Gabrielle Wright’s Sweet Victory

It took Gabrielle Wright a while to readjust to life outside Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, meticulously brought to life on Netflix’s new reality competition series Wonka’s The Golden Ticket.

“I don’t even know how long I was in there. Days felt like weeks, and hours felt like months, because we had no clock,” the 22-year-old DJ tells Bustle over Zoom. “The most disorienting part, once the tour was over, was that I kept hearing Wonka radio in my dreams. I was like, Oh my gosh, do I have to wake up right now? Are we about to go into a sudden-death challenge?”

But those dreams had to have been assuaged by the realization that alas, she was home in Orlando — and quite a bit richer. Gabrielle ultimately won The Golden Ticket, as viewers saw during the finale on Sept. 30. When she joined the series in Australia, she didn’t know it came with such a high-stakes prize. “I was just happy to get chocolate at the end of the day,” she says.

But when she arrived at the show’s immersive set last fall, Gabrielle learned she’d be competing for “a lifetime supply of money” — or $3 million, paid out over 30 years.

Naturally, the eye-popping prize brought out some healthy competition, and a few controversial moves, like when Gabrielle went against a plan to save her fellow contestant Everett Toy from elimination. “It was a strategy play. I didn’t know Everett’s game,” she says, noting that Everett saw her as a “swing” vote anyway. “But at the end of the day, what they didn’t really show was that I was super close with Bryce [Lee] and Taylor [Schilling] the entire time, and I knew that saving Bryce in that moment would be extra skin in the game for me.”

After a 24-person competition full of candy-themed physical and mental games, a jury of eliminated players had to pick who they thought should win between the last two contestants: Gabrielle or Taylor. But in one final twist, their votes didn’t decide the game. Instead, the women were tested on whether they could accurately predict who voted for whom. And ultimately, Gabrielle was victorious.

“I attribute this to me being a Pisces — maybe that’s just a me thing,” she says. “I love energy, and I can read energy, and I sense that from people, and I feed off of positive energy because I think we just need more of that as a whole.”

Gabrielle’s mom was her first call out of the factory. “She didn’t even think twice about the winnings,” she says. “At the end of the day, she just said the biggest win for me was going through that entire experience and growing so much from it.”

Heartened by her life-changing windfall, she is looking ahead toward what’s next. She’s written a children’s book, Wavy the Wonder Wave (“It’s really just [about] helping kids turn their negative emotions into positive ones”) and is eager to work on her nonprofit A Birthday Party Wish, which helps throw celebrations for kids in need.

“I’m using these tools that I learned within such a condensed amount of time — and it’s coming at [me] at every angle in my day-to-day life now — to help make decisions, to help understand people from a different point of view,” Gabrielle says of her time in Wonka’s world. “And it’s interesting that I can attribute all of this to a chocolate factory. Like, I find that so ironic.”

Below, the Golden Ticket winner opens up about DJing, the surprising item she brought to the factory, and how she plans to spend her prize.

The Fast Follow With Gabrielle Wright

What’s the first thing you looked up on your phone after leaving the factory?

What my friends were wearing on Halloween.

What’s the first thing you bought — or plan to buy — after winning?

I don’t know. Honestly, like... a financial adviser? Somebody who can help me learn how to take this money and run with it for a long time, and make a donation straight to my nonprofit. I don’t really think about buying anything.

What’s a topic you could give a PowerPoint presentation on with a moment’s notice?

How to use a red-light mask. It’s not just good for the face, but it’s good for the soul. I love it so much, I had to bring it to the factory.

What’s the weirdest or most surprising hobby that you’ve ever picked up?

It’s funny, because it’s now my career, but DJing. I stumbled upon it on a whim, and my first gig was playing in front of 10,000 people. I was like, Oh, this is what I’m gonna do! I’m having so much fun right now.

Have you bought anything you thought you’d regret buying but turned out to be useful?

I don’t know if I regret it fully, but... I love stuffed animals, and I buy too many. Maybe I shouldn’t be spending my money on a weighted stuffed elephant, but it makes me happy, and now I sleep with it every night.

Do you have a Notes app note that stands out to you?

My family has a famous secret mac and cheese recipe that my great-grandma came up with, and it’s been passed down through generations. I never learned how to make it as a kid because I was just so busy enjoying it. So I wrote down the recipe like a playbook and took photos at each stage — so now my Notes are just pictures of a giant pot of mac and cheese.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.