Tucked away in a quiet, semirural suburb on the Central Coast north of Sydney, Sophie Monk and husband Joshua Gross have created their own little slice of paradise, far removed from the chaos of the outside world.
And while the reality TV veteran spends her work life surrounded by sun-kissed singles searching for romance on Love Island Australia, at home, she’s happily living out her blissfully uncomplicated real-life romance.
Read more: ‘Mum made me do it!’: Sammi Poole’s Love Island leap.
“We love it here,” says Sophie as she kicks back on the couch following a rare at-home photoshoot with Woman’s Day. “It’s quiet. I’m not much of a city person. Cities give everyone anxiety, I’m sure.”
Indeed, the former Bardot singer and Josh, both 46, have found their happy place at home surrounded by lush greenery, wildlife and, of course, their two fur babies, five-year-old golden retrievers Billie and Bluey.
They’re so enamoured with the property that they even chose it as the location for their intimate wedding in 2022.
“It was just a really nice night,” says Sophie, adding that she enjoys looking around and being reminded of memories from that day.
“I loved it because we did it just by ourselves. It was so chill. There was no pressure. We just focused on each other and it was so relaxed.”
When they’re not working, Sophie says she and Josh – who call themselves “massive homebodies” – can be found walking the dogs around their sprawling property and, perhaps surprisingly, gaming!
“Oh, we’re big gamers,” Sophie confirms. “We love Call Of Duty and anything virtual reality, and we love a board game. Our favourite is Sequence – we get hardcore into it and take it so seriously. Sometimes Josh gets so fired up, I have to remind him to calm down and that it’s only a game.”
They also love to make videos together for Sophie’s 700,000+ Instagram followers, with the former Beauty And The Geek Australia and Australia’s Got Talent star crediting their success to their shared sense of humour.
“He just gets my vibe completely,” she says.
It’s a partnership that has grown alongside Sophie’s career, with the pair first meeting on a flight when she was returning home from filming the inaugural season of Love Island Australia in 2018.
“Love Island brought me love!” she marvels. “If I hadn’t flown to Spain to film, I wouldn’t have met him. That’s pretty cool.”
While Sophie’s now filming the show’s eighth season, she says of their relationship, “It doesn’t feel like eight years. It feels fresh. I still feel like it’s just the beginning.”
The couple celebrated their eighth anniversary in Fiji, where this season of Love Island is shooting in the same villa as the US version of the show – a change from last season, which was filmed in Spain.
Josh has taken a step back from his career in neurosurgical robotics in order to travel with Sophie, she reveals, confessing, “I’m definitely co-dependent. He comes everywhere with me, but I love it. I don’t care if it’s wrong or right. He’s my best friend. I’ve travelled and gone to nice places, and it can make me sad because I’m alone, so I’m so grateful I get to do it with him.
“Fiji is so lovely. I’m pretty spoilt. A lot of people film TV shows in the middle of nowhere and I get to go to paradise because the show is Love Island. All the contestants walked in starry-eyed with the villa. I don’t know if it was the villa being in Fiji or that it was the USA villa, but they all just clicked in a certain way. It’s
the best reality TV I’ve seen.”
Sophie also loves hosting Love Island as it gives her a dose of unpredictable and messy drama that’s so different to her own reality.
“I just love how primal it is,” she says. “We all want love, don’t we, really? And I’ve got so protective of the cast too because you’ve got to give so much trust and vulnerability to do a show like that. I feel it’s my job to nurture them and be there for them. With Love Island, you see the bathing suits and think it’s just a shallow reality show about appearances.
“But psychologically, it’s fascinating. It’s all so primal. It’s escapist viewing, but it’s real heartbreak. You can’t go on this show thinking, ‘I just want to be famous,’ because you’ll either get voted out or sucked in. You can’t not put your heart into it.”
It’s something Sophie can relate to after the 2000 reality TV juggernaut Popstars Australia transformed her from a Marilyn Monroe impersonator at Warner Bros Movie World to an overnight superstar. She went on to act in Hollywood films like Date Movie and Spring Breakdown, before becoming the leading lady of the 2017 season of The Bachelorette Australia.
And while she says she’s loved every part of her 25-year showbiz journey, Sophie knows she’s exactly where she’s meant to be now.
“Oh, my God, I’m so much happier here,” she enthuses. “Hollywood versus here? It’s like chalk and cheese!”
Touching on the next chapter of her career, Sophie says she’s happy hosting Love Island for “as long as they’ll have me”, but she’d be open to exploring new territories too.
“I’d love to be on The Traitors,” she says, while hinting that a return to music could also be in the pipeline. “I’m kind of talking about it at the moment.”
For now, though, Sophie is just content with the life she and Josh have built together.
“If my younger self could see me now, she’d just be happy that I’m happy,” she smiles. “That’s all I’ve been chasing since forever. I used to get bullied by the media, but now it feels like the opposite – I’ve had it forever and learnt how to deal with it. You really can’t teach someone how to deal with it all anyway. Touch wood I get no bad comments this season of Love Island!”
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