TRANSCRIPT OF PODCAST #390 – INTERVIEW WITH DAVIA ESTHER BUNCH
You are listening to the reality. Steve podcast with your host reality. Steve, he’s got all the latest info and behind the scenes juice on Jen’s upcoming season of the bachelorette and interviewing some of your favorite reality stars. Now here’s reality. Steve. What’s
up everybody. Welcome to podcast number three 90. I’m your host reality. Steve. Thank you all for tuning in a great day. Podcast interview for you today. It is with Davia Esther bunch. She was on Zach season of the bachelor. She was also on bachelor in paradise last summer. So much to get to with her. I can’t imagine you will walk away from this interview and not be impressed by her.
We’ll get to all that momentarily. So with Davia didn’t get a lot of screen time on Zach season, never got a one on one. She was only on group dates. She was eliminated in episode four in the Bahamas. So didn’t really get any camera time on Zach season made a little bit of a name for herself in paradise last summer, because remember she was the one that came down to the beach, took Tanner out when it was cat’s birthday.
And remember they did that whole montage. With Kat talking about it being her birthday and the guy that she likes is on a date with somebody else and they’re doing a shot Of Kat a video shot film shot of Kat, you know Upset that the guy that she likes is on a date with somebody else and then they would pan To Tanner and Davia’s date and they’re all over each other making out it was some of the best editing that show did last summer and I I think a lot of people thought that Dobby was going to end up getting a rose and she didn’t.
However, one of the main reasons for this interview is because Dobby has got a backstory that I think a lot of people do not know about. Probably 98 percent of you don’t even know her backstory. The first 20 to 25 minutes, we don’t even get into bachelor or bachelor in paradise or what she’s doing post show.
The first 20 to 25 minutes of this podcast are all about. Her upbringing, her dance background, her taking off for the summer to go to Russia on a dance scholarship about within a year or so, maybe a year and a half of her mother passing away, her mother passed away when she was in high school. She talks about that a lot.
We talk about the family dynamic when her mother passed away, growing up with a mother who had leukemia. Mother had leukemia for eight years, so much to get to here. And then what she did when she came back, developing an eating disorder when she was over in Russia, there is a lot of stuff here to unpack.
And I’m so glad that Davia was open and honest and vulnerable about it. Because sometimes. While people might talk about it, maybe they don’t go into detail as much. Davia was an open book and you’ll hear her talk about everything in regards to what she went through, how she felt abandonment issues. She feels like she got from her father.
I mean, it is, it’s a lot. I knew I was going to ask her this stuff, but you never know. Where a subject is going to take that information and how they’re going to answer certain questions. And you’re able to tell like, okay, they don’t really want to go there. They’re going to give you the surface level answer, not with Dabia.
She was absolutely outstanding. I can’t wait for you to listen to this interview. So. In a little bit, we’ll get to that. The daily roundup is up posted that a couple hours ago. I do talk a little bit about Jen season. Jesse Palmer basically on his Instagram gave away where they’re filming overnights and final rose ceremony.
I didn’t know. And then Jesse posts with his wife at a resort, which about three or four people emailed me within 30 minutes of him posting saying, That resort has been found. It’s the Mauna Lani hotel in the big Island of Hawaii. So immediately that then spur, you know, once I put it out there, like that’s where he is, clearly that’s where they’re filming overnights and final rose ceremony that turned into, well, no wonder the three bachelor couples are out there.
Joey and Kelsey Dotton and charity, Zach and Katie have all been posting from Hawaii for the past, I don’t know, four or five days. Now, I don’t have any confirmation that they are there to be part of Jen’s overnights and final rose ceremony, but it seems really odd that the most three successful couples in the franchise just happened to be in the same location as where they’re filming overnights and final rose ceremony for Jen’s season.
So I think it’s pretty safe to say that those three couples are there for a reason. Yes, they’re there to have a vacation, but while they’re there, they’re I got to believe they’re going to make some sort of stop in and maybe speak to the final three guys who are there, which no, I don’t know who the final three guys are, but.
