The Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast - All’s Fair in Love and Roses with Chad Kultgen and Lizzy Pace from Game of Roses PART 1

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

We all watch The Bachelor as if it were a professional sport, but Chad Kultgen and Lizzy Pace from the Game of Roses podcast and authors of "How To Win The Bachelor" take it to an entirely different level. They’re hanging out with Ben and Ashley and sharing their expert opinion on who “played” the game of The Bachelor the best.They share their thoughts on how much impact producers should have on the decisions of the cast, and how much true “manipulation” can steer someone’s journey of love. Plus, Chad reveals his personal connection to some people from Bachelor Nation!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast with IHartRadio. It's Almost Famous Podcast, and well, today I'm here with one of my favorite people in the world. Ashley, hello.

Hi, Ben. So happy to have us back together. That's nice. I enjoy it. Weeks of us not being together. It's too long. We have a really special episode today, Ashley. You want to tell everybody who we have on?

And why, maybe. I think a little background to why they're here, like where, why this is now, could be interesting. Oh, I'm so excited to have our guests on today. It is Chad Colchin and Lizzie Pace from the Game of Rose's podcast. And they're the author. of how to win The Bachelor, which is something that Teresa used to have been on the Golden Bachelor

to possibly win the game because your whole thing, guys, is that you think that The Bachelor is not fundamentally about love. It is a sport. That's correct. Are you saying that you don't? Listen, also, just off the top,

I want to say this is an honor for us because both of you are two of the greatest players who have ever lived. Actually, obviously, you have revolution. the tier play game, that two-on-one date that you had in the bad lands against Kelsey Poe, maybe one of the most dangerous villains we've ever seen in our beloved game of all time. And I think you know what I'm talking about. Don't get me started.

He even sounds like you're an ESPN commentary right now. I mean, look, to us, it is a sport, and we wrote this book called How to Win the Bachelor. It's kind of like the Moneyball of Bachelor. It's really based on mathematical metrics of what a player can do in any given in situation. And we're not saying that love isn't involved. We're saying it very much is. So too is a very rote format created by producers that you have to navigate to make it to the end of that game, especially if you want to win the ring, especially if you want to find love. But yeah, Gary accused Teresa of reading our book or being found out reading our book while she was in the

mansion. But I don't know how true that is. She claims that wasn't true. Yeah, I was going to say, Has that been confirmed before we, like, nail it down and say it happened? She went on Dear Shandy and said that she had, like, a trial and audible and listened to the first chapter. That's all she would come clean about. Do we have to make this, like, a wrong reasons thing? Like, if you've read this book, you can't be there. I would say it makes sense to go read a book called How to Win the Bachelor when you're going on The Bachelor. Why does it have to be for the wrong reasons?

I really, one, I think we're going to dive in and have a really fun conversation today because there's a lot of questions I want to ask you that you probably have studied better than Ashley and I. But I read Sean Lowe's book before, like on the plane to be the Bachelor. See? And I read Courtney Robertson's. Big reveal. How dare you study?

Yeah, how dare you get prepared? No, and I remember my reasoning. obviously I wanted to do well at this thing, I guess. I don't remember if it was before as The Bachelor or on The Bachelor. It was one of the two. But this was such a mystery world at the time that you get signed up for this thing and you're flying to L.A. to maybe be a part of it for almost three months. You have no clue what you're walking into. And for me, it was this, I have a lot of questions. Does anybody have any answers? And looking for any answers possible. I have no problem with people preparing for the show. I do think though the motivation behind preparing could become the issue. But that motivation at this point in reality TV media TV production, no one is going on any reality show without the primary motivation being fame or at least being an equal motivation to finding love, especially in all these dating formats. Because you see what can happen, especially now in Love Island, USA. You can walk out of a good season's performance with five, six million followers on whatever platform.

form and you're making tons of money. That's the primary motivation. And if you find somebody to date for six months or maybe even marry, great. That's a great, like, kind of added bonus. At least at this point, I feel like Ashley was actually one of the first bachelor influencers ever, arguably. Let's blame this trend on Ashley. I really want to blame it on Ashley.

