There hasn’t been a time in recent memory, if ever, that I can remember being this busy over a 48 hr period than these last two days have been. And honestly, 90 minutes into the ATFR last night, I thought it’d be fine. Show would end, I’d get a ton of reaction, I’d give my thoughts today, and that’d be that. But once ABC decided for the second season in a row to start their “Bachelorette” season early and give us 5 of Becca’s guys (remember, they gave us 4 last season – DeMario, Dean, Blake, and Eric), my phone, Twitter, and email was blowing up unlike anything I can remember since, well, I don’t know when. It was non f***ing stop til 1am, when I finally got settled down to watch the Challenge. Anyway, it comes with the territory, but, I really haven’t been inundated with requests, messages, questions, comments, etc like that in a long, loooooong time. I’m kinda running on no sleep here for the most part. Basically took a power nap before I had to get up at 6:15 for a radio interview in Chicago. Thought I’d go right back to bed, but couldn’t. Anyway, enough about that. Plenty of stuff to address before “Reader Emails, so lets get to it.
Since this is probably the last major day of traffic until May 28th rolls around for Becca’s premiere, wanted to let you know there are still spots available for the 4th Annual Reality Steve Fan Appreciation Party at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas on June 8th. It’s free to come. If you’re flying in, your flight itinerary is your confirmation into the party. If you’re driving in, just give me a hotel confirmation and you’ll be put on the confirmed list. I still don’t know who, if any, Bachelor alums are coming, but will let you know if I get a confirmation from anyone. Open beer and wine bar all night along with some food, and the annual Trivia Contest as well with prizes to the winner and 2nd place. Email me at steve@realitysteve.com if you’re interested in going. It’s first come, first serve. We have to cap it at about 75-80 people, so there’s still room left, but not a whole lot.
Also, if you saw on Twitter last night, Courtney Robertson will be my guest on the podcast tomorrow. Certainly someone who might have an opinion or two on this season, I’d say. You don’t want to miss it. I’ll just leave it at that.
With all the craziness happening the last 2 nights, there are plenty of you that emailed for “Reader Emails” that just didn’t get in. So many of the emails repeated questions that have been answered numerous times and/or, you sent in your question after Monday night’s episode but it was answered last night, so I didn’t bother to include it in today’s batch. Just know there’s really no rhyme or reason to this week’s emails since there were soooooo many. I had to dwindle it down or else I would’ve been up forever answering all these things, most of which have been answered before. So I apologize in advance if your email didn’t make it in today. It just got overwhelming seeing the same lines of questions over and over and over again so I deleted quite a few.
There’s no need to do a full recap of what happened last night. I mean, I watched the whole thing and I still can’t wrap my head around most of it. Probably because my head is throbbing right now, but that’s beside the point. What I will do is answer some of the most commonly asked questions that people have had over these last two nights and 5 hours of programming.
As mentioned yesterday, one of the biggest questions I’ve gotten was “Was Arie contractually obligated to film his break up with Becca?” The answer is simple: no. And this comes directly from Executive Producer Robert Mills, who said so on his radio show yesterday at the 25:03 mark. Give a listen:
Encouraged to? Yes. Suggested by? Absolutely. But he wouldn’t be in any sort of violation if he didn’t, and that’s where he f***ed up the most. He could’ve put his foot down and didn’t.
A lot of, “Why would Becca continue to work with them after what they did to her?” I guess the best answer I can give you and the way I see it is, although production was there to film their break up, that’s their job. She doesn’t blame production for that set up, she pins it on Arie. He was the one who made the choice to do that, they just are there to carry out his request. Also, did Becca get a bad edit this season? Did they Frankenbite her? Was she ever shown in a negative light in an ITM, on a date, post show? The answers to all those questions would be no. So while production may have filmed that embarrassing break up, she doesn’t seem them as the ones being in the wrong. She kind of alluded to it last night. She knows she agreed to have her dating life filmed when she signed on to do this. Granted most, if not all, contestants think that’ll just usually entail the 8 weeks of filming assuming they last that long. Once it extended out and Arie did what he did, yeah it sucked, but she realizes she can’t complain when this is what she signed up for. She seems to be one of the few that actually understand it. Probably because she never had one bad edit all season. I’m sure she’d change her tune if she got, say, a Krystal edit. My point being it’s not like Krystal had the edit she did, then decided to jump back in bed with them (even though she for sure will go on Paradise), it’s Becca. The only thing she can complain about regarding her “character” this season is that she had a broken engagement filmed on camera, which she attributes way more to Arie than to a production team. That’s how I see it.