I got to believe they’re there for that. It’d be really surprising if those three couples just decided. I mean, we’ve never seen this in the history of the show. I don’t think any time in the history of the show have the three most recent couples decided, Hey, let’s go all take a trip together and go to Hawaii.
Hell, they haven’t even decided to take a trip and go somewhere else. Like, you know, because clearly there’s not any weirdness anymore. Joey was on charity season and, you know, charity dumped Joey at the altar, essentially. But he’s with Kelsey now. There’s obviously no hard feelings there. But it just still seems like, why would these couples just randomly go to Hawaii together?
You know? And knowing now that the show is in Hawaii filming, it’s like, okay. We kind of know nothing’s confirmed. It’s not locked in that the couples are there to be part of gen season, but I don’t think it’s farfetched. If we do find out later on. That yeah, that’s what they’re there for. I do a reader email from a question that’s been asked a few times over the last few years to me.
So I figured I’d answer it. That’s part of the daily roundup. I also talk about survivor for a little bit and also the Venetian, by the way, anybody that’s interested in the reality, Steve fan appreciation party this year, number eight. There are no spots left. There haven’t been any spots left for a couple months.
That’s why I haven’t really been promoting it because. Anybody that would email me after hearing it, I wouldn’t be able to give you a spot. It’s possible when I do a final head count in a couple of weeks and email everybody that some people drop out, say they can’t make it anymore. I might have some available spots open up.
I’ll let you know if I do, but there were already a couple on the list already waiting to get on. And last year was the first year that everybody who said they were coming showed up. So if that’s the case this year, then we’re right at a hundred people and I can’t go over a hundred. So, But I do have an update on the Venetian where the party is at because Venetian, I don’t know if you know this, this year, 2024 is their 25th birthday.
They were built in 1999. So they’re doing renovations for their, really the first major renovations in 25 years. I think it’s 3. 5 billion. They’re pouring into the hotel for renovations. And a lot of them are on the rooms. They’re not bulldozing any of the rooms. It’s more or less. Doing interior decorating on them.
They’re going to have a better lighting, better carpeting. They’re putting new TVs in the room. So just stuff like that. But I found a little snippet of what they’re doing and I figured I’d read that to everybody on the daily roundup today. So check that out if you’re interested. This podcast is brought to you by way.
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You saw her on Zach’s season of the bachelor and then last summer on season nine of bachelor in paradise, first time coming on the podcast, it is Davia Esther Bunch. Davia, so great to finally have you on.
I know. I feel like I know you already just cause I’ve heard your voice so many times.
Well, thank you.
I, you know, one of the things that. You know, we have plenty to get to with your time on the bachelor and bachelor in paradise. But one of the reasons that I’ve always done this and I’ve been doing this now for seven years is I’ve always said that everybody’s got a story and sometimes people on the show last a long time.
So we get to know a lot about them. We meet their families. They’ll get to talk about something that happened in their life during a one on one date and all that stuff. And then sometimes some people last two or three or four episodes and it’s like, but we barely got to know them. And unfortunately you fit in that category because you got sent home in episode four of Zach season.
And then before you went on, you know, paradise, but you have a backstory that I think not a lot of people know about. And it’s one of the reasons I wanted to have you on and talk about it. And, and that is this. So, I mean, I hate to start off the podcast on such a, on such kind of a down note, but it is part of your story and, and you know, it’s important to you.
And that’s the fact that when you were in elementary school, your mother was diagnosed with leukemia. And she passed when you were in high school and you dealt with it. I think, I think I read eight years. You had to go through that. Can you, can you talk about that and what it was like growing up with a mom during those formative years, you know, your elementary school years in your high school years with a mom who was very sick,
Yeah, I think this entire experience for a long time, it was something that I was really embarrassed by.
Because growing up when my first, when my first was my, when my, when my mom was first diagnosed with leukemia, I was in elementary school and it was kind of something that was hidden. She would go in for bone marrow taps. But it wasn’t until I was in middle school when it started really declining.