It's not a bad trend. I was just very lucky. We were cast the perfect time. Very lucky. Come on. You're one of the greatest players who's ever played this game, hands down, serious. You have a ninth place finish. I will admit. There is some strategy to my game afterward, but in the moment, I don't know that there ever was. Your audition tape was art. Oh, yeah. Okay, never mind. I was strategic the entire time. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You knew the game intrinsically. You had watched every season. That super fandom helped you understand the format of it. You know what I mean? Now, kind of to what you were talking about, Ben. I've been using our book and kind of like Taylor making strategies for players and secretly training people to infiltrate that game for the past four years and have had very high levels of success kind of playing The Bachelor from outside of it. So, you know, I know that there's kind of always this argument of like, is it for the wrong reasons? Is it for the right reasons? Are

they really there for love? And it's like some of those players I'm training are there. Their primary reason, at least that they tell me that they want to go in is like, I do want to get married and have kids. So I try to help them get that objective by navigating, like you're saying, Ben, this weird, esoteric game that producers purposely keep obfuscated from people so that you don't know what they're going to do. You don't know what kind of manipulations they're going to pull on you. But if you know what's likely going into that situation, you have a much better chance of making it through to the end. Ashley, I'm going to let you run with this for a bit. And I'm going to write down some questions that come up along the way because I feel like we do have a lot to talk.

to both Chad and Lizzie about. But I really, I don't know if we can do it together because I do think we're going to be jumping on top of each other the whole time. So you take it away for a bit and then I'll come in and be like, hey, give me my space. Can I ask you one question, Ben, before we get into the duly question?

You can ask me anything. What was it like to play against in season 11 of Bachelorette to play against the greatest player of all time to Nick Vial? Oh, my God. Wow. The greatest player of all time.

He is the great one. We disagree. He is. Yes, if you, if his, his post show, he is. He gone four shows in his fourth show. He became The Bachelor. That is the greatest player. Or do you only need one season, Caitlin Bristow?

But he has more screen time than anybody in the history of the game. More total roses, total kisses, total dates, two back-to-back end runs in season 10 and 11 crashed a season, sex before fantasy suites, end run on Bachelor in Paradise, season three. No engagement, but he did select the jewel. and then he was The Bachelor. No one has ever done that. No one's coming close. Yeah, let's sit in this for a second before I hand this off to Ashley.

Okay. Would you actually claim, though, that would make him a good player because I feel like he went against everything you would have said to do to get to the end by what you just mentioned? Yeah, it's different metrics.

Caitlin Bristol only needed one season of Bachelor to become The Bachelorette. In my mind, Nick had to keep auditioning again and again. Because he was a villain. I think to go from villain to Bachelor is one of the most difficult things you can possibly do in reality television

of any genre, any show. And he did it successfully. Yes, he had to have the redemption tour in season three of Paradise, but he played that perfectly as well. And obviously, it's kind of hard to argue with the success after the show. But I think in game,

he just did more to revolutionize the sport than anybody else has. That crashing Caitlin Bisto season in episode four, having sex with her before the fantasy suites, making it all the way to the end, getting Sean Booth to not even be able to say his name, to call him the other guy. We've just never seen a psychological manipulation that strong, I don't think, from guys.

And I also think we have to note one of the most iconic moments, and I do, you know, Nick is a friend, but I do think this is a moment he probably looks back on and goes, ah, that maybe was a little too much, was the call out of Andy Dorfman on the live show where she was not prepared to have to respond to the claims and the things that he said. love. Yeah, it should have put him in, like, should have pushed him out of the franchise, but it made him this kind of iconic figure to where Caitlin brought him back on. Okay, so to answer your question, I would say this. I was such in a different place during that season, meaning Caitlin and I had such a strong friendship and such a strong comfort with each other.

I really didn't doubt that she would keep me around a long time simply based on the idea that she had, it kind of was everything fell in the place for me. You had two people fighting with each other, hating each other, couldn't speak to each other. And you had me in the middle being like, here's the thing.

