Well, when you do a 90 minute interview, the text version is going to be a novel. But since I understand everyone doesn’t have capabilities to download and listen to the whole thing, here is the interview in written form, although it’ll still probably take you a long ass time to read. I’ve included headlines in bold if you just want to skip around to the topics you’d like to read. I’m warning you. It’s looooooonnnnnng. Enjoy…
ON JESSICA AND THEIR “RELATIONSHIP”…
Steve: Let’s start by going back to the very beginning of all this. I’m sure you’ve read what was posted on my site regarding you and Jessica dating all the way back to January when she emailed me stating that her boyfriend was in L.A. signing his papers and about to be cast on The Bachelorette. She didn’t know what to do, she said, you told her to wait for you, that you’d be married some day and that you were only doing this to further your career.
So we heard Jessica’s side, we’ve heard Chris Harrison’s side, we’ve heard the show’s side. Now it is your turn. Let’s start from the beginning exactly how it all came to be and what your situation was with Jessica before you started.
Justin: Well, basically how the story kind of starts off with me and Jessica – and yes, she is someone from my past – we met a couple of years ago. But what ended up happening, basically how our story goes is that last summer she decided that she would be happy with somebody else and she actually left me for somebody else and went on her way and I actually took that pretty hard because I was actually was really starting to like her and was in love with her at the time. During that period, it was actually really hard for me to get over her and so forth. And then surprisingly enough in the beginning of November, she actually found out through the grapevine, through mutual people that we used to work with, that I auditioned for the show. She kind of popped back in the picture and realized that she made a mistake and that she wants to work things out and she wants to see how things go.
And I informed her right off the bat: “Look, there’s a good possibility I can get on this show.” I was still going through the audition stage so I didn’t know anything for sure and then we did start going out, absolutely. We started dating for a couple of months and we even went on a trip together in November and then New Year’s came along. And me and Jessica have always had a very dramatic relationship, unfortunately, where we get into one little fight over the silliest little thing like a TV program and all of a sudden she would get up and say, “Okay, I can’t do it anymore. I want to break up, I want to break up.” And New Year’s was one of those days where something small happened and all of a sudden she said she wanted to break up, which I told her, “If that was going to happen one more time, that’s it, I’m getting too old for this.” I wanted to get into something kind of serious and I want to take that next step in my life.
And so we did break up on New Year’s and then we did kind of – we’re still trying to figure things out for the next couple of weeks after that, so this is going around mid-January. And we’re trying to kind of work on things and see if this is something that we really want to do because obviously, if I was going to stay with her I wouldn’t be able to go on the show and so forth.
And two weeks into January it kind of became clear that things with Jessica will never be normal and I won’t fully be happy and I wouldn’t be able to spend the rest of my life fulfilled, basically. And so yeah, we basically stayed apart since then and that’s when I got the call to be on the show, kind of.
Steve: So you were saying that Jessica was 100% sure that you guys were not boyfriend and girlfriend when you left to do the show, correct?
Justin: When I left to do the show? Yes. But see this is the weird thing is that half-way through January – I still cared for her a lot and I always wish the best for her and I always wanted to make sure that she was on the right path of life and make sure that she took the right steps to become successful in life. So we still hung out, we still spent a lot of time together and I kept on kind of reminding her, “You’re single, I’m kind of single, I can go out to clubs, I can do my thing.” And actually at the beginning of February, she even brought to my attention, she said, “Justin, this is really confusing.” And I’m like, “Hang on a second, what is?” And she said, “Well, we’re doing everything a couple does but you keep on saying that ‘you’re single,’ ‘I’m single.’”
And that’s when I kind of turned to her and said, “Whoa, hang on a second.” I looked at her and I even reminded her afterwards about the conversation. And I looked at her and I told her, “Look, Jessica, you want to go ahead and date other people, you can. I can’t say a single thing about it. You’re single, I’m single. Period.” So I definitely did have to remind her at the beginning of February the fact that we’re both single. But so much as me going on the show in March, was I single? Absolutely, I was 100% single.
ON HIS “CAREER”…
Steve: Yet, she’s saying that you weren’t and she’s saying, without a doubt, 100%, “From the time that he left, I was his girlfriend and he told me to wait for him. He told me that he was going to marry me. He told me he was only do the show for his career.”
So how much of that is true?
Justin: Well, that’s not true. I was like, “What career?” That’s the funny part about it is that everyone says I’m doing it for career, even the guys in the house were saying, “You’re doing it for wrestling.” I actually haven’t wrestled in almost three years now. That’s actually – I made the mistake – I mentioned in the application form that I used to do wrestling and I showed them my wrestling name and all of a sudden that got the attention of the producers of the show and they’re like, “Hey, we’ve never had a wrestler on the show before. We want you to do this.” “We want you to be the wrestler.”
So on the first night, yes, I did do that t-shirt thing but that was just a persona I used the first night and I never brought up wrestling again. So for her to say, or anyone else to say, that I did it for a career of some sort is completely ridiculous because I’ve actually stated on multiple occasions that my aspiration is, within the next year, to get into the police force here in Toronto.
ON HIS “SELF-PROMOTION”…
Steve: So obviously you’re not – okay, so you’re saying you weren’t talking about your wrestling career, but were you possibly using the show for any other way to promote yourself? Or you, Justin Rego, as someone who obviously is doing – you’re doing a lot of appearances now in Canada, you’ve showed up in a lot of magazines and Internet sites – like maybe not the wrestling career, per se, but how about just to get your name out there because it would lead to opportunities? Like were you doing it just so you could become more popular than you were?
Justin: No, not at all, to be honest with you. The thing is that this entire situation is really working against me in the field that I want to get into because they do background checks with the police force. And it was brought to my attention that due to the fact that there’s all this media attention with me and now there’s this kind of character that surrounds me, Justin “Rated-R” scandalous character that’s been revolving around me could affect my chances of entering the police force. So that actually extremely upset me because getting into that field is something I’m very passionate about and something that I really want to pursue.
But so much in regard to the events that I’m doing, to be honest with you, I’m trying to put a positive flip on it in a sense because I am doing a lot of charity work. I’m actually doing a breast cancer run here in Toronto on October 3rd. I actually did two charity events; one with the grocery store Sobey’s for breast cancer and another one in Windsor this weekend. So I am definitely trying to put a positive spin as much as possible and take the attention that’s been put on me and put it to a positive cause. [ Read More....]