And I come from a very, very humble family beginnings. My dad was a youth pastor growing up and my mom worked for the church. And she would also teach dance classes. Cause at that time, I was like, Growing up, dance was all I loved to do, but we really couldn’t afford classes. And so my mom really stepped in to be that provider to try and make sure that no matter what, I could always live out my dreams.
And so when she started getting really sick we were living in Georgia at the time and we had to move back to South Carolina. It was 2008. The market was terrible and we had to actually move into my grandparents house. And so for about Two years, it was My family of five living in a three bedroom household with my grandmother and my uncle and so as a middle schooler It’s really embarrassing.
Like I didn’t want to bring people back to my house I didn’t want people to know like what our living situation was like but going through such a rough time. But then also with that coupling with watching my mom become progressively sicker really shaped me to be a very empathetic person. And I think that shows why I was never in any of the drama on the show.
But fast forward while I was still living with my grandparents, my mom got sick to the point where she needed a birth. bone marrow transplant. And so my dad and my mom went to live in Atlanta, Georgia. She was getting treatment at Emory University. And my brothers and I basically lived with my grandparents who I, my grandmother is one of the strongest women I’ve ever met in my entire life.
She practically raised me. I lived with her for about two years. And then when we thought that the bone marrow transplant was going to be it, I was in high school at this time we really had high hopes. She got something that’s called graft versus host disease. And so instead of accepting that foreign bone marrow, her body actually started rejecting it.
And her own body started slowly attacking herself to where that disease spread to her lungs. And that was kind of what ultimately Was the end of her story. And so being 19 or at that time, I was 15. I remember no one ever prepares you for moments like this. My mom was watching someone you love cry.
slowly die from cancer. It’s one of the scariest things you’ll ever watch in your life because you watch someone so full of life become sick and frail. But even through that, she was such a joyful person. And I still remember the day I was sitting in the library and I had one of my teachers come up to me.
Well, they first came up to each other. They’re in a group just talking and they came up to me and they’re like, your dad called. You need to go home immediately. And I just remember the last thing I said to my mom that morning was I like kissed her on the forehead and I told her goodbye and I loved her and I was going to school.
And so I had to go to the guidance counselor, get a leave of absence. And then like all of a sudden, it’s like, Your body knows whenever bad things happen. I just knew in that moment that she wasn’t there anymore. And I remember just bawling my eyes out, crying. And to this day, like, I still feel like God put this interaction there for a reason.
Because I was literally bawling my eyes out, crying on my way out of the building by myself to drive myself home to face the ineffable. And I ran into one of my friends. And. Something that I’ve always struggled with is I hate people having pity for me or feeling strong, sorry for me, because I always feel like I have to be the stronger person.
And I ran into this guy, he saw me crying and he was like, what’s wrong? And I literally just blurted out, I think my mom just passed away. And for some reason, God put this man, this guy in front of me who his mother has passed away. And the only thing that he said to me is, it’s going to be okay. And typically in situations like that, that’s not what you usually hear.
You’re meet with, met with a lot of, I’m sorry. You know, I’m here for you. It’s going to, like, not, it’s going to be okay. And so, still to this day, I’m so thankful for that interaction. But
And this was a complete stranger? It
was one of my friends from high school. But it was just really comforting to hear that.
And so, at 15, I lost my mom to cancer. And then Through that, you know, I have like a very complicated family. I have a younger brother, my dad, and then I had a half brother, and my older half brother he’s not, his, my mom was his only parent at that time, so I had my older brother who lost his only, like, true blood parent that was still in his life my dad lost his wife, and my younger brother was was a baby at the time.
I think he was, he was only 12. And so I felt like I really had to step in and be the one who supported my family. And so I really shut off a lot of emotions. And I tried the best that I can, I could to cope. And then you know, watching your dad start dating again and put himself out there was really difficult during that time when we were grieving.