As for the engagement last night, a lot of you are asking what happened to the engagement at Monarch Bay. The short answer is, I don’t know. To me, it’s still entirely possible that that engagement at Monarch Bay two weekends ago did happen and they just re-enacted their engagement for live television last night. Maybe we’ll get an answer some day, maybe we won’t. If that’s the only thing I got wrong this season, I can live with that. The point out of the whole thing, and I believe I addressed this on the podcast with Sarah Colonna and in “Reader Emails” last week, was that if that engagement didn’t take place at Monarch Bay, and I never got the solid confirmation that I was looking for despite the fact everything pointed to it happening, was that Arie & Lauren would get engaged at the ATFR at the latest. It either happened at Monarch Bay or it was going to happen at the ATFR and that Lauren was moving to Arizona, which she confirmed last night.
This was asked by a reader this week:
So I watched Kimmel and Lauren had the ring, you said Kimmel recorded before the live ATFR, Lauren had the ring. Did she just wear the ring on Kimmel, give it back to Arie to propose to her on the live ATFR? What does this timeline look like?
So last night, I found out they purposely postponed the Kimmel taping until 6:30 PST, and that’s why Arie and Lauren came out later in the show. They were basically off stage on the ATFR at 6:30 PST, immediately left and were wheeled over Kimmel’s studio to tape. Normally on a regular season where there isn’t some giant boffo crazy ending like this, yes, Kimmel tapes at 5:00 PST, and the final couple would be appearing at his taping before they go live on the ATFR. Last night was done differently because of the change up. Hope that clears that up.
As for Arie and Lauren and everything we saw last night between them, I mean what more needs to be said about the guy that I haven’t said already. My opinion hasn’t changed all season and won’t change now. Their contact while he was still engaged to Becca was shady, him hiding the extent of how he was feeling towards Lauren while he was still engaged to Becca is shady, etc. All of it. Just shady. But not the least bit surprising. He’s a womanizer who cannot be alone, has to always have someone new, and there’s nothing he’s said or done all season that makes me think Lauren is going to be the girl he finally settles down with. It was embarrassing watching him last night. Lauren is a pawn in his game. He’s a master manipulator at getting what he wants out of women, and Lauren is just his next conquest. Unfortunately, he put a ring on it, which will make that break up even worse. He put a ring on Becca 3 ½ months and look how that turned out.
Saying on the shows last night and this morning that these two have been looking at wedding venues since the second they started seeing each other again and want to get married as soon as possible? Lauren saying he handled things perfectly? We get nothing from her parents who were the most skeptical of this whole situation BEFORE any engagement happened? Seriously? These people are so far off in another land of reality, none of us can come close to comprehending it, so I give up with them. I don’t care anymore. He is her problem now, we’re much better off without them on our screen, and after a couple weeks and Becca’s season under way, they can slink off into their life in Scottsdale and ride out this wave til Arie finds his new shiny toy to play with. The guy has zero respect for how he treats women, always has, and nothing he said or did this season did anything whatsoever to change that impression of him. Good luck you two. You’re going to need it.
I’m sure there are plenty of other questions and thoughts you want my opinion on and I hope I covered a lot of them in “Reader Emails” starting on page 2, but if I didn’t, I’d like to just put this season to rest now and start focusing on Becca, which began immediately after the ATFR ended last night.
Becca’s season will now consume this site for the next 4 months or so. Filming for the season starts next week, which is the exact same schedule as they’ve been on for the last 6 seasons. Funny, because last year I was in Vegas for the beginning of March Madness and Rachel’s night 1 was the opening day of the tournament. Looks like we’re gonna get a repeat of that this year, as I believe filming starts next Thursday, the 15th, which is the opening day of the NCAA tournament. As we saw, we were introduced to five of her guys last night, none of which I had before they appeared. Within 15 minutes, I had confirmed all of them for you on Twitter last night, so if you weren’t following, here they are their full names and Instagram link. Their bios will be posted in full next week. I’ve also added a 6th guy who will be on Becca’s season that I tweeted about last night. Here are the 5 you saw come on stage in the order they appeared:
Lincoln Adim – linkin_
Chase Vergason – chasevergason
Ryan Peterson – ogrp
Darius Feaster – feasthebeast
Blake Horstmann – balockaye.h
And then a 6th guy I can reveal to you is NFL tight end, Clay Harbor:
Clay Harbor – clayharbs82
As mentioned, full bios will be released next week. And with those 5 being introduced last night and being new to me, it now means I have 15 of Becca’s guys, so over half the cast already. Definitely never had this many that early, so I’ll be releasing more next Wednesday on the morning I leave for Vegas.
