The New It-Girls of Reality Television

by Ksenia Edwards

After years of carefully curating their brand, Canadian born Natalie Halcro and Olivia Pierson, are the epitome of a social media success story. In just a few short years, the two cousins were able to turn their online popularity into a career beyond the screen, which has resulted in much more than just a penchant for fashion and blogging. Natalie and Olivia, or more commonly known as Nat and Liv, started their careers with a beauty blog called Jèrome and a self-titled YouTube channel where they candidly shared parts of their lives with their audience. As interest in their online ventures continued to grow, they simultaneously grew their Instagram accounts, and soon E! network came knocking at their doors with an opportunity to star on WAGS — a reality television series starring wives and girlfriends of athletes. While the show has since been cancelled, their participation was enough to leave a mark on the fans and the network, and they were offered their own show, aptly titled, Nat & Liv. The docu-series, set to premiere in March, stars the two cousins along with other members of their family and follows them around as they get ready to launch their clothing line and navigate their new reality. We recently sat down with Natalie and Olivia for a conversation in their Vancouver hometown. While the E! cameras were rolling during the interview and the photo shoot that followed, the two were playful, candid and completely natural. And if that’s any indication for what their new show will be like, we’re certain it will flourish.

Tell us about your new show? 

Nat: It’s with our family, which is amazing! We’ve done reality television before, but it’s never been with our family. So it’s interesting — we thought it would be a bit easier with our family, but it’s actually a bit harder because there are so many personalities. 

Liv: And on this show, we’re producers on it as well. So we do get a say in some things and we’re working with the other producer’s, which is cool, but it is more than we thought because we actually really care about everyone in the cast. Whereas other shows, it’s often with people you just met and that you’re not actually friends with. So that was a bit shocking but still really fun. It’s also great to be back in our hometown. 

What were your thoughts on doing reality television before you did it the first time? 

Nat: I really had no idea what to expect. 

Liv: I didn’t either — we kind of knew that we wanted to be on television to some capacity because we grew up on set. But if we didn’t have each other we wouldn’t be able to do it. That was the most fun part of it. I don’t know how some of the women and men go on by themselves, without actual friends. Because it can be a lot. 

On this new show, will we see a different side of you that we didn’t get to see on WAGS?

Nat: I think so. For sure, yeah —

Liv: You get to see where Nat grew up. Her parents still live in the same house in Langley. We grew up fishing on the Fraser River with gun boots and all, no makeup. Everyone always thinks we’re very glamorous, which we are, but we also like to put our hair up, with no makeup on and sweats on so that side of us will definitely be shown on our show. 

What sort of message do you hope to spread with this show? Or what is your intention for doing this show?

Nat: I think our families really unique but at the same time, we’re a lot like every other family and I think it will just be nice for people to see a group of people who love each other and just have each other’s back. So we hope to spread love and positivity. Everyone is also pretty funny so hopefully, people watching will have a good laugh. 

Liv: Yeah, just zone out and have some fun for an hour with our family. 

Being on reality television, you expose yourself to both positive and negative attention — how do you deal with the negative comments and cyberbullying? 

Nat: We’ve definitely been cyberbullied and I think that everyone probably has to some capacity. But we just have the mentality the more you give energy to something, the more it’s fuelled, so we try to shake it off and ignore it. Sometimes it’s more hurtful than others, but we try not to give into it.