I guess you could say today is a somber day in history. Two years ago today, Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and 7 others died in that plane crash. That whole thing still seems eerie. The tragedy of it all, then you have the sports aspect. As far as I can tell, we’ve never had an athlete in any sport, who was considered one of the all-time greats, die at such a young age. I tried going through all sports and I couldn’t think of anyone. I’m talking about taking any athlete in any sport, where they’d rank all-time in that sport, and how old they were when they died. Unless I’m blanking, it really isn’t close. I remember I was at the gym and looked at my phone and that’s how I saw the news and audibly let out a “Holy shit,” then told some random strangers next to me. I’ll also never forget this day because 5 years ago is when I had to put my dog Maddie down, which was easily the worst day I’ve ever had in my life. Brutal. Took me 2.5 years to finally get another dog and now I’m 3.5 years into being Luka’s dad and it’s been awesome. But man, January 26th just always hits different and probably will for a while.
No easy transition here, but a couple things to bring up. Tomorrow’s podcast is gonna be up a little bit later since I’m not recording it til tomorrow morning. I think I can only remember 2 previous podcasts that I recorded on Thursday morning and then turned it around and aired it right away. But Jacqueline Trumbull will be our guest and her schedule is booked until tomorrow morning, so I just said we can do it then. Jacqueline has had quite a bit go on in her life since she was last on in August so it’ll be fun to talk to her again and get caught up. Always one of my favorite guests because she’s so insightful about the show and never holds back on her thoughts regarding all the aspects of it: social media, production side, the contestants, etc. So it’ll be a fun talk tomorrow. Expect that to be up around 11am or so Central time.
Speaking of podcasts, I’m sure you saw the news last week that Tayshia is no longer hosting the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast. No reason given and Tayshia hasn’t said anything, but this idea that she got fired because she’s now single that was being peddled by the gossip mongers on social media was ludicrous. Ummmm, Natasha is single as far as I know, and she hosts a BN podcast. Mike Johnson is single and he hosts one. Becca had an ugly public breakup WHILE she was host of one and is still the host. Like, is it that hard to do a little homework rather than just run with some lazy take of the show will fire you from your podcast if you’re single? What an awful take. And yes, I saw it. It wasn’t an opinion. It was being presented as fact.
Which brings me to my next point about TikTok and what’s happening there. I get that people are trying to make a name for themselves off of this franchise, and with TikTok being the new popular medium, coming with tea or gossip seems to grab people’s attention, but lets be real, almost everything that pops up on TikTok regarding this show, is just regurgitated takes from other people with no real substance to any of it. Yes, I joined TikTok but look at what I’ve done. Two posts. Probably my 3rd is going up today or tomorrow. All I’m doing is taking the spoilers I already gave you before the season and giving them to you in verbal & visual form for just a different audience to see. I’m not posting every 14 seconds when someone likes someone else’s photo on IG. Just seems very messy to me and people just begging for attention. Not to mention all the random strangers who post some interaction they had with a Bachelor contestant. I don’t get it and I never will. Anyway, go check out my TikTok @realitysteve20, follow, like, and comment.
We had a breakup in Bachelor Nation this week as one of the worst kept secrets was finally made public. I don’t even know if it was really a secret considering both of their social media activity for the last month but Riley & Maurissa broke up. Again, when you’re a couple that comes off the main show or BIP and you post non-stop together, you’re basically setting yourself up for failure. Because the second you stop posting, or the second photos start getting removed, it’s impossible to keep your relationship status on the downlow. Maurissa literally took off every picture she had of Riley (which were a lot) from her IG feed around Christmas. Why would anyone who was still in a relationship with someone remove all their pictures? They wouldn’t, so we all kinda knew this was coming, it was just a matter of when they’d publicly say something and what exactly would be said. I don’t think we’re ever truly gonna know what happened since they gave the generic “respect our privacy at this time” kinda statement, but who knows? The further out we get maybe one or both will appear on a podcast. I don’t expect there to be some dragging of the other, but maybe by their answers we can get an idea. I don’t know why they broke up, I haven’t even been told any rumors, nor do I care. Breakups suck regardless of who it is, but my life doesn’t change one iota whether or not Maurissa and Riley are together. Neither should any of yours. They were people you saw on TV and we know nothing about their private relationship. People need to start to get a better understanding of that.
Congrats go out to Jen Saviano from Ben’s season and BIP as she posted on IG yesterday she was pregnant. I think it came as a surprise to a ton of people considering as far as I know, Jen hadn’t even posted she had a boyfriend until yesterday. She’s always been a favorite of mine and loved having her on the podcast years ago. Was a nice surprise to see yesterday and I’m guessing a lot of people wish her the best going forward.
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