Content warning: This post mentions sexual assault. If you’ve seen the Max Bama Rush documentary, you know Isabelle Eacrett as the “nervited” (nervous and excited) University of Alabama PNM from California who ends up in Alpha Delta Pi. Eacrett kept the news of her participation in the doc close to her chest until soon before Bama Rush was released — aside from her roommate, nobody on campus knew she was a part of it, and she didn’t even know who else was being filmed.
“It was this big secret,” she tells Her Campus in an exclusive interview. “They definitely made sure [the participants] wouldn’t come in contact, just for all of our privacy.” Now, she’s excited by the prospect of running into them on campus this upcoming school year. “It’s just a bond that a lot of people don’t have. Who has a documentary filming them when they’re, like, 18 years old? That’s a really weird experience.”
Now a rising sophomore, Eacrett has a full school year of sisterhood under her belt, and no regrets. She was one of only two PNMs in the documentary who ended up going through with joining a sorority — the other being Shelby Rose, who joined Phi Mu. “I have actually met all of my best friends through my sorority, and I’ve had the best time ever,” she says. “Everyone’s really empowering, and I feel like I’m pushed to be my best self.”
Filmmakers reached out to Eacrett after she posted on an Alabama 2026 page about her plans to attend the university. Eacrett was still a senior in high school. “I got a DM [on Instagram] saying it was one of the producers at Vice and that they were casting for this documentary about Alabama Rush. I totally thought it was fake,” she says.
Initially, she was reluctant to get involved. She says, “I didn’t want it to interfere with my rush process. I kept missing their calls and I told them that I basically did not think I could be a part of this.” Eventually, director Rachel Fleit was in Los Angeles, near Eacrett’s hometown of Rancho Cucamonga. “I ended up meeting with her, and me and my mom loved her. We realized that the documentary wasn’t going to be this exposé or trying to make girls look bad. It was really just trying to share young women’s stories.”
Still, signing up for a high-profile project like this didn’t come without risks — as fall 2022 rush commenced, paranoia about PNMs wearing microphones reached a peak that even Eacrett couldn’t have imagined. A friend from Georgia called her, Eacrett recalls, “and she said, ‘This girl at UGA texted me saying that I know your friend Isabelle Eacrett is being miced up and going into sorority houses.’ And I was just like, what? I’ve never been to the state of Georgia in my life. I don’t know anyone at UGA. I was just shocked.”
The rumors even made their way into her own rush conversations, while she had to keep the secret of participating in the doc — though she was able to find humor in it. “I’d be talking to girls during rush and they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, I saw the HBO crew!’ And they show a video and it’s not the HBO crew,” she laughs. “I can’t say anything! But it got to a point where it was just comical.”
Eacrett was admirably vulnerable in Bama Rush. It wasn’t just about rushing for her — she had been struggling with her mental health throughout her senior year of high school, and two weeks before she got to campus, she was sexually assaulted. It was an experience that changed her perspective on both life and college. “That was the lowest point in my life, and I really just did feel misunderstood during this time,” she says. She credits her sisters in ADPi as a huge help in getting her to a better mental place.
The online response to Eacrett’s story, at least, has been lovely. “A lot of girls have reached out saying that my story touched them because they also went through the same things. And at the end of the day, that was all I wanted to do — just tell my story so girls can feel like they’re heard and seen and not alone,” she says. “I’ve never opened up this much to such a large audience, but I was like, even if this helps just one girl with something that she’s going through, then it’s all worth it to me.”
Now, Eacrett is looking forward to rush from the other side, as an active ADPi sister and not a PNM. “Bama Rush had such a strong impact on my life, and I just wanna make that experience for our incoming class,” she says. “I want real conversations, and that’s what I’m really gonna push for during next year at rush — paying attention to the genuine conversations and trying to make girls feel comfortable and at home.” Her advice to any incoming Bama PNMs? “Truly be yourself and you will find your right place. … My main thing was, I don’t want [to be in] a sorority where I am going to have to act like someone I’m not.”
Eacrett says she’s already seen people online making assumptions about her that aren’t true, but she hopes the documentary will shine a light on the girls behind the Bama Rush phenomenon, who are often flattened into one-dimensional “main characters” for mass entertainment, like their lives are a TV show. “We’re not characters,” she says. “Everyone saw these girls on TikTok and were like, ‘Oh my gosh, I wanna be this girl. Her life looks so put together.’ … And then I was a girl that rushed. I did not have anything together. The documentary shows that these sorority girls are real people with real struggles. … I really hope that’s what people take away from it.”