In an incredibly shattering moment on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! Tina Provis opened up about how childhood bullying manifested into internalised racism and how it affected her self-identity.
While I’m A Celebrity serves as a family-friendly reality TV show, it definitely has its serious moments. Especially when campers open up about their life experiences and how it has moulded them into the person they are today.
On Wednesday night’s episode, Love Island winner Tina Provis opened up about her childhood and how she was bullied for her race.
“My thing was, I was bullied, but I feel like boys were so mean or if I talked back to anything the only thing they avert to is ‘oh, but you’re like Asian’,” Provis shared before tearing up.
The Love Island champ went on to reveal that the bullying made her dislike her heritage and that she “grew up wanting to be like everyone else.”
“I just wanted to be white,” the reality TV star shared as fellow campmates Matty J, Hughesy and Reggie supported her.
Provis then admitted that she used to make it a point to “make fun of [her] race first” before anyone could get their licks in.
“It wasn’t till I was in my 20s, because then I had friends — I had really close friends who sometimes if there was a joke to be made, they would make it about me — and then one day, I was like that actually makes me really upset when you say that,” she recalled.
In a confessional, Provis delved deeper into the impact of these remarks, admitting that she gets sad reflecting on her high school self and how that internalised racism manifested within her.
“It’s really sad when I think about myself in high school, like wanting to change, my eyes or my hair, or not wanting to associate myself with, you know, something I should be really proud of,” Provis shared.
“It’s taken me some time to kind of reprogram how I think and accept how great it is that we are all unique and we’re all different, and, you know, just be better than people that don’t have something good to say about it.”
This isn’t the first time Provis has been vocal about her Asian heritage and how she suffered from internalised racism as a result of her past experiences.
In July 2024, the Sydney-based content creator shared an Instagram post reflecting on her Asian heritage, internalised racism, how it affected her time in the Love Island Villa and how it’s taken years to stir away and deprogram herself from harbouring “prejudices against myself”.
“It was around day three I had a conversation with another POC islander, where we questioned whether our race made us less desirable in the villa. But nothing is really just ‘in the villa’,” she penned on Instagram.
“Everyone who steps into the Love Island villa has a degree of anticipation about how they will be perceived and fears of rejection. But I can almost guarantee that every person of colour that walks through those villa doors is wondering if their race will be the reason they leave alone. That doesn’t make it true, or that it will happen but it is fucking sad that it is even a thought.”
As a Filipina who was born and raised in Australia, I can absolutely relate to what Provis went through. I hate to admit it, but I have had my own battle with internalised racism.
There was even one period in high school where I would lather myself in skin-whitening lotion in the hopes of becoming white and fitting in. Heck, just like Provis, I would even make degrading Asian jokes before anyone could say anything.
And while I’ve done a lot — and I mean A LOT — of work to de-colonise and de-train my mind from thinking those terrible thoughts, it’s conversations like this that help and bring awareness to not only white people, but to the Asian diaspora who might be suffering in silence.
Kudos to Tina Provis for sharing her story, a story a lot of the Asian diaspora in Australia can unfortunately relate to.
I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! continues tonight at 7.30pm on Channel 10 and 10Play.
