Hi Steve,
Well, this was sure a fun train wreck week! Sorry if you’ve been asked this a zillion times, but it sounds like you’re saying that Brendan and Pieper didn’t know they were miked when they had that conversation on their date. Is that the case? Aren’t they always miked? It seems bizarre that they would be so open about their plan on TV. I have no idea what they were thinking.
Do you think Brendan could improve his reputation by admitting everything, and apologizing publicly to Natasha? Improve? Eh. That’s up to each individual to determine. He should apologize because what he said about her was a dick move, not so people will start following him again on IG.
I personally think Greg would be a boring Bachelor, and that he’s too immature (like Colton) to handle things well — but I love your point of how fun it would be to watch everyone flip out!
Also, I loved the “coverage” of your Olive Garden fandom experience! Their eggplant Parmesan + salad = one of my favorite meals ever. What’s your favorite OG meal?
Comment: Tour of Italy, chicken parm, rigatoni with meatballs, and fettucine alfredo with chicken. Probably in that order.
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Hi Steve,
I had several thoughts on last night. I completely agree with you about Natasha and her handling of the situation with Brendan and Pieper. She was adult, calm, clear, and didn’t sink to the level of name calling except for telling the man he was a liar when he so clearly was. She was magnificent and classy. I was disappointed at Brendan’s behavior as he had come across as a sincere good guy. But karma has come back to deal with those two, and I think we can all just walk away and leave them to whatever it is they want to do. Bye Felicia! Karma is a bitch.
I was rather pleasantly surprised at Kenny, a person I had dismissed as pretty shallow and only out to fool around. He listened to Mari and took some time to figure out where he was, not jumping on the next available lady who wandered by. Tia seemed to handle it well. We saw no crocodile tears from her over being bypassed. She Who Shall Not Be Named, on the other hand, put on her little tiresome and egocentric show. Clearly her heart is in no way involved, just her ego and her desire to stir the pot, pull the rug out from under other ladies, and get more of the airtime she’s so hungry for. Boring. You’re wise to ignore her shenanigans.
I felt a little sad watching the last gasps of Joe and Kendall. It was, however, another example of people acting like adults and speaking respectfully to one another. I root for all three people in this triangle.
Keep up the good work!
Comment: Plenty of people have handled situations better than I expected this season.
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Steve,
Regarding the Brendan/Pieper thing: One thing struck me from the get go: If ABC/Warner’s biggest problem with their show’s credibility right now is that everybody is coming for clout and not looove, THIS scenario would be THE way to scare people away from trying to go on the show for followers. Could you possibly get a worse punishment than what we saw in Monday’s edit? Not really.
Neither Brendan nor Pieper come across as Einsteins to me, and I find it hard to believe it wasn’t heavily producer driven. How; I don’t know; obviously, but Pieper arriving saying she was looking for Brendan right off the bat could easily have been a producer thing. “Everybody needs to say who they want to see, what about you?” or whatever.
With Brendan, yeah, that was harder to explain away, but again… I believe his comment about Natasha not having other options was in voice-over so it could have been a frankenbite. And so on and so forth..
I am not saying they were kept completely in the dark, or that they weren’t calculating on meeting up. Of course they were. But if Demi could have a girlfriend at home – who comes on late as some sort of a prize/token, who knows what they were told?
It is just difficult for me to fathom how anybody would openly agree to go on a show and talk openly about their scheming to meet in the way it was set up. I guess we’ll see next week when the cast confronts them.
The whole followers discussion between them – shot from a “hidden angle”… I mean; this must have been set up. Especially because production of course knew they were dating prior to the show. So here, they had the golden opportunity to make an example out of clout chasers. A big splash! If I were a producer, I would have thought of coming up with something like this, because… it obviously works! Brendan is down 40.000 followers, it is almost comical. (Not all the hate comments, that’s just crap from toxic people)
Something is amiss, but … yeah, I don’t care about them, but I do find producer manipulation interesting.
