INTERVIEW - Ashleigh Morghan (Are You The One)

We were huge fans of MTV hit show, Are You The One, but thanks to editing we didn't get to see everyone and everything! So we spoke to Ashleigh about her journey and the things we might have missed...

What made you take part in the show? Was it love, or money?

Love! We actually didn’t know about the money until after we got there, so we all went on the show thinking we were going to find love, we didn’t even know the whole concept of the show, I just knew it was a dating show and then we found out about the money when we got there.

Were you skeptical about the whole idea of the ‘perfect match’?

Oh I was totally skeptical. How are they going to determine who my perfect match is? I can’t even figure that out in real life, so how am I going to come on a show and find a perfect match. I thought the tests were trying to make it seem like they could do something but then after at the end I realised, wow this is kind of real.

You and Dre became close, what drew you to him?

It was funny because when I first came into the house I was attracted to Scali and we talked a little bit. I was kind of avoiding Dre because I thought he had a bad boy persona, and I was like, been there done that. Then I sat down and thought, well the whole point of me coming on this show was to get outside of my box, try something new and meet someone new so that’s why I gave Dre a chance. I realised we had a lot in common, we liked the same things, we have a lot of the same interests. That’s when it became apparent to me I was getting attracted to Dre and started to like him.

How did you feel when it was revealed he wasn’t your perfect match? Were you shocked?

I was shocked. I was 80/20, 80% saying sure he was my match, but a little bit of me was saying it could be someone else. I didn’t know who that person was. I wasn’t 100% sure he was my match but I really really wanted him to be, I’d invested so much time into Dre so I was devastated. It sucked that we weren’t a match.

You’ve mentioned on Twitter we didn’t see a lot of what really went on in the house, what did we miss?

I wish they’d have shown a lot more of our personalities. It seemed like they focused on a couple of people in the house, but there were funny people throughout the house. One night we did a free-style battle and Paige was free-styling, and everyone looks at her like, Paige is rapping?! It would have been nice for people to see us interact on a funny level. We made up a fake TV show, me and Chris T, called ‘The Saddle’, it was a western show and we’d pretend to be characters. Then there’s things like we’d have a drink and we’d be in the hot tub having a good time, none of that was shown. Dre and I bonded a lot, I wrote him a letter confessing my feelings for him, then he took me outside, he’d paid one of the producers to go out and get me a bear and some roses and he wrote me a note, it was raining a little bit, that was really cute.

We heard A LOT went off at the White Party…

What happened with the White Party is, first we had a photoshoot in the morning, then we filmed the sand challenge and that night it was the party. So we ate before the challenge, they told us were going to get food later so none of us had really big meals, then we were drinking whilst we were getting ready and all the guys we so drunk, they were like you girls need to catch up. We get to the White Party and it’s finger food! All of us got annihilated. All the girls were trying to do the hula, I made-out with Jacy, that caused a big problem, Dre got really upset with me about that. I’m really weird about kissing, I don’t know why, but when I drunk I’m like (insert enthusiastic kissing noise here & much laughter). I don’t remember a lot because I was throwing-up but I just remember looking around and everyone was in the sand cuddled up or throwing-up or making-out. It was pretty intense.

What was it like living in a house with all those people day to day?

At first it was like, I have no privacy, I have no alone time, I can’t be myself. Then when I came home I was in shock because I was so used to being with those people every day and I missed them so much. I’m in my apartment with my roommate, sad, I’m used to having 19 other people, someone walking past, someone laying down, there was always someone doing something.

JJ was actually your perfect match; did he ever cross your mind during the show?

It’s so weird because looking back in hindsight I don’t know what the hell was wrong with me! The first night we were in the house I met JJ and we free-styled against each other, like hardcore. People don’t really know this but I’m super nerdy, I like comics and superheroes and Dragon Ball Z and transformers. He and I would talk about all that stuff but even then it never occurred to me he was my match. I remember Jacy saying she could see JJ being my match because she spent the most time with him on an emotional level, but I’d be like, erm I don’t know. We both have big hearts, we’re both giving people then we have our nerdy comic side, so looking back I don’t know how I didn’t notice it.