I'm not going to make life hard for anybody here. I'm just going to stay along for as long as you need because Caitlin, you and I both know, we're not getting to get out into this. But I'm down to hell. hang and she kept me around so i never really said that to her no um not really in those words it was unspoken yeah it was like very unspoken micro expressions i think kately would be katelyn would be fine with me telling it telling this we we literally had our one-on-one like fantasy

sweet date and one of the first things she asked me she'll be so embarrassed i said this but one of the first things she asked me was uh what do you think of nick and sean and i was like kately you're going to ask me about the two other guys while we're in the fantasy suite and she said, I know. And I was like, we both know. Like, we've known this the whole time. I'm not getting married at the end of this to you.

But you still had fun in the fantasy suite, right? Yeah, we had a great time. We danced a lot. But she's great. I love Caitlin, but I didn't really involve myself in that whole thing. I mean, I was really removed from it, honestly. Yeah.

You said Team Sean is what I'm gathering. I love Sean. I love Nick. At the time, I really just had no doubt she was going to end up with Sean. Like there was really no question in my mind. Yeah. Okay. Now I have to talk about one, Chad.

You mentioned that you're training men. Have you trained anyone who's gotten on the show? Oh, yeah. Almost every season for the past four years. Name drop. Is there a contract? There's no contract. But basically what?

I guess, like, Lizzie and I's backstory is that we're TV comedy writers. That's where we met on a show 10 years ago that was on NBC called Bad Judge. And so my kind of goal with training people has always been to just collect a lot of interviews and stuff and training sessions that we've had, record the Zooms, record them in person if they can be recorded in person, to maybe sell it as like a reality show later of like gaming The Bachelor, basically. But I always make the deal with all my players. You can participate in that if you want to. I will never out whoever I'm training because I know some of them are still in the system, you know, maybe going to wind up on a paradise or maybe going to be a bachelorette, you know, that kind of thing. So I don't want to like foul that for them. But the two players that have come out

publicly that I have trained are Cassidy Tim Brooks, who was on Clayton Eckard season. We did an episode of our show interviewing her about that and kind of talking about like, did the training help? Did it hinder you? Was it like just jumbling your head, blah, blah, blah. And then I also trained Taylor Hale, who went on to never be on The Bachelor, but one big brother three or four years ago. Oh, interesting. Do the same rules apply? Many of the same rules, yeah. Like a PTC, for example, is a personal tragedy card. That's when you have to air your kind of most intimate secret about some horrible trauma that has happened to you in your life. That applies to all reality games. Tier play applies to all reality games. Even for the right reasons, although it's not as prominent in

like game games, like Survivor, Big Brother, Traders, whatever, where you actually get kind of rewarded for lying to people. But still, the idea of, are you there for the right reasons versus the wrong reasons? And in this kind of modern world, the wrong reasons is always influencing, basically. If you even say the word Instagram, you know, you get thrown under the bus, which is interesting because our next Bachelorette is literally an influencer. There's also, we say that you're playing to four audiences. this is a big part of our kind of core ethos is the first audience is the bachelor, bachelorette, who you're dating, second audience is the rest of the players, third is the

producers, fourth is like bachelor nation or big brother nation. And you're kind of having to juggle all of those at once. And I would say that that really applies in big brother. You don't so much have the first audience. You're not trying to romantically get with someone, or maybe you are. I would say you should, but the rest of them apply. A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers, but it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught. The answers were there, hidden in plain sight. So why did it take so long to catch him?

I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, hunting the Long Island serial killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer. in New York, since the son of Sam, available now. Listen for free on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, Dr. Jesse Mills here. I'm the director of the men's clinic at UCLA Health. And I want to tell you about my new podcast called The Mailroom. And I'm Jordan, the show's producer.

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whereas the PCE index that the Fed targets is a little bit broader of a measure. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There are a couple different ways of winning, I think. in your guys's definition, you could be like me where I like literally never really won anything. I mean, I guess I technically won Bachelor Winner Games, which is silly, it was silly, but I understood the trajectory in which they were going with me. Do you still view it as winning Bachelor Winner Games? No, I never did.

