Former Biggest Loser host Ajay Rochester is completely “broke” and has been forced to work odd jobs to make ends meet.
The 53-year-old reality TV star moved back to Sydney from Los Angeles with her son Kai during the pandemic but is struggling to get back to the US, where she works as a casting director.
Rochester is battling to sort out her US visa and has been forced to spend the last of her remaining money on a trip to Fiji to resolve the issue, as the American embassy in Australia is shut.
She told Confidential that she is “broke”.
“I have lived off all of my savings over the past few years being literally stuck in Australia and my work is in America,” she explained.
“You are made to feel like a loser if you are pay cheque to pay cheque … it is expensive and the money has run out.
“There is broke, as in living in a tent, and there is broke as in I have been paying two rents broke. But broke is broke.”
Rochester thought it would take three months to sort out her Green Card but it has now taken the best part of three years.
Because her visa has now expired, she cannot even work remotely.
The TV star has resorted to a wide array of casual work to keep afloat, including cat-sitting, cleaning and working at a cookie factory.
She has also hosted children’s parties and painted their faces.
But Rochester insisted she was not “ashamed” to work part-time jobs.
After hosting the Biggest Loser for four seasons, she also starred on I’m a Celebrity... Get me Out of Here!.
During her stint on the show, she broke down in tears as she described the shame of pleading guilty to welfare fraud in 2009.
“It was four years of hell and torture. I destroyed my career. So I literally left Biggest Loser destitute, with no one wanting to hire me,” she said.
Rochester described how she “hadn’t noticed” the extra money in her account while hosting the Ten show.
“I’d been on the single parent pension. So just as I got Biggest Loser, I did my taxes, I noticed. I hadn’t noticed, I thought I might have been overpaid,” she said, adding that she’d called Centrelink and paid back the money after being told to do so.
“I got a letter a few months after, I think six months after I started Biggest Loser, saying Centrelink were going to take me to court for fraud,” she said.
Rochester wound up pleading guilty to 23 counts of welfare fraud in 2009 and paid back $14,000.
Although she escaped a criminal conviction, the TV presenter was left destitute, and relying on house-sitting other peoples’ homes with her son in order to keep a roof over their heads.
“I had $7.11 to my name. I was literally homeless,” she cried to her campmates.
“I emailed almost everyone I knew and begged for money, I just had no other choice.”