Have you seen him since the show ended? Do you keep in touch?

I check-in from time to time because he’s my perfect match, it’s one of our obligations, so I’m like, hey match! I’m interested in acting and films and he does comedy so we’re both in the entertainment aspect, so I’ve been checking on him seeing how his comedy is going and stuff.

What was it like filming the reunion show?

I was so excited because I hadn’t seen anyone since we stopped filming in November so it had been three of four months and I was ecstatic, I couldn’t wait to see everyone again. We met up the night before and everyone was all, I’ve missed you, and we all watched the last few episodes together, then the actual reunion that was filmed tore us up. We were all supposed to go out that night and everybody went their own seprate ways, some didn’t even go out. It was bad. You guys saw an hour of it; we were there for I think nearly ten hours filming. It made me think, I’m so glad not to be around all this drama anymore, there was so much drama, people throwing other people under the bus, it was too much for me, I just wanted to go home.

How did you feel when it all came out about Dre and Simone? Were you expecting it?

Two weeks before the reunion I got a phone call ‘hey how are you, blah blah blah, did you know Simone and Dre had sex?’ and I was like what?! No no no no no, I’m thinking Dre would have told me that. He ended up calling me that day, we were talking about ‘The Bethany Show’ and I just asked him if he’d hooked up with Simone and he was like, who told you that? That was my first red flag, who told you that, is, yes I did how do you know. So I said just be honest with me and he was like, yeah she was my perfect match blah blah blah, which kind of rubbed me the wrong way and I kind of went off on him, he understood and said ‘we were a perfect match, we hooked up, I didn’t think it was a big deal’. I was like, I just wish you’d have told me, not because it’s my business but in our given situation it kind of is. In regular real life, no, but I lived with her, I lived with him and I looked stupid. On the reunion I knew it was going to get brought up but I didn’t expect Simone to snap the way she did, me and Dre had kind of left it in the past so we were reliving it at the reunion.

Besides JJ and Dre, who would you liked to have been your perfect match?

At one point I thought Ryan was maybe my match (we mention we liked Ryan – a lot), we’re both hopeless romantics, he has a nerdy side too, it’s odd because he’s kind of like JJ but JJ is funnier, Ryan tries to be funny, sometimes he is and sometimes he’s not. I love Ryan. It’s weird that I thought Ryan was my match but I never thought JJ.

Watching it back do you regret anything? Would you do it all again?

I don’t regret anything, I feel like in the moment that’s what I wanted to do so I can’t regret something that at one point in time I wanted. I wish I would have been shown more so people could see who I was and the kind of person I am, I feel like I would have been better understood, some people were like, who is that girl I didn’t even know she was on the show, it was centered round a couple of people and I always refer to myself as a background actor. I know my journey and maybe my journey wasn’t meant to be shown, so to me that’s all the matters. I know what I took from that experience and that’s all I need. Would I do it again? Reality TV shows are harsh, so harsh, I don’t know, probably.

Were you surprised by anything watching the show back that you didn’t know had happened?

It’s funny because I figured I’ll watch the show back but I already know what’s going to happen, I never thought I’d be seeing other peoples perspective and other peoples journeys so I was shocked. Scali talked all that shit about Simone and I was like, damn I didn’t know he felt like that. Kayla and Ryan, their argument where everyone was looking over at them and then ran away, Joey and I were out on our date so I didn’t see any of that. I don’t remember a whole lot specifically, Paige and Scali, some of that stuff I didn’t really know, but most of the main stuff we were all together. It was interesting to see some of the smaller stuff and see how things were unfolding.

What’s next for you? More TV?

Acting has been my passion for as long as I can remember, I have a theatre minor so I’d love to work on films and stuff like that, I’m taking acting classes and making myself more marketable in the acting world. Some people think because they know I’m an actress that I was acting on the show, I’m honoured you think I’m such a good crier, I can’t fake cry to save my life. I can only speak for myself but there was no acting, it was all real. My next step is to hopefully keep acting and look for an opportunity on TV or in films.