Erin & Sara Foster On ‘Barely Famous,’ Reality TV [Video Exclusive]

Erin Foster and Sara Foster, daughters of David Foster and former stepsisters of Gigi and Bella Hadid, are the creators of Barely Famous – a faux reality show in which they play warped versions of themselves.

Erin & Sara Foster Video Interview On ‘Barely Famous’

Erin and Sara are fascinated by the reality TV paradigm. They’ve long had a front-row seat to the phenomenon, as their former stepmother Yolanda Foster and stepsisters Bella Hadid and Gigi Hadid have figured somewhat prominently on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Erin and Sara, notably, never appeared on the series. In a sense, they’re opposed to the idea of exploiting oneself in that fashion – whether it be solely to become a reality TV personality, or to further one’s music or acting career.

“Reality stars have such a bad rep for being so desperate to be famous, but it’s now trickled down to actresses and musicians and people that are actually really talented. You see them setting up these fake paparazzi shoots and you’re like, ‘You don’t need to do that, you’re actually talented,'” Sara told uInterview in an exclusive interview.

“Posting an Instagram that’s clearly like an ad and getting paid money to do it; everyone’s sort of playing into it and we just wanted to make fun of it,” Erin added.

Despite reality TV’s obvious ploy for people to expose their lives for fame and money, “fans” continue to tune into it. Sarah and Erin believe it’s two part: people are natural voyeurs, and they like to see other people worse off than them.

“I think it fulfills this voyeuristic need that we have — when we used to use binoculars to look in someone’s window and now you just turn on your TV and feel like you’re watching people’s lives,” Erin explained.

Sara chimed in, “I also think it makes you kinda feel better about yourself. I mean, you watch these reality TV [stars] and they’re all train wrecks. All messes. None of them really has their life [together].”

For Barely Famous, Erin and Sara cull their personal knowledge of the inner-workings of reality TV. For instance, they know that Real Housewives producers pay for joint trips for their stars, but that said stars have to pretend on camera that they just so happen to have booked trips to the same place. What the Foster sisters don’t do, is parody any specific show or any specific star. They also don’t ask Gigi or Bella for any advice.

“You see ridiculous things on reality TV and then you find a way to elevate it and try to make it bigger and broader and truthfully though, there’s a lot of material out there. It’s hard to get stuck,” Erin told uInterview. “I mean, you just have to like open your computer and go onto some gossip site and you go, ‘Jesus this is crazy!’ There’s a lot of material to pull from so we don’t have a hard time.”

For season one, and now for season two, Erin and Sara have managed to get a number of high-profile celebs to make cameos in Barely Famous. And, like them, the celebs play satirized versions of themselves. In addition to naming Cindy Crawford and Chelsea Handler as favorite guest stars, the sisters have since become fast-friends with Kate Upton and managed to get Kate Hudson and Jessica Alba back for Barely Famous‘ sophomore season.

“Kate Upton was so awesome, she was so funny. We got to know her, we’ve become friends with her since being on the show. We’ve just gotten really lucky, Erin said. Sara added, “Kate Hudson and Jessica Alba came back, because they did the first season, so they obviously didn’t have too bad of a time first season to come back.”