I know that I loved it as like, it was, it was sweet because it was the producer's way of being like, Ashley was never the Bachelorette. She would have been a very polarizing Bachelorette. Let's give her this little, you know, two-week spin-off. thing. And then there's winning in the way that Nick wins. I would say you won, you won Bachelor in Paradise. You won, you're now the first person to ever be a housewife from Bachelor, which is like, in my mind, I'm obsessed with the housewife. So congratulations. Yeah, that is, I mean, I would say this in reference to like your time in game. I think you were

actually. It's different from Ben's. I wanted to bring this up because like there's Nick. There's Ben there's like Hannah Brown. There's Caitlin. And like I'm just thinking about like all these names. There's getting the crown or the ring. And they're all different ways of winning. Absolutely. I think you were like one of the first players really like ahead of your time playing a modern,

modern game back when it was kind of in its golden era still in that like 2014, 2015 era. What your focus seemed to be or maybe this is just how it played out was being like one of the players that really popped out of the show. So you finished in ninth place. But that doesn't matter. you've got a giant successful podcast, millions of followers, you're an influencer, you come back into the group dating format, you're kind of ever present in the culture of the show, even though you never want to ring her a crown. And that really is like where modern reality play is at. It's like

Carolyn Weiger on last season of Traders. She didn't come close to winning that game, but she was probably the most memorable player. And as a result, tons of Instagram followers, tons of TikTok followers. She's in all these other reality shows now. And so it's in the modern reality game where we have what we call third wave reality TV, which is like a traitors, where they take people from different reality disciplines to go head to head. Will a housewife beat a big brother player? Will Bachelor overcome Survivor? You know, those shows are where you're trying to get to so that you can exist in that

ecosphere for like a decade, probably, I think, into the near future. And that doesn't really mean that you need to win any of your rookie shows. means you need to be entertaining. Let me jump in here for a second, Ashley. Yeah, I'm so entertained. Rookie shows. No, let me jump in here for a second. Because Chad and Lizzie, I do think there, I need a clear definition from the two of you.

Because I agree with you and everything you're saying. But I do think the gameplay of it is interesting when you bring up an Ashley. Because what I love about Ashley, what I respect about her, why we've done this show for 10 years together, and it has been a success, I have only viewed Ashley as the most authentic player to ever play. I don't think she was ever, for me, there were moments where I was like, what is the right or wrong decision here? How is this going to, like, how do I navigate the moment I'm in, especially. is the bachelor, it's all you do is navigating moments right or wrong. For me, I've always seen Ashley in my real life when cameras aren't going or when she's on television as authentically herself, which in my opinion means she would be dominant in any game she plays because she's

polarizing and she jumps off the camera at you. Yeah. But to call her a player assumes I think that there is some type of strategy, and Ashley could tell me if I'm wrong, I don't think she's ever had a strategy when she goes on a show in her life other than maybe one that, like, she was uncomfortable going on. But Bachelor is like, I'm diving in and being myself from the moment I get there. I mean, I think whether you have a strategy or not, if you step on the baseball field and they put a bat in your hand, you got to swing it, you know, and that's what Bachelor is. It's like when you step out of that limit, really a game starts when you start applying or get nominated because the producers are building

and archetypal kind of image of who they want you to be in the show, the good girl, in your case, the virgin, Ashley, the nice guy next door maybe for you, Ben, or unlovable kind of became your moniker. But there are plenty of players, Taylor, Frankie

Paul is one of them, I think, who are not overtly strategizing. They're not intellectualizing it. They are just natural, raw kind of forces of nature. I think you were that as well, Ashley, just like Ben was saying. But it doesn't matter like what your personal play style is. There are some very cerebral players. There are some who are just flying by the seat of their pants. Still though, all of those different playstiles are

playing in the same game, both against and with each other, at least in Bachelor. And you have to navigate it. You have to, like you knew what a two on one was before you went on that one with Kelsey Poe, right? You knew what like a group date is or a one-on-one date is. These things are not normal in everyday human life. These are structures that the game has made. And if you walk into the game knowing a little bit about like the order of how they'll happen what is the kind of structure of a season when do i get to hometowns even that is preparing for something that is a manufactured game that's fair that's good okay i'll never forget when i actually put on the princess dress when another player was going on the pretty woman date like i will say that was very

thought through i thought that was hilarious i was like let's it was some fun right here and let's be very tugging cheek and yeah the other girls did not recognize that which was hilarious yeah that i mean that's part of like what at least i try to train all my players is like if there's a camera on you do something and i think like that that moment we call that mansion free play antics when they're off on a group date or a one-on-one yeah if there's a camera in the mansion or wherever they have you you know in a hotel if you're international or whatever do something do a song, do a dance, make something up, get into a weird conversation about UFOs,

