited and re-edited until they had elevated the racial connotation and downplayed the physical and verbal assault. It was used to push ratings in heaps of countries and was the only one shown free to air to America. The NZ human rights commission paid the “opinion writers” of the series $5000 to use it to enforce their flailing anti-racist campaign.
I have apologized to Michelle 3 times and to this day she has not accepted my apology. Overall I went from feeling sorry for Michelle and embarrassed by my choice of words to feeling used and abused. The race card was used by opportunistic reporters, PR machines and cast members to elevate themselves.
Credit: Julia Sloane
JS: Yes of Course. This is why to be portrayed as a racist is so humiliating for me. I grew up in a town in NZ with a huge percentage of Maori and Pacific Islanders. (My sister husband is a Maori). Only half the students at my primary school were white. We didn’t think of each other as different in any way. When I moved to Auckland and my children started school, I realized that they weren’t exposed to the Maori language that I was so I wrote a series of books to teach children the Maori language. They were published 10 years ago and they are still getting distributed to childcare facilities and schools to this day - The Kakariki series.
Who have you stayed in touch with from the show?
JS: I see Angela Stone and Anne the Champagne lady. Anne and I live near each other.
What were you're feelings with the show not getting a second season?
JS: Disappointed as I didn’t want the lasting impression of me to be so unlike me.
How long did filming last for the first season of RHOAKL?
JS: 3 months.
The Real Housewives of Auckland
How has the show changed you're life?
JS: The incident has made me more careful with language but the really great things is that opportunities such as Lets Talk About Sex [documentary] has come out of it. My books have been reboosted and I have met a varied and wonderful collection of great people.
What were some of the concerns that you had at the beginning of filming?
JS: I went in not knowing how big the franchise was worldwide and wasn’t as prepared as I should’ve been.
On the show you come off as a bit controversial. Do you feel that your edit on the show was fair to you?
JS: No - they didn’t pick up the controversial moment on camera so it was pretty much concocted.
Julia and Anne (Credit: Julia Sloane)
How is you're relationship with Michelle after the show?
JS: We are fine together. We just don’t talk about the incident. Both of us were pretty shaken by it.
Gilda was on Dancing with the Stars NZ - Did you call to congratulate her?
JS: We bumped into each other at the PRIDE parade where I was filming Lets Talk About Sex. We congratulated each other on our projects and I think I said to Gilda how brave she was doing Dancing with the Stars NZ.
Are the relationships the same from when filming started?
JS: No
Why wasn’t there a proper reunion special for RHOAKL?
JS: Ran out of money. They did a toned down one on Facebook Live. Honestly though, I couldn't have cooped with a reunion as the boat incident would have come out and I wouldn’t have been able to say anything in case it was seen as defending the word which I didn’t want to do. I was also pretty shaky around Gilda and Michelle. I’m hopeless with confrontation.
RHOAKL Season 1 Promotional Photo, Credit: Bravo NZ
RHOAKL didn’t have a reunion but if there was one, what would you have worn?
JS: Dolce and Gabana and Versace shoes.
Do you ever see BravoNZ rebooting the show?
JS: Honestly Bravo cannot afford it in NZ as we don’t have the advertising dollar being such a small country. It went so well around the world though that a department of NBCUniversal pledged 1 million toward it but NZ cant come up with the rest of the money. I don’t think its out of the question but something will need to change. They did try hard to bring it back and I heard they were intending using the same cast but unfortunately it didn’t eventuate. Since then though, it has been accepted into a lot of other countries such as Iceland, so who knows?
Credit: Julia Sloane
Ok Julia, "Lets Talk About Sex" - how did the documentary come to fruition?
JS: You may remember that I brought sex toys out in one of the episodes and the other ladies were shocked, horrified and stupidly prudish. One of the producers and I decided to see what NZers attitudes were toward sex and started interviewing people. We found that although NZ are world leaders in the prostitution reform bill, gay rights, gay marriage, we are still so inhibited and find a lot of prejudice still I have a lot of friends in the Rainbow community and a few in the sex industry so What resulted was a documentary about inclusion and acceptance. Open peoples minds. Let them understand how others are prejudiced and with understanding comes acceptance. It was accepted into the Documentary Edge film festival in NZ and had the highest audience. It has been asked to submit to the Tahiti Documentary festival due to its values and messages.
Which was the best part of filming the LTS documentary?
JS: Meeting an array of interesting fascinating people and seeing how many of them loved having a voice. From pole dancers to transgender, non-binary, sex workers, dominatrix. All had stories to tell.
Photo Credit: Julia Sloane
Would you like to turn LTS into a mini-series?
JS: That is what should happen to it to give more people a say. A documentary can only show so much.
How’d your daughter feel about you being a cast member on RHOAKL?
JS: She was actually surprised when I got cast because she thinks my life wasn't all that interesting, but that quickly changed. She thought it was pretty cool though as we don’t really have much reality TV in New Zealand at the time.
Ella, Julia's daughter (Credit: Instagram)
What’s you're daughter Ella been doing since we last seen her on the show?
Ella, Julia's daughter: Since the show, I've been focusing on school and modelling. Traveling around for both holiday and work.
How does she feel about how you were portrayed?
Ella: I think the way she was portrayed was sad, as everything was not always portrayed as it was, with the full story not even shown and they unfortunately chose to leaver her right under the line of fire.
Whats next for Julia?
JS: There is still discussion about whats happening to the documentary but at this stage I have a son heading to university to be a chemical engineer and a daughter off to Singapore to model so I’m a bit tied up with them. I’m proud of my children. Ella is very young to be asked to model in Singapore as she is only 15. I’ll go with her for 10 days then leave her for a few months during school break. She will live in model accommodation with a ‘mother figure’ so I do’n think she will get up to too much mischief (she laughs).
Do you have any last words for you're fans?
JS: I’m glad you enjoyed our series - don’t judge me too harshly. Hopefully we will be back.
Credit: Julia Sloane
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Photo Credit: Bravo New Zealand
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