Yesterday, I talked about the fact that Chris Harrison had Pilot Pete on his podcast, and it was kind of generic talk, although Chris Harrison did go into a little bit of, because Pete asked him, like, where were you?
At the time, everything kind of went down.
You were at 19 years.
Where were you in terms of, were you going to resign?
Did you always want to be the host of the show?
And Chris had said something that he had never shared before, which was we had just started renegotiations for my contract, but I still didn’t know how much longer I wanted it to be, whether I was going to basically, you know, try and do a lifetime deal or go to year 20 and then quit after that, just make it a nice round number.
I did not know at the time, and then everything went down.
And the show had leverage over him and basically lowballed him and his offer, and he realized, okay, this isn’t going the way I expected.
And then they just let him go.
I think one other thing that a lot of people probably don’t remember or are forgetting about what also happened during that time, this article came out but from the Daily Beast about three months after Chris was fired from the show.
He was fired in March of 2021, and this came out in June of 2021.
You can Google it.
Just Google Chris Harrison, Brian Friedman, Mike Fleiss, lawyers.
Chris Harrison hired Brian Friedman, who is one of the highest profile entertainment lawyers in Hollywood when he was going up against ABC during this whole dispute of what am I going to do and are they going to fire me?
And then they ended up allegedly settling for $10 million, might have been a little bit more.
Whatever the case may be, there’s a whole article written about the fact that Chris Harrison hiring Brian Friedman is one of the major reasons, and it could have played a major role in why he was ultimately let go, because Brian Friedman is also the lawyer that Mike Fleiss’ wife hired at the time of, you remember that whole ordeal, where Mike Fleiss and his wife, Laura Kapler, she literally said he attacked her, and he told her to get an abortion when he found out she was pregnant, and told her, and all these things.
You can Google the story.
We covered this back in the day, and it’s still fascinating to me how it happened during the summer.
I can’t remember if it was summer of 2018 or 2019, that these two were at each other’s throats.
Not literally, but Laura Kapler basically came out and said, he uses his money power over me, basically saying, without him, she could just go back to Wisconsin, and called her a bunch of names, and she was scared of him.
She just wanted to get out of the house, and then Fleiss said, no, that never happened.
She’s the one who attacked me.
There’s all this stuff.
He wanted to steal her phone from her so he could look it up.
All this stuff, they were going back and forth, and it was ugly.
And then, what?
Three months later, both of them released a statement saying, we’ve gotten counseling, we’re working on, I love my wife, and they since went through with having a second child, and it’s kind of never been brought up since.
But that’s neither here nor there.
Whatever happened between these two, obviously, at the time, it absolutely looks like an abusive relationship where somebody just goes off and says, oh my God, I’m scared of him, I never want to be around him anymore, get me out of this, I’m going to stay with friends.
And then, cooler heads prevail, and all of a sudden, she took back everything and said, we just had a fight, just like all other couples.
We were heated, and now we’re better.
It’s like, oh God, all right, whatever.
Very hard to believe, but whatever the case may be.
However, the point of the story is she hired the…
Chris Harrison hired the same lawyer that Fleiss’s ex-wife did when she was going after him.
And to hire Brian Friedman, Chris wasn’t fucking around, and the article pretty much insinuates that that pissed Fleiss off enough to where he’s like, fucking fire this guy.
Google it.
Google the story, it’s very, very interesting.
But be prepared, might be a little triggered about some of the stuff you read in regards to what happened between Fleiss and his wife, if you don’t remember it.
We talked about it a bunch at the time that it happened.
But I mean, it’s been five, six years, so it’s kind of just kind of fallen onto the…
It’s fallen by the wayside.
Nobody brings it up anymore.
So I watched Deal or No Deal Island on Monday.
Finally got around to watching it.
And once again, this is just such a math game.
You know, they had 12, I think his name was Nick.
He was the one that got to play Deal or No Deal.
And 12 cases, he picks one.
Then he has to choose eight cases.
And of the eight, five of them were from the lower amount on the left side of the board, and three of them were from the right side of the board.