Thoughts?
Comment: Producers have a hand in everything you see on this show. To me, it looked like they buried themselves. Are we privy to EVERY conversation on this show? No. So yes, I’m sure there’s stuff we didn’t see/hear, but, ultimately what we saw play out seems to be pretty accurate of what happened since the people who were there are basically still going along with it. Those two don’t seem to be liked. We’ve seen contestants jump to the defense of others when an edit is shown that they think was wrong. I don’t see many people who were down in BIP jumping to Brendan and Piepers defense in the last couple days. So to me, that makes me think what we saw is a fairly accurate portrayal of what happened.
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Hi Steve! Curious on your inside knowledge as to how they pick the bip cast. I understand of course having the favorites and the villains come on it but I feel like this season there have been a lot of randoms. Like 2-3 people at least that got zero or only 1 rose from their season that are now on the beach. Out of all the early eliminations how did they decide to bring these random ones on?
Thanks!
Comment: That honestly happens every season. There’s ALWAYS night one’ers that get on the show, or randoms that people barely remember. This really is nothing new.
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Hey Steve!
First, I want to say I think the whole Brendan and Pieper situation looks shady. And as bad a look as it was for Brendan, I think it makes Pieper look bad too. She came across as if she hadn’t thought that he would meet anyone else even if it was to survive for 2 weeks without her. If this was some game to them, it seems she hadn’t thought the strategy through very well. And Brendan definitely should have handled the situation better. The way he flipped the switch on Natasha and is just saying awful things to the camera about her is terrible. However, I can’t help but wonder if production set this up to some extent. I remember you saying because Brendan and Pieper were reportedly seeing each other you didn’t expect to see either of them in paradise and then suddenly they were both on the cast list. Then production seems to plant the idea to get the beach talking about Brendan seeing Pieper shortly before coming here to stir up drama. Then Pieper comes down and she knows Brendan is there, not just hoping he is there, but knows he is there as if production told her. It seems like production paid them money and encouraged them to come on for followers or whatever knowing they were together and promising to put their growing relationship and also creating a major source of drama for the season. It seems a bit like what they attempted to do with arranging for Blake to see Hannah G in Alabama for paradise only that didn’t work because Hannah G fell for someone else. Do you think production played a role in this or was it completely Brendan/Pieper initiated to scam everybody likes this? Well they play a role in everything, so I’m unsure of what you’re getting at.
Second regarding the Thomas situation. For me my opinion of him changed before Becca even got there. As soon as Thomas came on the beach, Aaron and his crew were determined to make sure he had a miserable time. Villains have had the ability to show another of them in paradise in the past but Aaron, Tre, James, etc. weren’t allowing that to happen. They talked crap about him to the rest of the before he even got there. And then he tried to make peace with the guys shortly after he got there and they wouldn’t have it. In my eyes, it seems like my opinion of Aaron and the guys were bullying him but unlike in Katie’s season when he did it, he didn’t make a mistake on the beach. So I’m my opinion, I’m willing to give him a chance and actually feeling pretty out on Aaron and James. We’ve yet to really see him and Becca interact yet on the show but as much as I love Becca, I wish them nothing but the best.
Comment: He’s not a horrible person, no. But again, I keep going back to what I saw on Katie’s season and the behavior down there, and the guy just strikes me as someone who just tells women what he thinks they wanna hear. Before going to the VIP party last night, if you didn’t know the end result of him and Becca, you’d think he was all in on Tammy. He seemed to be telling her exactly what she wanted to hear, he was affectionate, he was kissing her, then Becca asks him on a date and he’s like, “Yeah, there’s no one else I would’ve rather gone with. You were the only one I would’ve said yes to.” I don’t know. He just seems a bit shady to me. Not a monster villain, but certainly not squeaky clean either. The “Bachelor” comment on Katie’s season is an afterthought to me. I don’t care about that. He just seems to constantly be “on” and putting on a front for the cameras. That’s the impression I get, and seemingly others have to.