My dad ended up remarrying about eight months later. So I lost my mom in January. My dad was remarried in August. And that even though that entire upbringing was extremely like traumatizing and hard to go through, I’m really proud of the person that it’s made me. But when it comes in terms of being open and honest and vulnerable, I’ve been able to do that.
honestly through pageants, it was the first thing that gave me a platform to really talk about my story. But it talked, but I was able to talk about it from a place of strength, of overcoming something, you know, but talking about it from a place of vulnerabilities and sharing the hard parts that people don’t really know about was really difficult for me.
And the bachelor was the first time where I was like faced with having to do that. But yeah, it, It’s something that I’ve learned to cope through. I’ve learned about different wounds that that has It’s created in my life and created in my love life and it’s something that I’ve had to process.
Well, one of the things that I saw, this was a quote from after I believe it was a quote that I read that you said, and when you were talking about this in your past, you said basically after your mother passed.
You said, instead of confronting my issues, I ran away. My dad married, my dad married a new wife that year. I ran to Russia on a dance scholarship. Then I got an eating disorder. So this is something that, okay, so you just did the timeline a little bit. I think you said. This was your mother passed in what year?
Oh, eight.
So she was, she passed in, I think it was 2012 or 2013.
Okay. It was one of
those two years.
Okay. So that happens. You said your dad remarries eight months later. How soon after that did you leave to Russia? On a dance scholarship. Like we hear about people, you know, kind of, kind of running away and maybe like, Oh, I just, I needed to get away or whatever.
But you went to a whole different country on a dance. So how long ago, how long had passed after either your mother’s passing or your dad’s remarriage? I guess we can just add on eight months, but how long after did you do that?
So I’ve, my mom’s biggest sacrifice in life was being there for me very selfishly to support my dreams of always doing professional ballet.
And even during any second that she was in the States, like during her cancer treatments, like whenever she was back and healthy enough, she was in the studio teaching dance so that I could afford to live that dream. And whenever she was getting really sick, I was on full scholarship at my dance studio.
And. It felt like that dance to me was the only thing in my life that I felt like I had control over. And so it just became this overwhelming passion and joy and love And when my mother passed away, it felt like that the only tangible thing that I had that was still close to her. And when my life felt like it was really turning upside down, the only place that I had to run to that felt like comfort and stability and hard work, a place where no one pitied me, where I just worked hard.
And instead of someone telling me how, you know, kind and strong I am, they gave me corrections on things that I wanted to work on. And they actually helped me become a better person. a really amazing dancer. And so the day after my mom passed away, I was back in the studio. I fought tooth and nail with my family, but I was back in the studio dancing because that was the only sense of control that I had.
And so from that day, I think I ended up going to Russia that next summer. I was dancing every single day, like relentless on the, it was up to me that. I was not letting go of this dream because I felt like I would be disappointing her. And so I worked really hard and it gave me control and it gave me an escape outside of my family dynamics at that time.
And I got to the point where I literally found myself in Moscow dancing at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy for an entire summer. And then that control over my life spiraled into perfectionism at that time. And I remember you know, you’re in Russia, you’re in a foreign country. And one of the ballet teachers there told us that guys weren’t allowed to partner with girls unless they weighed less than 110 pounds.
And so for me, that perfectionism, that control, that desire to be in charge of my own life when everything felt like it was working against me ended up leading into an eating disorder. And it flew very under the radar. With my family because of everything we were going through at the time, and it wasn’t until I literally passed out in a ballet class one day, and my ballet teachers actually took me to a nutritionist that I had to deal with that head on.
So how long were you in Russia? How many months? Just the song.
I yeah an entire summer. I got offered a stay to stay there for the entire year But because of everything going on in my internal family dynamics It was just not the right choice for my parents. I actually I was so embarrassed. It was like 17 I was like on the flight home from Moscow just like crying But I do think that was in the in the grand scheme of my life That was not my decision, but it was the best decision for me
Yeah.