So his first deal, first offer was over, it was close to a million.
And then he had to choose two more cases.
And one of them was from the left, and one of them was from the right.
So there was only two cases left.
4.25 million and $4.5 million.
Well, all you have to do is the math.
And your offer clearly is going to be right in the middle of those two, or somewhere between 4.25 and 4.5, because you’re going to offer you less than 4.25, because then you’re just going to be like, well, wait a second, that doesn’t make any sense.
And then you’re not going to offer more than 4.5.
Your offer is going to split the difference.
You have a 50-50 shot.
Either you own, either Nick owned the $4.5 million case, or he owned the $4.25 million case.
He took the deal, and the deal was for $4.417 million.
It was in the middle, and he ended up having the $4.5 million case.
So he lost, and he was eliminated.
But as I’m watching it, I’m like, this show is just all math.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise.
The second, the only two cases were left were $4.25 and $4.5 million.
You knew the offer was going to be right in between those two numbers.
I said it was going to be $4.375, just because that’s the exact middle between $4.25 and $4.5.
But they went with $4.417.
I don’t, you know, I don’t know why.
But it’s just, I guess what I’m trying to say is the game is just absolute luck.
You might have some numbers in your favor if you happen to knock off, like if the first choice was you only had to do six and you happened to choose all six low numbers, yeah, but your offer is still going to be right in the middle of the three high numbers.
You know, so it’s like there’s no strategy whatsoever.
Really, there isn’t.
It’s flat out luck if you’re going to choose.
Like he had a 50-50 shot of either having the 4.25 and took the right deal or having the 4.5 and taking the wrong deal.
And he had the wrong, any of the wrong case.
He had four and a half million and he had chosen the second highest amount on the board.
And unfortunately, the deal that was offered by the banker was less and he lost.
And so he’s gone.
So we got five people left.
And Boston Rob is obviously the most entertaining part of that show.
He keeps it going.
I’m sure they’re finding out a way to keep him on the island just because everybody wants him gone.
I mean, with only five left, three of the people want him gone.
So I just I’m sure they’re doing something that is keeping Rob in the game.
And finally, I watched American Idol.
We’re down to our final 10.
And I might be talking out of my ass here.
I’ve watched American Idol every season it’s ever been on.
And I’m sure that there are people.
You know what?
I’m not even going to go to that point because I’ve already thinking in my head.
As I’m saying that sentence, I already know that I’m wrong.
So I’m not even going to say it.
But Top 10, Abby Carter, McKenna, Will, Kako, Ka’Brien, Mia, Jack, Emmy, Tristan and Julia.
I don’t know.
You know, you just don’t know where America’s leaning.
But having watched all season to me and then looking at who they could market, it seems like McKenna Faith Bryan Holt is someone that I could see winning this show.
I could also see someone like Jack Blocker winning this show because I know that the female audience probably loves him.
I’m put off by the facial expressions while singing.
I understand that people really get into it, but I’ve never seen someone sing out of the side of their mouth as much as he does during the course of a song.
His eyes roll back in his head.
He just doesn’t have the presence.
Got a great voice.
But the presence, it’s just strange to look at.
It’s almost too much.
So McKenna, I really think McKenna is somebody I could see winning this show.
Like I said, Tristan is going to stand out.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Tristan made top three.
I just think he might be a little bit too young.
I don’t know what to think of Keiko because I feel like I either haven’t been paying attention or whatever, but Sunday and Monday of this week were the first times I ever remember watching Keiko’s performances.
So I don’t know.
I just cannot tell if he’s well liked.
But I think me and Matthews is really good too.
They got a good top 10, but I’m putting my money down on who I think is going to win this thing.
I’ll go with McKenna.
McKenna, Jack and Tristan, I’ll say, for top three.
I could be way off.
I have no idea.
I think McKenna is probably a lock for final three for hometowns.
But the other ones, I just don’t…
I don’t know.
It’s tough to get a gauge.
But good top 10, I think.
And I don’t know if it’s one a week now until the final three or what the deal is.
