“We said to ourselves we can’t fight on camera any more,” says Roula.
“We have learnt a lot this time round. We learnt a lot about each other and now I look at her like my little sister; we bonded quite a lot. We see a lot of each other now and we have become a lot tighter.”
What’s more, back in Season 9, the tension between the girls didn’t stay in the kitchen, with Roula and Rachael often finding themselves in the middle of the drama around the dinner table.
But Roula is happy to admit this season has been completely different.
“It’s a breath of fresh air this time around,” she reveals.
“We had a completely different experience this time; we didn’t feel so cornered and bullied by the other teams. From the start of Season 9 we felt out of place. No-one liked us and people were picking on us and we got our guard up and had to be defensive the whole time.
“This time we know what we are in for, and we are not going to get manipulated or bullied. We are just going to be us.”
The girls want to prove they aren’t here just for the drama but really can create amazing dishes. “We wanted to show that we aren’t these hip-hoppy chicks,” says Roula.
“We are human and we do make mistakes and now we have come back to show people our real personalities and that we can cook.”
Of course, their initial opportunity didn’t go too well and they ended up in the first elimination, but Roula reveals that moment made them step up their cooking.
“We got mentored after our first cook this season,” she shares. “After that we thought it’s time for a change, time to pull our socks up and get
a game plan. That was our problem – we didn’t have
a game plan.”
Indeed the girls got it together and won the elimination. But, after everything that went down with the love triangle between herself, Ben and Lauren, going into the elimination cook wasn’t easy for Roula.
“It did rattle me but then every time I made a mistake with the food or we had a bad plate, I was like, ‘let’s give it to Ben’,” she laughs.
For more, see this week's New Idea - out now!