I’m going to say like, you’re a teenager. I’m guessing maybe one of the first times you’ve been away from home, you’re in a foreign country. Like you said, these, the, all these pressures and I mean, it’s very, we, we hear stories all the time. That’s very common. What you went through was not out of the blow.
Like this is very common in the dance world and stuff like that. But I guess my question would be, was it the nutritionist or, you know, passing out? What was the thing that pulled you out of, Hey, I, I can’t do this anymore to my body.
So it wasn’t even that, you know, I was still really gung ho about, you wanting to make this a career.
Senior nutritionist and having my ballet studio, especially the teachers and the mentors that I had there as a guide in my life really helped the eating disorder part of it. But I, was set on dancing in a ballet company. And I remember I auditioned for all of these companies after my senior year of high school, I got accepted to the Orlando ballet.
And then again, it was my dad’s decision that he wanted me to go to college for a year. Because the offer that I got, I wouldn’t be able to really financially sustain myself by myself, financially support myself. So I went to the one school that I applied to, which was the university of South Carolina.
And I was on a dance scholarship and I was studying Russian language at the time. And I was put into, as a freshman, I was put into like a higher level class and I was given a lot of great opportunities to dance. But because I was pouring everything into dance at the time, I wasn’t going to football games, I was working, I was like financially supporting myself at that time.
So all I did my freshman year of college was dance. work study. And it got to the point where I had no friends my first year of college. I had a couple of friends, but I was in a higher class than the girls my age. I was in, I wasn’t in a sorority. And then I was in classes with girls a lot older than me, like getting good parts.
And it wasn’t until I actually injured my back really, really badly prepping for a performance. I didn’t have an understudy and I would go from going to PT and, and being in a back brace to performing on stage. And I don’t know what it was. I think I just reached my breaking point and I was so burnt out where I just kind of threw my hands in the air and I said, this is not worth it.
And that was the hardest decision that I’ve ever had to do in my life. But in that moment, I think it gave me my control back, and it allowed me to heal, and it allowed me to really think about everything that I had experienced in life, and say like, how do I use this? Or how do I Make something out out of this.
Cause my entire life, I thought I was going to be a professional ballet dancer. And I’m sitting here at a college that I never wanted to go to. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to study. I never really pursued academics that hard. And that’s kind of how pageants fell into my lap.
I was going to say, so you’re a junior, I believe at South Carolina and.
I don’t know how many you had competed in before you won, but explain how that came to be, like, what made you decide to go the pageant route? Were you recruited? Were you just like, oh, this is something that looks interesting? Was there flyers going around campus to compete? Like, what made you want to enter the pageant?
The Miss South Carolina pageant. You went in as Miss Spartanburg, I believe. Correct.
Yeah. So I, the first year I competed was, so I stopped dancing second semester or first semester of my sophomore year. That’s when I got my injury. And then by spring I was competing in pageants. I competed for one year and then my second year I won Miss South Carolina.
Like when I said I spent my first few years. dancing and just trying to figure out how to afford life every single day. Like I was dancing, I was waitressing, and then I was teaching ballet in Greenville, which is like an hour and a half from my college. Like I was a busy bee. And so when I gave up dance, I was like, A, how do I make friends?
B, how do I pay for college? And C, Like, what do I do with myself? I’ve been such like a passion and goal driven person. Like, I can’t just be a sitting duck in college. And so I found the Miss America organization. I’d been following it for years and I saw that the winner of Miss South Carolina gets scholarship money.
And I was. 25, 000 in debt at this point and Miss South Carolina won 30, 000 to 40, 000 in scholarships.
And
I was like, you know what? They have a talent competition. Like, I’m like a shoo in. I’ve watched Miss America Talents before. Like, I can do this. And I mean, you know, I think I lost my first three pageants, but I won talent every single time, and I just got the bug.