Maybe they’re doing…
Maybe it’s ten down to eight.
But I know fans are upset.
I know who got beat out this week, Romeo and Jaina.
Is that his name, Romeo and Jaina?
Honestly, you know, Romeo has had better…
Is that his name?
I don’t want to screw this up.
Is it Roman?
Yes.
Sorry.
I called him Romeo.
It’s Roman.
Roman Collins, Jaina Elise.
Roman has a, obviously, just belting out song.
Got a very, very powerful voice.
He did Roar on Monday, and I didn’t like it at all.
I understand that these people want to make it different.
You don’t want to sing it exactly like Katy Perry did.
But I just didn’t think it was a, I don’t think it did her song justice at all.
I didn’t like it, the performance whatsoever.
And I love Katy Perry.
You know that.
I love any singer who basically does teeny bop bubblegum music.
So I just didn’t like the performance of Roar at all.
Obviously, the judges are never going to criticize anybody on the show.
They did a couple of times on Monday where they’re just like, you know, song choice could have been better, but we love you.
You’re the best.
And it’s like, OK, can we be a little harsher on these people?
But Jaina and Roman, I already I could already tell when I saw who the last four were when they counted down from 12 down to who the two that were eliminated were.
When the final four people were standing were all BIPOC contestants.
Oh, boy, you knew that that was going to stir shit up.
And look, this is a show and, you know, it’s like you can’t just say American Idol is racist.
Fantasia won.
Ruben stuttered won.
So you can’t say that it’s racist.
But when the final four contestants, the last four standing there were all BIPOC contestants on Monday and the eight that were put through were all whites people, it’s like, OK, you know, maybe there’s something, you know, there’s people already, you know, complaining online.
So, you know, I you just knew it was coming.
Maybe they should have done the eliminations a little bit better than that because obviously two of those BIPOC contestants, two of those four still ended up making it into the top 10.
So why not put them out early?
You know, probably a bad choice by American Idol when you have 12, you’re going down to 10 and you’re just making everybody safe.
And the first eight you send to the safe chairs are all white people.
Like it just was bad look.
But is what it is.
But I wouldn’t call the show racist.
You know, what are they supposed to do?
Not take the fan’s votes, so a good top 10 though.
I really like their top 10 this season.
So obviously I’ll continue to watch and give you my thoughts.
Thank you for listening.
I really appreciate it.
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And don’t forget the transcripts are up on the website every day now.
And I do want to say this.
For whatever reason, when I cut and paste or when I highlighted the transcript from my phone, going into Apple Podcasts, when I tried to email it to myself, it only does the first paragraph because of copyright laws.
So I had to go on my desktop and go through Apple Podcasts and do the actual cut and paste job from that transcription.
And if you went on my website yesterday and read yesterday’s daily roundup in the transcription, you’ll see that the way they do it on the transcription, if you go through the desktop, it’s literally just one sentence at a time.
So I can’t do anything about that.
I’m not going to cut and paste and then put it in paragraph form.
It would take me way too long every morning.
Yeah, it’s a different way to read it, but it’s literally one sentence and then a space and one sentence and a space.
I don’t know why it doesn’t let me cut and paste from the actual website or from the actual podcast on my phone, Apple Podcasts on my phone.
It lets me highlight the whole thing and then I hit copy and then I email it to myself and then only one paragraph gets sent in the email and the rest says, you know, copyright laws or something like that.
So I don’t know, but that’s the way it’s going to look every day.
So if you are someone who doesn’t listen to podcasts or doesn’t frequent podcasts, but you still want to hear what I have to say every day, just go to my website, realitysteve.com.
It’ll be up every day.
Thank you all for listening.
Really appreciate it.
Great one.
Interview with Bob Sturm, co-host of The Hardline, three to seven here every day, Monday through Friday in Dallas, Fort Worth.
Former co-worker of mine.
I was a co-worker of his.
And great, great NFL Draft Breakdown coming up in an hour from now.
So check that out.
Thanks again for listening.
Really appreciate it.
And I will talk to you tomorrow.
