The Real World: Sydney

The son of a welder,[10] Cohutta is a self-employed contractor who builds log homes for a living. Cohutta's name, which is Cherokee for "mountains that hold up the sky", is derived from the Cohutta Mountain Range in Georgia. He attended Dalton State College and North Georgia Technical College,[11] and is close to his family, which includes his parents, as well as his younger sister and grandfather.[12] He enjoys mountain hiking, horseback riding, and playing the guitar, and is looking for someone with whom he can start a family.[13] He took part in The Real World partially due to pressure from friends, and as part of his goal to see as much as possible before settling down with a wife and children.[14][15] He has done very little traveling away from home, and characterizes his home town and family as being "slower", because they take the time to sit down to eat together and enjoy the moment. Consequently, he feels out of place whenever he visits a city.[14] He eventually begins a relationship with KellyAnne. Cohutta subsequently appeared on the Challenge.

Dunbar's family lost everything after a money-laundering scandal, and Dunbar was forced to negotiate his own financial situation, and take responsibility for his life. He has two brothers, aged 27 and 19.[16] He enrolled in the military in order to pay for his education at the University of Mississippi, where he belonged to a fraternity. He is committed to his girlfriend Julie back home. MTV.com describes him as "well-spoken, opinionated on political issues, literature and poetry, arrogant, and hot-headed."[17] In the premiere, he claims to be more proud of being Southern than of being an American. In Act 2 of Episode 7, he says that his father used to beat him and his older brother, and that he had himself emancipated at age 15. In Episode 8, he reveals that his grandfather tried several times to molest him when he was a child. While attending private school at age 16-17, he was forced to take anger management classes in order to stay at the school. At one point he cheats on Julie with the cast member who replaced Shauvon, Ashli. After the series, he graduated from college and became a real estate broker.[18]

Isaac is from Cleveland, Ohio and a business major at the University of Arizona.[19] As he explains in the season premiere, he has a history of juvenile delinquency, having been put on probation for robbing 15 houses and shooting off fireworks through someone's window. Given the choice between nine months in jail and a "treatment center", he chose the latter, in order to reevaluate his direction in life. In addition to being an artist and musician, he is also an entertainer, taking place in freestyle dancing battles, doing stand up comedy, and MCing events.[20] He is Jewish.[21] In Episode 16, he reveals that he used to take a lot of LSD, from which he still suffers from occasional hallucinations of birds, and that when he sees a black bird, he interprets it as a premonition that someone close to him has died. He claims such a premonition in the same episode, before learning of his grandfather's death. Despite his fear of commitment,[22] he enters into a relationship with an Irish woman named Noirin during the season.

KellyAnne stayed out of most of the drama on Real World Sydney but claims that if she feels someone is walking all over her she will fight back fiercely. A self-described tease,[23] for her audition video, she stripped down to a T-shirt and panties, on the back of which she had written, "Make it Hott: Pick Me!" she comes off as a very confident girl. She is of mixed heritage that includes Italian, Polish and Irish. She was diagnosed with ADD at a young age, and as a result of being prescribed natural medicine, is considering a career in that field.[24] She has a sister named Kalan.[25] Her father works for the state.[10] She blames him for her parents' divorce, on account of the extramarital affair he had for a year, and the resulting pregnancy.[22] She ended her three-year relationship with her ex-boyfriend Sutton before coming to Sydney,[26] and she initially is flirtatious with Dunbar, but eventually enters into a relationship with Cohutta.

The daughter of Iranian immigrants,[27] Parisa is a Muslim that grew up in Commack, Long Island.[28][29] She is a graduate of New York University with a degree in International Relation Studies.[30] Montazaran told the New York Daily News that the experience of living with cameras was an "exaggerated existence", which amounted to "partying seven days a week", but that she did nothing during her stay that would embarrass her or her family, though she did call home one night when she drank too much.[1] An aspiring singer, Parisa says in the premiere that she recently graduated from college early in order to concentrate on her music. She repeatedly comes into conflict with Trisha and Dunbar.

Shauvon is a 24-year-old journalism major at the California State University, Sacramento, and as she says in the premiere, wants to be a news reporter. She has her own dating and relationships column called "Sexcapades". She insists that she is not the blonde bimbo that people may think she looks like. She recently ended her engagement to her fiancé, David, who told her to choose between a career and marriage and children. She is openly bisexual.[31] She later reconciles with him, and moves out in Episode 14 in order to return home.

In the premiere, Trisha says that she and her friends are the stereotypical "hot preppy girl" clique. She was raised as a devout Christian by her adoptive parents.[32] Her parents gave her a promise ring when she was twelve, as a symbol that she would retain her virginity until marriage, but as her boyfriend Jarod states in her home video, they have not upheld that resolution. From early in the season, and repeatedly during it, she comes into conflict with Parisa. In Episode 18, she is sent home for shoving Parisa to the floor during a heated argument.

Ashli is a 19-year-old from Huntington Beach, California who moves into the house in Episode 15 as a replacement for Shauvon. She explains when moving in that she is currently single, but "ready to mingle". When she moves in, it is apparent to her, Trisha and Parisa that she and Trisha are very much alike and have similar interests. She is attracted to Dunbar even though he has a girlfriend back home and at one point the two decide to step over the boundaries, only to develop an antagonistic relationship with him, much as Parisa did.