whatever, just so that they have that footage because they're always going to cut back to the house. They do that in every date to see like what are the other players doing, be the at least the star of that little show, that little scene, you know, if you can't. You're crying, eating a corn on the cob in the princess dress. They're not going to

use that. I thought it was hilarious. I had, you know, I had different relationships with the producers and I had one producer that I knew that I would go to for like, playing like dress up moments and we had the best time like we were literally just going to sit at home and like sit around the campfire for like the zillion times i was like let's just like do a little skit anyway um i want to know who you guys think is the best lead ever

because we're sitting next to ben higgins and now i'll hand it over to bed before we get into the more uh run down questions he can ask all of his personals because you know you guys fed my ego a little bit. I say, thank you. No, you're feeding ours just by talking to us, honestly. I mean, I don't know. I'm sorry, do you want us to answer who we think the best leads are? Yeah, and it's okay. You don't have to include Ben in there, but like, I think that when you think about historically, that he's definitely, like, probably the Prince Charming Bachelor.

Well, the bigger thing that you did, Ben, was do what we call a love level four, which is an I love you or I'm in love with you to your two finalists before the final rose ceremony, which had never happened. That, I think, for better or worse, and everybody can have their own opinion on this, kicked the game into a direction that we're there now. We're now almost every season you're seeing multiple Love Level 4s coming from the lead to multiple players. And that idea of like a lead cannot tell anybody that they are at Love Level 4 until the very

final moment at the altar, basically. That has been shattered in Season 20 of Bachelor, that Ben's season. except for Mel who had love for no one how dare you he had love for his shoes man that was a rough season that was a rough season ladies and gentlemen yeah I would say Ben is definitely up there

I feel like you're kind of one of the golden children who keeps getting ass back over and over again whether you seem happy to be there or not like in winter games I think you came off as Like, we discuss for TRR for the right reasons as the primary, like, thing you have to convey in the game. And I think you come off as one of the most for the right reasons leads of all time.

I have a soft spot for Charlie O'Connell, Bachelor Season 7, who made the show his own, made them move to New York, picked up Chris Harrison, did all sorts of, like, really extravagant plays. that we had not seen before. It had been mostly, you know, very by the book up until that point. I've never seen that, so I'll have to watch that. But Caitlin Bristow, for me, is the best player of all time. I think that she just was such a star, in a season of stars, mind you, on Prince Farmington, Chris Sol season. I think that she's gone on to have a very successful post.

game career without getting, you know, the villain edit that maybe the person Chad's about to say did get. I don't think Vial was the best lead. I think he was the best player. I think the best lead of all time. I have kind of two. One is based on the season that was turned in that I think in a lot of cases, seasons are defined by their players, but sometimes a lead can really be like the most important player in a season. I think Hannah Brown was that in Bachelor at 15. So many iconic moments. She, I think, raised the level of play of the players on her season, kind of like Michael Jordan did with the Bulls when he was, you know, back in the day. I think you got performances out of Tyler Cameron, Pilot Pete, Jed Wyatt, even Luke Parker that you don't get if she's not

the Bachelorette. And then I would say in terms of sacrifice to the game, like how much have you left on the field and given to this thing? I think Rachel Lindsay is far and away at the top of that list. I think what she was asked to do and repeatedly asked to do, even after her season as a lead, was insane. And she just kept doing it. And, you know, even to the end when she did that extra interview with Chris Harrison that changed the franchise forever, you know, she is like, I think in the top three or five most important people who has ever come through this franchise. And I think her season, if you go back and rewatch it, there were just so many insane things they did to her, like putting Lee Garrett on that season and then having him and Kenny King kind of go head to

head in like a racism argument that they had to solve at the men tell all it was just wild that season so those are my two answers yeah i would agree i think that though was also a turning point for the franchise where they asked they they were being asked from the public to broach and approach the issue and make the show more diverse and so the show said okay let's do that and then they in my opinion went way too far too quickly like instead of making it a a really beautiful story and something that hey we've we've heard from you they did they asked rachel to carry the weight of these conversations in the midst of a season and it felt it felt ugly honestly it just felt disgusting at times and i think they never full they've never really adapted to a

healthy place of where people can have conversations and understand and grow and be exposed to they just kind of like forced it down everybody's throats in a way that made Rachel be the spokesperson and that felt weird it felt very odd yeah and I think we grabbed onto that I do think though a lot of the names you mentioned and I think it's where the show and I want to hear your opinion of this now I think is where the show has fallen flat is back in the day They had contestants like an Ashley. They had leads.

