I’d say that the ATFR 2 was a complete waste of time last night. I told you Friday what was going to happen. Nothing surprising. All they’re doing is trying to make you hate Jason and Molly less and less than most people already do. Which is fine. I mean, that’s their couple after all now, so they got to make them look good however they can. Even if it meant embarrassing Melissa on national television. Like they care about that. Oh by the way, did you see the ratings from Monday night? Through the roof, as I thought they would be. 15 million watched the finale and 17 million watched the ATFR. Highest rated ATFR in the shows history, and highest rated finale since Guiney’s season. Thank you, thank you very much. I’ll take full credit for that. That’s why I never believed anyone who screamed after I ruined the ending on the You Tube videos, “That’s horrible! I’ll never watch this show again!” Please. You were all front and center on Monday night, and then some. How? Because the show was getting on average 11 million people weekly. Yet 15 million tuned in to the finale and 17 million watched the ATFR. So another 5 -7 million people, who didn’t give a crap about this show during the season, tuned in just for the end to see what all this hype was about. The hype that I created over a month ago. So ABC, feel free to scratch me a check at any point. Just don’t spell my name wrong.

ABC, Fleiss and Co. all got what they wanted out of this. They can BS us about “Well, we would’ve liked for Jason and Melissa to be our story if it meant sacrificing the ratings in the end”, when we all know that’s not true. This is Hollywood. This is TV. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING these people care more about than money and ratings. That’s it. That’s all their job requires them to do. Produce something that will get people to watch their show. I can’t make that any simpler. That’s why the contracts people sign to come on this show excuse ABC of any liability for how they portray any person whatsoever. You really, really, really think Mike Fleiss and Co. care about how Melissa ended up in all this? Please. There’s no better proof than him saying a couple weeks ago, “This is the best ending we’ve ever had.” You’re damn right it was. Take all human emotion out of Monday nights finale. Just pretend those were robots that were told to act that way (which some of you still believe was the case). Take all feelings and emotions out of Monday nights broadcast and just look at it from a pure drama/shocker/crazy ass plot perspective. That was damn entertaining. Finale not so much, but that hour of the ATFR show you can’t say wasn’t riveting television. You don’t think so? It was the lead story on most news and entertainment sites yesterday. I had over 700 emails for the day, did 5 radio interviews, and basically spent all day on the phone talking to people about it. And that’s exactly what they were going for. All the more reason I believe they had a plan, they executed it, and they got their results to the tune of 17 million freakin’ people.

Host Chris really had nothing good to say in his blog today either. I guess he’s had enough of going after me. Although, he really stuck his neck out there when gave us this beauty. “Five years down the road, when Jason and Molly are married, I wonder if many of you will feel different about this.” Holy crap! This couple is “a month” into their relationship and you’re predicting they’ll be married five years from now? For a show that’s never produced a marriage ever? Good luck with that. Please tell me somewhere in Vegas they’re posting odds on Host Chris’ beyond ridiculous prediction. I’d be a rich man if they did. If none of the previous 12 Bachelor couples have lasted, and they didn’t have even CLOSE to the pressure that Jason and Molly are starting their relationship under, why would I think those two will make it? Molly’s gotta have doubts about the guy whether she wants to admit it or not. He’s proposed to two different women in a year, and is now working on his 3rd “girlfriend” in that time. I’d say he’s a little fickle. And it’s almost like because everyone is hating on them already, and because people are expecting them to fail, they are going to try THAT much harder to please everyone by staying together and proving people wrong. In the end, I doubt it’ll work. I’ll stand by this shows track record, and that’s 0-for-12 in producing a marriage. I like playing the odds. Can’t get any better than a 0% success rate, can you?

As for the emails between Melissa and Jason, someone released them yesterday anonymously (shocker) and now the entertainment sites are running with them. And yes, those are the ones I’ve had in my possession for a couple weeks now. I’m glad someone else decided to do it, because I was not going to release them. I didn’t want that on my conscience anymore so I’m glad my name isn’t attached to them. I’m not going to post the link to them anywhere on this site because I don’t want to be associated with them. But they’re out there everywhere now, so they shouldn’t be hard to find. Remember, those just randomly landed in my email box from someone who had never emailed me before. So I’m guessing they were the ones who released it or anyone else they could’ve forwarded it on to. I had nothing to do with those getting released, and I’m sure if you check the IP address or domain name of whoever released it onto that blog yesterday, that’ll prove my innocence as well. I just couldn’t bring myself to do that to Melissa. I figured she’d had enough.

Everyone has their opinions of what went down this season. These will be debated forever, yet another thing ABC wants. As long as people are talking about their show, they’re happy. I came to you in January and told you about the shocking ending of what was going to happen on the ATFR show. It happened. I told you I had sources at the ATFR 2 taping this past Friday and what went down, and it happened. The only thing some of you are still having a hard time believing is what my sources told me about Jason being told to do this and him accepting. Well, considering my sources have been right pretty much every step of the way, is it really that far fetched to think they were wrong about this? Of course ABC/Fleiss/Harrison/Jason/Molly will deny it til the end of time. They have to. They’d be guilty as charged if they didn’t. But I think I’ve given you a map of how this season played out starting on Jan. 27th and ending last night. And I’d say that map was pretty clear. All I want you people to do is use common sense, think outside the box a little bit, and realize that this is completely possible on the way the season went down. Hey, I’m always going to believe it because I have no reason to doubt my sources. One thing to remember: I was never guessing on how I THOUGHT this “Bachelor” season would play out. I was TOLD how it was going to play out by people in the know. Big difference. They never lied to me once and gained nothing from lying to me, which is why I believed them. So all I can do is tell everyone to remember this is TV. This is Hollywood. Its fantasy land. All they care about is the bottom line which is making money. They will spare no expense to do so. Unfortunately, Melissa was that expense this season. And oh yeah, for the record, the “Bachelor” does get paid to do this show. You might want to figure all that in to this equation as well.