Thanks again to everyone who has read and supported the site all season long. It’s been quite a ride. Even after the initial spoiler on Nov. 30th, I feel like I had a new exclusive like every other week once the season got going. There was never any doubt this went down as I laid it out for you (from the phone call he placed to Lauren on New Year’s Day, to the switch up being filmed and Becca being blindsided, etc) you had it all well before you saw it play out on TV. I can’t thank all my sources this season who helped me with this. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to get you guys the goods every single season. And if you think I had a lot of Arie’s season for you, just wait til Becca’s. Sources already in place so you’ll be updated in real time as filming is happening per usual. Thanks again to everyone for another great season. “Reader Emails” begin on Page 2…
Susan
March 7, 2018 at 9:08 AM
If you haven’t seen the clip of Arie and Lauren on Kelly and Ryan today, check it out. Kelly laid into Arie, it was amazing. Why did you film it? Why couldn’t it have only been 5 minutes instead of 40? You could tell by the look on her face she was disgusted with him. Lauren just looked shell shocked, like she was about to cry. Arie kept fumbling over his words trying to explain himself.
I was just appalled that they thought it was appropriate for him to propose, with Becca in the next room. Then to say in People they’re wouldn’t mind a TV wedding. Yeah, don’t see that happening.
I’m just so glad the Arie S**t show is over and we can now start talking about Becca!
crushonspivey
March 7, 2018 at 9:20 AM
I can think of AT LEAST $250,000 reasons why Becca didn’t lay into production and took the new gig. Because she is now business partners with Fleiss and got into bed with him businesswise. So she had to go easy on how it went down. That is showbiz people.
The fact after all of these years that people still don;t see this for what it is–scripted TV–is hilarious. Did you all not learn anything from the show UNREAL? And honestly, not sure what thast show can do to top the real thing now, it has gotten so ridiculous.
RS–keep doing what you do and make good coin off this nonsense. Makes it more entertaining in the right way. The show itself is now dull and stale.
crushonspivey
March 7, 2018 at 9:23 AM
Also, Becca was engaged mere weeks ago, and got dumped on TV, and now we’re supposed to believe she is in a good place to actually pursue a new relationship? This show doesn’t even try to hide the farce anymore. Love is not its goal. Contrived TV drama is.
marcommom
March 7, 2018 at 9:25 AM
One thing I noticed – Lauren barely looked at the ring when he proposed and when they were with their families. That makes me think she’d already had it for a while.
akblondee
March 7, 2018 at 9:39 AM
I am so glad someone asked about Kendall crying on Bekah’s shoulder, I thought it was perplexing. SO glad this season is over and of course, kudos to Steve for spoiling it all for us. It’s what makes the show great for me.
tinyred500
March 7, 2018 at 10:32 AM
I agree with both of your comments. That’s why I now think the wider audience should now be able to see just how produced and yes, contrived this show really is…by what we’ve seen on our screens this season. The producers aren’t hiding their dirty work anymore. If they can get any stupid puppet to play along, throw money at them and give people air time, they are like pigs in mud. I was always very cynical of the show when I first started watching, but that’s all on another level now. It’s become an even more twisted show in so many ways.
It will be interesting to see whether the previous contestants who tweeted their displeasure (of how this season played out), will now have anything further to do with the franchise, or whether it will be forgiven and their tweets really meant little or nothing at all.
leighleighleigh
March 7, 2018 at 11:03 AM
AGREED! I said this to my husband last night. Lauren didn’t look at the ring, and neither did Arie’s mom or Lauren’s mom. There is zero chance that would have happened unless they’d all seen the ring before.
sarahe
March 7, 2018 at 11:39 AM
I was also perplexed by Lauren’s comment last night that Arie “couldn’t have handled things better.” Really? Even if I was blindly in love with someone, and I’ve been there, I feel that I would still have the ability to see that the way he handled this was so far from okay. It’s almost like she’s afraid to defy him in any way. But this shouldn’t surprise anyone because Arie seems like the type of guy who would be vastly insecure being with someone like Becca, who has a great job, exudes confidence, and doesn’t NEED him. I think the reason why he went running to Lauren is because she is the type of girl who will definitely be deferential to her man and make him feel like the more dominant force in the relationship. With Becca, he would have had more of a partner and teammate and less of a damsel in distress.
