Chloe Anderson
Chloe Anderson (2021-2022)
Sam Barrett
Episodes: 7483–7843
Date of Birth: 13th March 2000
Parents: Matthew Montgomery (deceased) & Mia Anderson
Siblings: Kauri Parata (half-brother, deceased)
Occupation: Bartender; La Cucaracha food truck owner; Waitress; Caterer
Chloe arrived in town with Nikau in early 2021, having met up with him while travelling in New Zealand. She had lived with the Paratas from an early age when her mother Mia was the partner of Ari, who considered her his stepdaughter, but had been taken away by Mia when Ari was sent to jail. One of the first people she met in town was Ryder, who refused to serve her a cocktail without ID. She then headed to the Parata house for a reunion with Ari and Tane, who agreed to let her stay on condition she told Mia. Chloe returned from a trip up the coast with Nikau to find Mia had come to take her home, but refused to go with her, angry that Mia had lied about Ari wanting nothing to do with them. She was shown around town by Nikau, meeting his girlfriend Bella, and convinced Ari’s girlfriend Mackenzie to give her a job at Salt after winning a cocktail-making competition against Ryder. She continued to have an abrasive relationship with Ryder, refusing to take instructions from him on her first day.
Her spending all her time with Nikau began to upset Bella, leading to a vicious argument between the two girls. Chloe accepted Nikau and Bella would want to be alone and began spending time with Ryder. They had another cocktail competition with Marilyn as the judge and Ryder blamed Chloe when Marilyn ended up falling over drunk and cutting her head. Chloe gave Marilyn a meat platter as an apology, not realising she was a vegetarian. When the four youngsters spent the evening at Bella’s flat, Chloe and Ryder infuriated the others with their constant arguing. Chloe was keen to reunite Ari and Mia, inviting them both to have dinner with her and then leaving them to have a romantic meal together.
She resisted Nikau and Bella’s attempts to get her and Ryder to put their differences aside, but agreed to Ryder’s suggestion that they fake it for their friends’ sake. However, on their way to a night out clubbing, she and Ryder saw Nikau and Bella being dragged into a van, and when Chloe ran over to help, it resulted in all four of them being kidnapped. They were locked in a shipping container overnight, with the culprits turning out to be Paul and Leon, two criminals the Paratas had had dealings with the previous year. The foursome were soon freed when Ari and Tane turned up and a fight broke out, but Mia insisted on taking Chloe to stay with her at the caravan park. However, they went to the hospital when Ari was run over by Paul and Chloe got Ryder and Nikau to help her move back into the Paratas’. She was present at the hospital when Ari regained consciousness.
She kissed Ryder, having seen a different side to him during the kidnapping, and was disappointed by his lack of reaction. After Bella got them talking, she and Ryder kissed again but kept their new relationship secret from everyone. They planned to tell their friends but were caught kissing by Nikau before they could. When Ari was discharged from hospital, they had to break the news to him and Mia, which went reasonably smoothly despite Nikau teaching Ryder the wrong thing to say in Maori. Their loved-up behaviour soon began to grate on Nikau and Bella as they intruded on their alone time. When Bella and Nikau went away to a cottage without telling him, they followed them down and gatecrashed. Bella and Nikau tried to pay them back by pretending there was a ghost there but Ryder and Chloe returned the favour by tricking them into thinking Ryder had injured himself in a panic, before finally leaving them alone.
Mackenzie suddenly sacked Chloe, saying they had too much staff, and Chloe was angry that Ryder had known she was planning to do it and not warned her. She was initially unimpressed when Ryder resigned in solidarity, but they ended up spending the night together for the first time and then the next day. Although they were happy having time to themselves, Nikau’s new modelling career convinced them they needed to do something with their lives. Ryder went to ask Mackenzie for their jobs back butChloe found out Mackenzie had miscarried Ari’s child and rushed to stop Ryder, only for her attempt to give her condolences to result in Mackenzie throwing everyone out. Struggling for food, they were happy to accept an invitation from Bella to the after party of Nikau’s first photo shoot.
Alf demanded a plan for the future and Chloe claimed they were working on something. They came up with the idea of a food truck but were pulled up short on learning how much money it would cost. Ziggy managed to get them a truck but they were turned down for a loan: However, Alf, Roo and Marilyn lent them the start-up costs. They set up the taco truck outside the surf club but immediately received opposition from Mackenzie, forcing them to relocate to the caravan park until they were able to arrange a trade waste permit. On their return, they and Mackenzie began trying to outdo each other with special offers, culminating in Chloe claiming to have seen a rat in Salt, causing Mackenzie to have to close down for an inspection. Chloe stuck to her story when Alf and Roo questioned her but Ryder caved and gave Mackenzie the afternoon’s takings to pay for the inspection.