So Jillian is going to be our next Bachelorette. Yippee. Nice girl. Cute girl. But seems like this will remind me a lot of Meredith’s season. I mean, does Jillian really reach into the hearts of all Americans (despite being Canadian) enough to get them to watch her journey of love for eight weeks? I guess we’ll see. Obviously, people are going to watch. But unless there’s a huge scandal like this season, I don’t expect them to come anywhere close to those ratings numbers. But of course, I’ll be back writing about the show. In fact, I was thinking everything was gonna be back to normal next season. Just me watching on Monday nights, then making fun of it in the column on Tuesday mornings like I’ve done for the last 7 years. But I sh** you not, as I sit here writing this at 11:15 CST on Wednesday morning March 4th, I’ve already gotten news regarding Jillians season. Is it as big as what went down this season? No. Not close. But its damn interesting to hear. Jillians season begins shooting in two weeks and will air starting in May. That’s not the news. However, I’m going to go do a little more research on this thing and let me find out a little more. All I can tell you right now is that this is definitely stuff the audience wants to know. I will get back to you on this in the near future. And don’t worry, no clues this time. Ha ha.

As for those asking about any possible interview with Melissa, I think that’ll be tough. She’s going to be on “Ellen” tomorrow to tell her story, and I’m sure she’s talking to the magazines, but after that, I have a feeling she just wants to get back to her life. For all those who think she was a plant, and in this for the money, and just wants to be on TV, well, that’s not the case. If it was, she would’ve been the next “Bachelorette”. In fact, she was asked to (Which also goes along with the theory this plan was put in place a while back), but turned it down. How do I know this? Mike Fleiss said it himself in an interview posted yesterday. Here is the brief snippet from the interview:

THR: So is Melissa the next Bachelorette?

Fleiss: Nope. She didn’t want to do it. She’s heartbroken.

You can read the full interview here.

And now even Mike Fleiss is throwing Jason under the bus saying he wasn’t contractually obligated to break up with her on the show. Gee, so now all the major players involved are on different pages. Fleiss says he didn’t have to do it, but Chris Harrison and Jason are saying it had to be filmed because that’s what the contestants agree to. So which is it? Here’s the link:

Fleiss Throws Jason Under the Bus

I would think that someone who wanted money, fame, and fortune out of all this would’ve certainly agreed to be the focus of a show for 8 weeks. But can you blame her? After getting thrown under the bus the way she did? I certainly don’t. Look, if she was a plant and was acting in all this, then she wouldn’t be phased and hurt by all this, and she definitely would’ve just moved right in to being our next “Bachelorette” since she wouldn’t have had any hatred towards ABC and what happened to her. But apparently Melissa’s dignity doesn’t have a price, which is something I can’t say for certain people we know. Good for her. I believe after this week, she is pretty much going to disappear and will get back to living a normal life. I really don’t think there’s much more you could say about her character after hearing that she turned down their offer to be the next “Bachelorette”. And I hear it was a damn good offer, as well.

A lot of you have been asking what happens now that the show is over? In the past, I’ve gone into hibernation and barely produced any columns til the “Bachelor/ette” starts up again. Not this season. I’m going to start dedicating a little more time to the site. Looks like we’re finally going to have some advertising on the site and I’m working on a few other things as well. One thing that I’d really like your feedback on is possible merchandise. I know that I have a very loyal fan base that has followed me for a while and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that. And I’ve always done my best to repay you by responding to your emails and answering all questions that you have. Although, the last couple days have been impossible, so don’t take it personally. Anyway, I was thinking of possibly coming up with something tangible. Like tshirts, hats, mugs, bumper stickers, etc. Of course, my brilliant mind wants to make boy shorts with “Realitysteve.com” across the ass, but, well, I don’t think that’ll play. Especially if you’re married or have a boyfriend. Anyway, merchandise is always something I’ve thought of doing, but never too seriously until now. I think it might happen though, so stay tuned. It would not be ridiculously priced and I wouldn’t be making a whole hell of a lot of it, but it’s something.

So I will still dabble here and there on “Bachelor” stuff during this “offseason”, but beginning next week, back to “Reality Roundup”. I think each one will feature an episode recap of “American Idol”, and then focus on the other stuff I’m watching like “Survivor”, “Celebrity Apprentice”, “The City”, “The Hills” (when it starts back up again), “Sober House”, and whatever else floats my boat in the TV world. But definitely it will focus on “Idol” since, well, that’s my favorite show going right now. I’ll just say this: I’d be shocked if Danny Gokey doesn’t win. The guy can sing his ass off and he’s got a story to boot. I mean, his wife dies 4 weeks before his audition? Who isn’t going to get behind that guy? Consider me the lead cheerleader on “Team Gokey”. Anyway, more on that next week. So thanks for sticking with the site during these last crazy ass six weeks. And to all of you new readers who had never heard of me until all this news broke, welcome aboard. Glad you’re a fan now. Any questions, comments, praises, criticisms, orders for your first “RealitySteve.com” t-shirt (ha ha), email me at steve@realitysteve.com. Talk to you soon.

Administrator The Bachelor 13 - Jason