Her friend went on Netflix's latest reality dating show, she agreed to a brief appearance. She never expected 10 minutes on screen would make her a star.

• Natasha Sebastiani made a brief appearance on "The Ultimatum: Queer Love" as the friend of contestant Tiff Der.
• Viewers of the Netflix dating show took to her voice-of-reason vibe, crowning her its breakout star.

Natasha Sebasiani was on vacation with her mom and grandma in Italy when she sat down to watch "The Ultimatum: Queer Love," Netflix's first foray into an LGBTQ+ reality dating show. (The show has been met with mixed feelings from the community it aims to represent — but more on that later.)

Unlike other queer reality TV fans, Sebastiani wasn't watching to see herself reflected metaphorically — she was literally about to see herself on screen.

"Queer Love" is the second season of "The Ultimatum," a reality show with a premise so absurd that it makes "The Bachelor" seem quaint. A handful of couples where only one wants to get married break up and date the other people in the "experience," with the somewhat murky goal of figuring out whether they actually do want to marry their original partner. This is ostensibly achieved by picking a new person from the pool of cast members — all queer women and non-binary people, in the latest season — with whom they have a "trial marriage" that involves living together, talking a lot about "open communication," and, of course, meeting each other's friends and family.

That's where Sebastiani comes in. Her friend Tiff entered the show with their girlfriend Mildred, but subsequently matched with Sam, whose original partner Aussie was newly matched with — you guessed it — Mildred. (Where's The Chart when you need it?) Naturally, Tiff is in need of some counsel, and Sebastiani steps up, featuring in two short scenes in which she advises Tiff on their relationships with both women.

Sebastiani told Insider that despite extreme editing — her eight-hour conversation was cut down to a four-minute scene, she said — she was pretty happy with how she was portrayed.

"You see yourself on camera and it's not familiar. It's very weird to see yourself. But I watched it several times over and over and was like, 'OK, I think it's OK,'" she said. "I didn't make a fool of myself, it's me, I'm happy with it."

"OK" would turn out to be an understatement. Despite appearing on screen for under 10 minutes total, Sebastiani eclipsed the cast members of the show; within hours of the episodes being released on May 31, social-media sleuths were mobilizing to uncover her identity, desperate to track her down for more morsels of insightful advice, even campaigning for her to host the next season or get her own show.

Sebastiani is shocked by the impact she's had, but she's not shying away from it.

'I was just like, what is happening?'

While Sebastiani was initially a little concerned about appearing on TV, she convinced herself that it was just a few minutes of airtime and it would be a fun experience. She only began to realize the impact she'd had when her mom told her there was a TikTok about her. "I'm like, 'what?' and that's when it started trickling in," she told Insider.

The next day she woke up to hundreds of notifications. "So I was just like, 'What is happening?' and that's when I was like, 'Oh, my God, like, my scene made an impact,'" she recalled. "I think I had like 100 followers, now I have almost 50,000. I mean, it's insane."

Tiff told Netflix they were flooded with messages from viewers looking to track down Sebastiani. "Every three DMs, it's like, 'What's Natasha's handle? Is Natasha single?' I'm like, 'You're flooding my DMs,'" they said.

Part of Sebastiani's popularity may be because of her pull no punches honesty.

"I don't think Tiff and Mildred are right for each other because they can't communicate. And if they want to be together, they have a lot of work to do," Sabastiani said.

Her frankness impressed viewers, who then reached out for advice. "Like, it's nonstop — it still is. And it's like your mind takes a minute to catch up," she said.

In a sea of dysfunction and controversial behavior, Sebastiani emerged as the voice of reason

Within seconds of appearing on screen and hearing the details of Tiff's experience, Sebastiani became a surrogate for the audience, telling Tiff that she felt her and Mildred's "Ultimatum" breakup made no sense.

