Overall thoughts from the Women Tell All…
-Honestly, in your life, I hope all of you find someone who looks at you the way the Bachelor franchise looks at the Golden Bachelor women. Now, we have a podcast coming from Susan and Kathy. Look, I’m sure they’re lovely women and all, but the amount of times they are shoe horning these women into things is getting to be a bit much. It’s starting to be overkill. They’re literally invited to EVERYTHING, when you’ve got former alumni who are completely shunned from the franchise. It’s bizarre.
-Joey and Jesse crashing watch parties is, well, something they’ve done numerous times before. Chris Harrison did that with a few past leads as well so it’s nothing earth shattering to see a bunch of screaming sorority girls pretending like they’re being surprised Joey is showing up. Remember when they did this for that one past lead and everyone loved him? Every time they do this they act like that Bachelor is the most popular one there’s ever been. And then next season, they’re on to the new one. Complete time filler that tells us nothing about anything. Joey has fans. We know this. Every lead does. Because you tell a bunch of drunk sorority girls to lose their shit doesn’t make Joey any more or less likable than previous Bachelors that got the same exact reaction when you dd this in previous seasons.
-Once the WTA started, we only had 3 two-handed waves when the women were introduced. That’s gotta be a record low, right? Maybe they’re onto us now. Maybe the women absolutely know people are watching and tracking what kind of gesture they’re giving to the audience now and they want to stand out. Did you see what Maria did numerous times last night? She clapped in a circular motion. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that before and I doubt I’ll ever see that again. Who thought of this?
-And then they started talking. Good to see that after 4 months of the filming, the women put their differences aside, cooler heads prevailed, and they were all BFF’s hosting slumber parties and braiding each others hair. Or not. Yeah, for those that were emailing the last few weeks asking, “What incentive are the women gonna have to speak up at the WTA and cause drama if there’s no Paradise this summer,” well, you got your answer. Plenty of incentive. Because the cat claws came out in full force last night. There was yelling, interrupting, hand waving, tears, walking off set during commercial – and all that to basically have nothing get resolved. Did you think you got any resolution and realized what happened last night? I didn’t.
-I think one giant missed opportunity was the Sydney/Maria conflict. This show literally built 4 episodes around these two disliking each other enough to put them on a 2-on-1 and I didn’t feel like Sydney said much at all last night addressing her behavior on the show. Yes, she did say at the end she was annoying and that she thought she and Maria had different communication styles, but, they never dove deep into why Sydney had such a hard time with her. Like, can we get some examples? I’m not saying I doubt Sydney, I’m just saying she barely spoke last night, and when she did it was incredibly generic. The hugging it out at the end, I guess, put an end to all this confrontation, but that’s short term. If Sydney and Leah post more TikToks with subtle jabs at things that happened in the house, the “forgiveness” last night was all for show. Lets hope everyone just moves on from this. But honestly, I don’t think the audience has any clue what really happened.
-Take the Jess/Maria back and forth for example. Think we got any resolution there? I certainly don’t. Jess said Maria constantly interrupted her and told her to shut up and Maria said she never did that – while interrupting her. Then Jess said yes you did. Then Maria said no I didn’t. So yeah, that went absolutely nowhere. If you’re a Maria fan, I’m sure you’re calling Jess a liar. If you’re a Jess fan, I’m sure you’re calling Maria a liar. That’s how this fanbase works. It’s one thing to have your favorite. Everyone does. The problem is those people can’t possibly be objective, and anyone that dislikes YOUR particular favorite contestant, now becomes your enemy and you go after them. People, it’s ok if someone doesn’t like someone that you like. You don’t need to lash out.
-Rachel’s time on stage, while very unfortunate and horrible to listen to, was par for the course from this franchise. I mean, how many times have we seen the show take time out of there Tell All show to address the hate their contestants get. Whether it was Kaitlyn talking about getting slut shamed, or Rachel Lindsay talking about the racist comments she was getting, to Clayton reading mean tweets about himself, to last night with Rachel. This show can address it til they’re blue in the face, yet, nothing changes. That’s four instances off the top of my head that I remember, but I know there’s been other times as well. It’s just sad. And unfortunately, in March of 2025 when the next Bachelors Women Tell All is airing, we have no idea WHO it’ll be, but I can already tell you there will be a woman on next season who sits on that couch and talks about hate she received during her season. It’s inevitable.
-How do we combat this? I’ve talked about it numerous times, the show has addressed it numerous times, other podcasters talk about it, yet it happens every season. Nothing seems to be changing. IG and Twitter can only do so much since I’m sure they get hundreds of thousands of complaints every day. They can’t possibly look into every single one and take action. Which is why trolls are allowed to get away with what they’ve been doing for years with this franchise. Awful what Rachel has had to go through just because Joey gave her a rose over Maria. Maria can’t help if her fans go spew racist garbage at Rachel. She can say “be kind” til the cows come home, but if someone has that much hate in their body to send a stranger on a TV show racist messages, nothing is going to deter them unfortunately outside of legal action. And that’s just not gonna happen.
So we move on and just keep our fingers crossed that this audience calms down, but, I’m a realist. And I know that’s not happening anytime soon unfortunately. So my message to any woman looking to apply in a future season (since the men seem to get absolved of any bad behavior by the female audience within about 5 minutes), is just know that no matter what you think, the second you sign to go on this show, you are signing up for possibly receiving some serious hateful, threatening, racist, etc comments from trolls on the internet. NO ONE is immune, no matter what you say or do. So while there are perks involved with coming on this show, there is some serious negativity that I’m guessing you’ve never dealt with in your life before. Just know that going in. And know that there isn’t a whole hell of a lot anyone can do to stop it.
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.