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How many times has Demi been on BIP? Do you believe there will come a time when the producers will stop asking her back (SOON) even though she provides them with drama and conflict?
Comment: Sometimes I get emails from people in Ecuador for “Reader Emails.” I don’t believe you’re from there, but your email is still appreciated nonetheless.
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Hey Steve
You’re probably going to get asked this question several times this week, but here goes…. Why the outrage and demands from the other cast members about Chris and Alana, but not the same for Brandon and Pieper? They’re demanding Chris leave, but not demanding the same of Brandon and Pieper when the it’s just about the same situation. I watched parts of this over and over and still can’t figure it out.
Did I miss something?
Comment: That’s coming next week. It was in the previews and contestants made it known on social media last night that it’s coming.
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Hi Steve,
I’m a long-time Canadian fan!
Regarding the whole Chris Conran sudden relationship switcheroo situation on Tuesday night’s BIP episode – I’m confused by Jessenia’s self-righteous reaction. Didn’t she do basically the same thing to Ivan?? She was all about Ivan and then suddenly dumped him like a sack of potatoes the second Chris arrived. Would love your take. Thanks, Steve!
Comment: Yes and no. She left Ivan for Chris, but, handled it completely different. She at least told Ivan to his face how she was feeling. Chris made out with Alana on two different occasions. One time he didn’t know Jessenia was gonna walk by, and the other time was on the dance floor where he HAD to have known there was a good chance she’d see it. Total dick move. So while they both left someone for someone else they knew pre-show, Chris’ handling of Alana in front of Jessenia was low.
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Dear Steve,
Thanks for giving us the inside scoop on Bachelor in Paradise this season. I have a few questions. I hope I am not too late to put my reader email in for the week.
1. I am left handed and I thought I saw Zac Clark, Tayshia’s fiancé also writing or using his left hand to eat when he was on the show. Was curious if you knew if he was left-handed? No.
2. In regard to the Becca and Blake situation, maybe I missed something but did Becca downplay her recent interactions with Blake Horstmann? I saw an article where Blake was upset about how Becca described their recent encounters and wasn’t sure where she stated this. I feel bad that Blake got hurt by whatever remarks were made by Becca. He has certainly made his mistakes in the past, but I do believe he has learned from them and is striving to do better since his stint on BIP. I liked him and Becca together, but I am glad that he did not go back on BIP this season. I do not think it would have been good for his mental state. I only read what everyone else did. I can’t add anything to this since I don’t know what the extent of their “relationship” was pre-show.
3. In regard to the Brandon/Natasha/Pieper Situation, I wanted to say that I think Brendan was an awful liar. My opinion of him definitely changed after last night and I’m sure I am not the only person who felt this way. He truly played Natasha and made her miss out on chances to connect with other men who would have been sincere about getting to know her. She deserves way better. I do think he gaslighted her. Even though he did not yell and scream at her, the words he said to her to play her and telling her that there was no one else that would have wanted to be with her in paradise was disgusting. I think this may have been worse than the Katie/Greg situation. I believe Greg truly needed help. Brendan just seems to he a selfish jerk who had an agenda going on the beach to stay long enough to be with Pieper when she came to Paradise. The other cast members that said Brendan and Pieper did the show for followers and air time were right. Ironically, it’s refreshing to see that people truly saw their true colors and they lost many followers from what I read. I think a lot of people agree with you.
4. I was wondering if the next season of the bachelor would start filming next month since bachelorette filming for the upcoming season ends this month?
Thank you.
Comment: I’ve heard end of September and I’ve also heard beginning of October. So I’m not sure which one yet.
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Send all links and emails to: steve@realitysteve.com. To follow me on Twitter, it’s: www.twitter.com/RealitySteve. Instagram name is RealitySteve, or join my Reality Steve Facebook Fan Page. Talk to you tomorrow.