Like, it made me really passionate about something again. It gave me an outlet to dance, and then most importantly, it was the first time I had ever spoken publicly about my mother’s passing, and not in a way that I think I was still properly healing from it, but it gave me. a purpose. And so through my first year competing and then the year that I won Miss South Carolina, I was able to graduate school debt free, which is something that was never even an opportunity for me ever without Miss America.
And I was able to talk about my mom in a way that Inspired me to help others and I got involved with Be The Match and I got to spread awareness about bone marrow donation and how easy the bone marrow registry is and I traveled to different colleges around South Carolina and I signed up people for the bone marrow registry because You know, young STEM cells are the best STEM cells.
And so the registry really was missing a gap for people 18 to 25 to become bone marrow donors. And I kind of championed that cause throughout my entire years in South Carolina. So it allowed me an opportunity to live with purpose in a time where I felt like I didn’t have one.
I read that, that you know, basically the platform you ran on for miss for miss USA, right.
It’s not miss America or miss USA or miss. I always mix those two up. What was it?
It’s okay. Miss America.
So the platform you ran on was be the match. And like I said, that’s, that’s kind of huge that you were able to do that and speak about it for the first time and then go around to other colleges and get people, get students to sign up and be bone marrow donors like that’s, that’s really cool that you were able to do that.
And I’ve got to believe that was somewhat fulfilling for you considering the way your mom had passed. And now this is like a, in her honor to be able to do that for others going forward.
It was. And I mean, still to this day, that impact that I had during that year, I get to see the trickle effects of it.
I think it was a couple of months ago, one of my friends from college texted me. She was a dancer with me. And she texted me saying that she signed up for the bone marrow registry while I was in South Carolina. And she got a call. you know, four years later that she was a match for someone, and she went through the process and ended up becoming their bone marrow donor.
So, I still haven’t gotten the call, but that is probably one of the, the best text messages that I’ve received in my life, and little things like that spur up here and there, or opportunities where I’ve run into people and say that they were called for a match, but they were too scared to go through the door.
GoMera process and just being able to be educated and talk about it and really change people’s perspectives. It’s one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever been able to be a part of.
Yeah, I can imagine. And you know, we spent the first year, 20 minutes or so roughly talking about probably the most important stuff of that I wanted to get out and I wanted people to know about you because this was never brought up.
You never had a one on one date where you were able to go into this with Zach. I don’t think you talked about this at all on paradise. That’s not really the place for it.
Yeah, I talked about it with Tanner on our date, so he got to know, yeah, so he got to know that and then I wore a bracelet in memory of my mom on Paradise.
My mom used to always say, just keep swimming. It was like a, One, from Finding Nemo, but two, one of her favorite bands had a song. He was diagnosed with the same cancer my mom was and survived it and wrote a song about it called Swim. And so everyone in my family has a swim related tattoo, but I didn’t. So I wore a bracelet that said Swim on it throughout all of Paradise, and so I was able to talk about it a lot with the cast, and so everybody knew how important it was to me.
But yeah, just some things just never make it on air.
Yeah it’s funny, I thought the only thing you talked about with Tanner was the fact you had two different color eyes. Yes. That’s
but
no, I really appreciate you sharing all that about your mother and your past and your eating disorder.
Cause not, you know, it’s not easy to talk about and, but I’m glad that it’s out there and I appreciate you doing that.
Yeah. And one thing I will say is I am so proud of that moment that Daisy and Kelsey had where right before Kelsey and Joey got engaged, she told her that her mom was. looking down and really proud of her.
And I thought that was the sweetest moment ever. And I texted Kelsey. And so, just let her knew that I was really proud of her and shared my story a little bit with her. So it’s, it’s really happy to see like that representation being carried. Cause a lot of times you can feel so alone, but there’s so many strong women who’ve gone through this experience, like me, Kelsey, Lexi.
So I was, Really, really excited to see that their stories were, were able to be shared.
Yeah, for sure. Now, when we talk about the whole bachelor, we haven’t, we haven’t even discussed your time on Zach your time on Zach season. We haven’t talked about paradise. We’re going to get into that right now.