When she cried off work with a hangover and then Ryder found a pregnancy test in her bathroom, he jumped to conclusions. Chloe put him straight, realising the test was Mia’s. She was concerned since Mia had had a number of miscarriages when she was with Ari before, and then her brother Kauri died after being born premature, which was the start of Ari and Mia breaking up. She expressed her concerns that history would repeat itself but gave her blessing to them to keep trying. She and Ryder were asked by Nikau to cater at a party he was putting on to help with his social media presence and she dismissed Bella’s claims that the modelling life was changing him. She wasn’t sure how to react when it was suspected for a time that a body found in the sea was Mackenzie, getting snapped at by Ryder. When she learned Mia was pregnant, she supported her and Ari on seeing how happy the news made them.
The morning after she had attended the pre-show of Bella’s exhibition, Chloe was working at the food truck when it exploded with her nearby. She ended up being impaled through the abdomen and needed surgery but was soon well enough to be discharged. However, Ryder admitted to her that, while they had third party insurance, the food truck itself wasn’t insured, leaving them in debt.
She defended Nikau after he cheated on Bella, having a go at Bella for abandoning him and arguing with Ryder and Mackenzie. She apologised but turned down an offer to return to Salt. Instead, she was convinced to apply for a job at the Diner, although she felt insulted that she had to submit a CV. She got the job and got on well with Marilyn, although Irene wasn’t convinced about her work ethic when she spent most of her shift chatting to Ryder. She clashed with Bella again after overhearing her saying Ziggy should dump Tane for Dean. Her fears about Mia’s pregnancy came true when she suffered a miscarriage after being in a crash with Dean and Nikau. Ryder suggested doing something to cheer her up so she dragged him along to a touch footy session. Realising they needed second jobs, she and Ryder decided to set up a food delivery business. After she helped Roo and Martha with their fundraiser organisation, she began using the Diner kitchen after hours to make up deliveries for the business, not admitting to Ryder that they didn’t have permission until after the orders started arriving. They struggled to find time when Irene and Leah stayed back to do a stock take and ended up so exhausted after having to work their regular jobs the next day that they fell asleep in Ryder’s car.
She accepted another large catering order even though she and Ryder had worked through the previous night. They were caught out by Leah and Justin but did a deal to carry on using the Diner in return for Leah and Irene getting a share of the profits. She encouraged Nikau to make things up with Bella and met Theo, who she let help with deliveries when Ryder was too tired. She arranged a party for Ryder’s 21st and accepted an offer of help from Theo, despite Ryder not liking him. Theo volunteered to take Ryder to the secret party at a club, only for Theo to kidnap Ryder and drive him there in the boot of his car. Despite Bella pointing out it would have reminded Ryder of the time they were all kidnapped, Chloe felt he was ruining the party and ended up spending the evening with Theo and staying with him when Ryder left, not coming home until the next morning. Ari insisted she attend Ryder’s birthday lunch but it came to an abrupt halt when Ryder asked her if she’d slept with Theo. She and Ryder went to the hospital together when Martha and Tane both suffered organophosphate poisoning but decided to break up. She ended up at odds with Ryder and Bella when a deliberately ambiguous comment from Theo led them to believe she’d slept with him.
She and Ryder tried to get their business up and running again but ignoring orders and invoices because of recent events had left them with bad reviews and debts. Ryder accidentally emptied their account paying an invoice so Theo suggested a way to make quick money: Filming him and Ryder doing challenges and posting the results on a monetised online account. Chloe told them to come up with five ideas each and the result was a chilli eating challenge. Chloe filmed it for them and afterwards Theo kissed her. She thought he was just doing it to wind up Ryder so kept quiet.
She was shocked when Matthew Montgomery approached her after hours at the Diner and told her he was her father. She sent him away, since Mia had always told her that her father wanted nothing to do with her, but realised it was true when she quizzed Mia and Ari. She ignored Mia’s orders to stay away from him, instead arranging to meet where he told her that Mia disappeared while pregnant. He gave her the money to pay off her half of the debts and buy Ryder out of the catering business. She saw Ari hit Matthew when he turned up to collect her and let slip to him that Ari had spent time in prison.
She insisted on bringing Matthew over for dinner in the hope that everyone would get along but Mia quickly ended up leaving upset. Matthew encouraged her to attend business school and she made plans to go and live with him in the city. Mia then revealed why she hated Matthew: He had raped her while she was too drunk to know what was going on. After initial shock, Chloe ended up on good terms with her again. She helped Ari propose to Mia and blocked Matthew’s number. However, that just led to him turning up in person. Chloe refused to listen to his side of things and when he turned up at the house and Mia also appeared, Chloe struck him over the head with a brick when he got aggressive with Mia, accidentally killing him. She was left behind at the house after Mia drove off with the body.