Sebastiani is 35 and works as a healthcare consultant from her home in Northern Virginia. She has no formal training in psychology or couples counseling, but when the show was filmed, she had just broken off an engagement and been through a lot of therapy.

All this came into play when she advised Tiff on their relationship with their "trial wife," Sam, intuiting that Tiff was the one blocking any potential intimacy. In one particularly poignant moment, she holds Sam's hand in an effort to encourage Tiff to become more comfortable with non-sexual physical touch.

"I felt like in that moment, when I was talking to Tiff, I was just like, roles reversed, talking to myself," Sebastiani told Insider.

Later, in a scene with Mildred and Tiff, she took the couple to task for their communication problems, and suggested they seek couples counseling.

"Don't rush anything," Sabastiani said.

She thinks people connected to her because her advice to Tiff was heartfelt and personally informed, without making it about her.

"It was kind of a mirror," she said of Tiff's relationship with Mildred. "So that's probably why I came off so real."

Netflix's increasingly convoluted arsenal of dating shows — which include "Perfect Match," "Love Is Blind," and the "Ultimatum" franchise — have been polarizing, with critics accusing shows of being disingenuously edited, promoting a hero/villain dichotomy, and mistreating their contestants. The various series have spawned a cottage industry of therapists offering armchair analysis.

And then there are the accusations of abusive behavior among show contestants. Those came to a head following the "Ultimatum: Queer Love" reunion, in which Tiff's former partner Mildred revealed she'd been arrested after physically assaulting Tiff. The admission stoked outrage among fans who were shocked that the show allowed them to be on stage together. Tiff eventually left the taping in a flood of tears after being berated by Mildred for calling the police at the time of the assault.

Viewers questioned whether the show seemed to take intimate-partner violence less seriously because it occurred in a queer relationship and offered other criticisms of the show, including having Joanna Garcia Swisher — who is straight — host, and failing to signpost contestants' gender pronouns on screen.

Sebasiati told Insider she was just as baffled by these missteps as viewers were, and was especially troubled by the reunion scene. "I was in shock with everyone else watching it. I'd be lying if I didn't say I was disappointed and how it was handled by production," she said.

Netflix did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Amid such controversy, Sebastiani's presence was a breath of fresh air. "A lot of people have been messaging me telling me that 'you said exactly what I was thinking. Thank you.' And I think that's what the connection has been."

Sebastiani's unexpected breakout stardom highlights a new path to reality TV success

Sebastiani isn't going to let her moment in the limelight go to waste. On June 11, she announced that she was launching virtual group coaching sessions called Let's Hold Hands — a reference to her most notable moment on the show — where fans can pay to chat to Sebastiani about their life and relationship issues.

"It's so needed in the community to just have peer-to-peer groups that you can just be like, 'Hey, are you going through something similar to me? Can we talk about it and not have it be a professional therapist?' This is not therapy. It's just conversations that I wish I had," she said.

Not everyone took well to the $80 price tag initially attached to these sessions, especially given Sebastiani's lack of qualifications. She said she saw the comments calling out the cost, and while she didn't outright address them, she did quietly drop it to $50. But she stands by her right to monetize her moment.

"I'm 35 years old. I'm a professional. I give back to the community in my own way and have my whole life and continue to do so, but my time is money, and I know what I'm worth," she said.

And it seems people are willing to pay — Sebastiani said her first coaching session sold out in two days and she's launched a Cameo where fans can pay $49 to get a personalized message from her.

As her family vacation draws to a close, she's heading to New York City, where she's hosting a meet-and-greet at a Hell's Kitchen nightclub on Pride Day.

Sebastiani is cautious about giving up the security that comes with a stable job, but she also wants to make the most of an opportunity she never expected — and she won't rule out saying yes should Netflix come calling to offer what fans are begging for: a hosting gig for the next season of "The Ultimatum."

"I love changes," she told Insider. "Whatever will get my family on a yacht in the Mediterranean in 10 years, I will pursue it."

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