It’s sad that many men say they want someone strong willed, independent, and who has their stuff together, but don’t then ACTUALLY want those things. It’s not all men, but many.
shenanigans
March 7, 2018 at 12:05 PM
My conclusions from watching the finale: Arie and Lauren are selfish, insensitive, and totally oblivious to how they are perceived. If either of them had a brain in their head, they would have known that last night was not the time or place for a public proposal. This will NOT end well for her.
ladyjane747
March 7, 2018 at 1:03 PM
Still believe the filmed break-up occurred with everyone’s knowledge beforehand. It’s not a “conspiracy theory,” just an understanding of how scripted the show is, and it supports how easy it was for Becca to move on from broken engagement to Bachelorette. And yes, Caroline is annoying and probably auditioning for BIP. I think Becca will make a good lead, but I hope the quality of her guys is better than what was on display last night! Of course, we only know Lauren from what we saw on our TV screens, but we don’t “know” her. She’s obviously not great in front of a camera and doesn’t make for good TV and wouldn’t have been a good lead, but to attack her for being dumb, boring, submissive, etc. is a little overboard. We don’t know these people at all. They’re characters on a TV show. And I just have to comment about one person’s praise of Steve’s grammar. Really? At least I wish he could correct “lets” because he uses it a lot. It should have an apostrophe because let’s is a contraction for let us.
shenanigans
March 7, 2018 at 1:38 PM
Lady Jane, on Kelly & Ryan today, Lauren admitted that she didn’t watch the Becca breakup scenes, which means that she is basing her opinion on Arie’s word. To me, that explains a lot. She isn’t viewing this situation through a critical lens – she is simply making a leap of faith and believing in her man. That only ends well if the man is worthy of the trust you have placed in him. Based on Arie’s track record, it is naive and short-sighted for Lauren to take this approach. This will not end well for her.
LynnS
March 7, 2018 at 2:22 PM
Thank you for commenting on Steve’s grammar. It’s hard to understand how someone who writes for a living can’t (or doesn’t want to) learn basic grammar.
And, yes, it is his ‘lets’ that gets to me the most. He writes this word multiple times in each column, and most of the time it should be ‘let’s’ because it is a contraction for let us as you said.
I have noticed, though, that he is getting better with some things. But come on, Steve, this is so basic!
LM111
March 7, 2018 at 4:02 PM
I thought it was weird that Lauren and Arie were so cheerful on the after, almost as if he had picked her to begin with. Completely insensitive and inappropriate. And – proposing on live TV after everything with Becca? So tacky. Obviously he did that to appease Lauren (despite their “everything is perfect” act, I’m sure she needed a public proposal to take him seriously, and he complied because he knew he had to prove himself). I also think that the same outcome would’ve happened if he proposed to Lauren in the finale, he’d have dumped her for Becca. The guy wants what’s unavailable to him. Not uncommon.
The worst part was when he told Lauren he was 1000% over Becca. Really dude? That’s the kind of thing you say when a girl treats you poorly and you’ve had enough, NOT when a girl is super sweet to you like Becca was.
I thought Becca handled things as best she could under the circumstances.
On a side note – am I the only person that watched one episode of “winter games” and thought it was the stupidest, most boring show ever? Then add in the annoying Yuki and her school girl squeal of a voice. WTF?! Ben Higgins was on podcast talking about how much he loved Yuki? Seriously guy? That’s it. He should be destined to a life of listening to that voice forever!! Like nails on a chalkboard. HATE that chick.
bachfan02
March 7, 2018 at 5:51 PM
I think he told Lauren he was “1000 percent” over Becca because he was trying to prove he won’t flip-flop again. The public proposal was to make Lauren feel secure. She probably felt as if she got “cheated” out of her televised-on-bended-knee proposal on the Bachelor finale. He said he had to do a lot reassuring with Lauren. Clearly he loves that. Maybe they will beat the odds. Stranger things have happened. LOL
atleast4characters
March 7, 2018 at 9:46 PM
Here’s a theory, for which I have no evidence, and it probably isn’t true. However, I would not be shocked if it were true and I think neither would you. To keep it brief: Arie knew he wanted to pick Lauren, but producers convinced him otherwise with the intent of a twist at the end.