Chloe told Ari the truth which led to him confessing to killing Matthew after Mia was discovered trying to hide the body. Nikau encouraged her to tell the truth and she went to the police station but left with Tane without saying anything. She tried to go back to work at the Diner and ended up letting slip what had happened to Bella. A visit to Ari and Mia’s plans to marry him in prison failed to cheer her. Mia found Chloe had been writing her feelings in a journal and told her she needed to burn it so it couldn’t be used as evidence. This left her without an outlet, since she refused to burden Mia with her troubles because she blamed herself for Mia’s upset. Bella’s support allowed her to spend time with the family and discuss the wedding but she was still uncomfortable when Mia presented her with a bridesmaid dress. After initially ignoring attempts to track her down, she made it to hospital with the rest of the family to learn Ari had cancer. She kept it together to see Ari and Mia married before he died. However, she couldn’t handle Mia’s grief afterwards and took refuge at Bella’s house.
Not wanting to be alone with Mia, she continued to seek refuge with Bella. Ryder and Theo showed her a video they’d done of people’s memories of Ari, which pleased her, although Mia reacted badly when she tried to share it. Bella and Nikau encouraged her to return to work but she walked out during her first shift and intruded on the pair’s alone time, making herself cry to get Bella’s attention. When Tane asked her about it, she claimed Nikau was the one with the problem, then gatecrashed his romantic meal with Bella. She spent a whole day hanging around Bella and talked Dean into letting her stay another night, only for Bella to send her away next day. She was furious when Bella went to Nikau for help with her project instead of her, and Nikau believed she had stolen his taiaha. Chloe claimed she had found it in the bathroom but infuriated him by calling it a “stupid stick”. She avoided a family meal Mia had organised, telling Nikau the day had changed, then lied to Bella about seeing Mia when in fact she had had lunch with Theo, resulting in Bella kicking her out. Chloe slept with Theo but then acted as though it was a mistake she regretted in order to get Bella’s sympathy, rejecting Theo when he tried to talk to her. However, this earned her a serve from Leah for the way she treated him and Bella soon distanced herself again when Chloe complained about her not answering calls.
When Mia announced she wanted them both to leave town, Chloe refused to discuss it, insisting she wanted to stay in Summer Bay, so Mia stayed as well. Chloe felt obliged to spend time with her, pulling out of an evening with Ryder, Nikau and Bella. However, she found it hard listening to Mia talking about Ari and New Zealand so ended up joining them anyway. She considered moving out but, when Mia expressed a desire to leave town without her, helped arrange a place for her to stay in New Zealand.
At Ryder’s farewell, Nikau confronted her with a journal she’d been writing during her manipulations, which she now regretted. Ironically, it led to her finally clearing the air with Theo. She began spending time with him to avoid the house and he took her for a picnic and serenaded her. She worried about Tane when he was stabbed, although it let her and Nikau make up. She invited Theo out for a drink but was upset when he brought another girl, Becky, and quickly left. Theo quickly assured her he was interested and they kissed. Leah invited her round for dinner and then questioned her about how committed she was to Theo. She made a quick exit but next day she assured Theo of her commitment. She began spending all her time at his place, buying Leah and Justin presents and cooking dinner, then walked in on Justin in the shower. Justin told her Leah didn’t want her hanging around as much, leaving her feeling she’d become overattached again. She played peacemaker between Justin and Leah, agreeing to only stay two nights a week. She then invited Theo to a family barbecue at hers to formally introduce him as her boyfriend.
Chloe again outstayed her welcome when she distracted Theo from doing an assignment and reflected on how little she had in her life. Leah unsuccessfully tried to persuade her to reapply to business school so Tane suggested she do the admin work at the gym, while she gave Theo useful pointers for his assignment. She was stunned to discover how much Ari and Mia paid for the gym and wondered how they could have afforded it. After she called Mia and tried to contact Jasmine, Tane admitted it was the money from the armed robbery Ari did. She struggled with working at both the gym and the Diner.
Chloe was due to work at the Diner after doing a shift at the gym but Tane failed to show up to relieve her, resulting in her staying on and being late. Marilyn suggested she might have to choose between jobs. She turned up late for Theo celebrating his apprenticeship, then overslept and failed to open up the Diner the next morning. She ended up quitting to concentrate on the gym.
Nikau interrupted a romantic night she was having with Theo, refusing to leave them alone, and later admitted she could be in danger. Nikau and Tane explained the bikies Ari had stolen from were threatening her and smuggled her to a motel, convincing her she needed to go to New Zealand. Chloe was reluctant, especially since she couldn’t say a proper goodbye to Theo, but was eventually smuggled to the airport by the Paratas’ cousin Kiri.