Australian viewers have an insatiable appetite for reality TV, but for participants the experience can leave a bitter aftertaste.
Jules Allen, from Lennox Head in NSW, is one of those contestants. Allen, 39, is a social worker and single mother who has fostered 29 children.
She is clearly a very capable woman but she says her experience as a contestant on the 2013 season of MasterChef left her feeling like "a basket case".
"You're encouraged to sort of crack open," she tells Australian Story.
"The problem is at the end there's no-one there to put you back together."
Ms Allen loves cooking and was encouraged to audition for MasterChef by her kids, and is candid about why she sought those proverbial 15 minutes of fame.
"I was always waiting for something to happen to show the world that somehow I was special or unique and when MasterChef happened I assumed that that was it," she said.
Designed to produce drama and high emotion
No-one is forced to enter a reality TV show and you would assume most people have watched enough reality TV to have some idea what to expect.
But Ms Allen says nothing can prepare you for the pressure and the immersive nature of the experience.
"So many people watch it and think they get it [but] they don't. It's only when you've lived it can you actually get it."
Contestants are cut off from friends and family, deprived of sleep and placed in unnatural situations. It is designed to produce drama and high emotion - good TV, in other words - but it clearly takes a toll.
"In defence of MasterChef, we were told to expect the unexpected - but you can't fathom what that means," Ms Allen said.
"I remember in the first few weeks a few of us referring to the fact that we felt like we were bipolar because of the enormous highs and excruciating lows - and they can all happen three times in a day."
The most common complaint from contestants is the way their contributions are edited to fit a particular narrative or character type.
Ms Allen admits she struggled with this but is philosophical about the outcome.
"The audience gets a version of me. That's the bit you find personally most confronting," she said.
"I don't think they were too far off the mark with me, whether I liked what I saw or not."
She says that once filming begins it is futile trying to modify your behaviour for the cameras.
"It doesn't matter how many cameras are rolling, you can't be different to who you are.
"I thought I'm just going to be really mysterious. I don't know who I was kidding because I was mysterious for about 3.5 seconds until I opened my mouth."
Powerless and vulnerable entertainers
The role of a reality TV contestant is a complex one, combining elements of performance and genuine emotion in a contrived environment.
Your companions are also your competitors and anything you say or do finds its way back to the show's producers.
"Living with the same 24 people [for] 24 hours a day is not real. Cooking for three judges is not real. It's not reality television. It's orchestrated television for the purposes of entertaining a viewer.
"You're an entertainer but you're a powerless entertainer and a vulnerable entertainer and you don't realise that until you're some way down the track."
Ms Allen was eliminated halfway through the competition and found the process deeply traumatic.
"After four-and-a-half months on MasterChef, you're gone. You're kaput. There's no transition at all," she said.
"You're spat out into a foreign world because you're not the person you were when you left.
"I remember feeling completely alone in that. I was a basket case really. I had nightmares for weeks.
"I think it's fair to say most of the contestants I kept in contact with found the hardest thing was the transition back into so-called normal life.
"The house you've been in is no longer an option, the place that you go to is not the same as it used to be so you're trying to find where you belong in the world.
"It is really difficult for everyone."
'Ritual humiliation on national television'
For Ms Allen the sense of failure was hard to bear.
"I wanted to do so well and didn't. There's shame attached to that. There's nothing worse than a camera being on you when you are in a place of shame," she said.
"It's not just MasterChef. It's whether you're on The Block, or MKR or The Biggest Loser - the end result is ritual humiliation on national television.
"The worst thing is we signed up for it. Try reconciling that in yourself."
For their part, Channel Ten and producers Shine Australia say they take their "responsibilities and duty of care to contestants very seriously indeed. Extensive support is provided throughout production, and after when required".
Many former MasterChef contestants remain in contact with Shine Australia, including working on program-related projects and helping to secure future series contestants.
Despite feeling bruised by her MasterChef experience, Ms Allen acknowledges the doors that it opened.
Her profile allowed her to pursue charity work, travelling to Cambodia to help abused women and children and working with Deborra-lee Furness as an ambassador for National Adoption Awareness Week.
"There's times when I've questioned whether I would do MasterChef again and the answer to that would be 'yes'," she said.
"There've been some tough things, but at the end of the day for a charity worker to have a public profile is a dream come true."
- Watch the full report on Australian Story at 8pm tonight on ABC1.*
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