One might object with, “yeah, but he wouldn’t have been certain Lauren would give him a 2nd chance.” To which I say, “so what?” And then you slap yourself, exclaiming, “you’re right, it’s Arie we’re talking about.” Either way, Chris Harrison still gets to blabber about it being the most dramatic ending.
Another variant is that, leading up to the finale, Arie told producers he didn’t care who he picked, which led to the concocted ending we saw.
Is it true? I’m in no position to know. Is it plausible? I’d say certainly more so than some of the nonsense we see on this show.
katieharris
March 7, 2018 at 10:34 PM
I cannot with last nights episode. Change your mind, sure, but have some respect for Becca & show some freakin emotion. also… are all those guys on her season seriously private?
tinyred500
March 8, 2018 at 4:24 AM
I think what we’ve seen from this franchise, is really any narrative could fit. I’m sure RS does get it right for most of the time…but I do also wonder whether some of the stuff and ideas that goes into ‘planning’ the storyline for each lead/season is kept somewhat more secretive. So yes, I think the narrative’s you’ve mentioned could all be plausible.
jlal
March 8, 2018 at 4:37 AM
Of course Lauren knew about the engagement and ring, duh. I still can’t believe they thought getting engaged on air, right after he and Becca talking it out, was a good idea. It was so unnecessary, uncool, classless, and tone deaf to anyone else’s feelings. Get engaged if you want, but don’t rub Becca’s face in it, just weird.
To those commenting on RS’s grammar I totally agree. It has been driving me crazy for years and I’ve commented on it a few times. He used to be really bad with pronouns, but has gotten a tad better. It has always been excruciating for me to watch the show, because even the college grads don’t seem to know which pronoun to use. I would then come to this site and RS was just as bad.
As distasteful as this season was, I will watch Becca’s season. I have been watching since the very first one. Some seasons I do more reading a book than watching, but have at least tuned in every single season. It is mindless TV, which is my guilty pleasure for Monday nights. Dancing with the Stars next!
bugsmeany
March 8, 2018 at 7:30 AM
There was no ‘conspiracy.’ Arie got the whole thing started by contacting Lauren on new year’s eve: before the premiere and three weeks before they had a sense of what the ratings would be. (The first two eps went up against college football.) They didn’t know the ratings needed saving.
tamz171926
March 8, 2018 at 9:08 AM
Sarahe – I bet Lauren wouldn’t think Arie “couldn’t have handled things better” if the situation was reversed!
beapancake
March 8, 2018 at 5:06 PM
Thank you! Like who cares what’s real or not – I watch unReal & Bachelor nation as pure entertainment not to believe in “true love” .
beapancake
March 8, 2018 at 5:10 PM
Yes and she is not some innocent wallflower in all this. I’m sure she encouraged him to act like a jackass and call off the engagement.
beapancake
March 8, 2018 at 5:15 PM
I kind of felt that too (regarding producers) as a sort of “revenge / throw under the bus” for the worst received / viewed (gag inducing) Seasons ever. Genius actually!!!!
nycstar03
March 9, 2018 at 10:25 AM
Trying to leave a comment on the Courtney Robertson podcast post.. not working.. Steve, You should all Courtney out on lying about a lot of things.. She first said once he got back from filming, Arie told her everything, that he proposed to becca and had regrets and was sad.. blah blah.. but then later she said when he posted the bike riding pic, that she told him “I know who you picked” from seeing the pic. Soooo which is it.. did he tell her as soon as he got back orrr did she guess from the pic…?!
qtontv
March 31, 2018 at 4:56 PM
Wow I think I am actually completely done with this franchise. I started drifting off during Ben H’s boring af season, and then quit with the latest round of f**** boys (Nick, Arie). Now I have no idea who this poor girl is and nor do I care to find out. At least I left on a high note with Rachel’s season, although Kaitlyn’s is the only season I’ve ever watched every episode of.