And if I was a lead today, I don't think maybe I'm as popular as I was when I came on. Because every season, it was something uniquely different, right? You go from Caitlin Bristow, the one sneaking out of her hotel room and, you know, getting people to fight over her. And, you know, all the, like, funny comments that were made from Caitlin to me. You know, you're more like, hey, that's just the. guy that I would meet in my neighborhood to the Nick Viles who like yes had the villain edits and was a villain for years and people were intrigued by what is he going to do and how messies is going to get they mixed it up a lot back then and now it feels like we've gone in this kind

of like rhythmic every season kind of has the same thing the leads really can't even talk to the contestants they're not really good at it they don't ask any questions leading up to a Mel who probably will be the tipping point, the turning point, hopefully for us to say, let's get back to something maybe a little messier and more interesting because we've gone in this like very boring status quo for so long. Let's just throw in that Joey was a great peak in the middle of some valley. Yeah. I think, I mean, for my money and I could give a two hour long college dissertation on this but it started in bachelor season 18 which i believe was 2014 won pablo gallivus the first real true villain bachelor um i think the producer tier got

kind of a taste of blood in their mouth with that season and they were like every lead we're going to shit on them we're going to make them stupid or ridiculous fools or just like straight villains and after Alon Gail left, he knew how to kind of ride that line when he left after Colton Underwood season. There was like this power vacuum and you can kind of see it in Pilot Pete's season where they're really turning those players against each other. They bring Chase Rice in on Victoria Fuller's one on one day to be like, here's the guy you had a little fling with. He's singing you a song on your one on one day. You know, they were doing really malicious shit. And then, you know, you saw this kind of struggle for who's going to be the top dog. And in that struggle, I think.

think all these producers thought we need to wreck the players that's what the show is about turn against them and now we're we're in this kind of like post that era where maybe scott teddy is going to turn the ship around we don't know but it's a a whole new series of producers that are doing things completely differently but also i would say love island has has taken a it's toll on our beloved game as well because i mean i know when players first come to me if i think i can get them on Love Island, that's where I'm telling them to go. I don't tell them to go to Bachelor anymore. It's not like the preeminent dating format. A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers,

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and what you didn't think was great about this season. With all the, I mean, so many seasons of the show, so many contestants coming through, the formula up until maybe when, you know, Scott Teddy takes over, we don't really know what that's going to look like, but the formula has always stayed reasonably the same. I do think along Gail brought an interesting mix in into it. he was an intellect, and he knew how to manipulate the people a little bit better than most. And so he got a lot out of the contestants. He did. He was great at it.

I literally call him father in my phone. He is father, Alon Gale. Oh, my God. Father Gale. Ashley and I still get confused to this day when we break down a season, and you have contestants making the same stupid choices that they've made for the last 20-plus years of this show, that they know is going to be a death sentence to their time on the show. So my question for the two of you, again,

these need to be a little more rapid fire because we are going to run out of time here. But why do contestants still make the decisions they make knowing that it is not going to be good for them long term? Lizzie. You mean like mistakes? Like tattling? Tattling. Pulling the lead four times in one night.

Getting in big fights with all the other women in the house and saying, no, I'm just here for the lead. And I'm not here to make friends, and you're like, well, that never works out for anybody. Why do you continue to do this when you know this isn't going to help you with the lead long term anyways? I think there has been a little father whispering in their ear. Oh, go pull them again. We're going to give you more time. Hannah and Sluss pulled him three times on night one, and it worked out for her.

She won the ring. That could be you. And they also, though, are in some cases it's way more. transactional than that. It's not even an insinuation. It's like, do this steal and you'll come to paradise. That happens, you know, and it doesn't happen to every player. High level players, players that they bring into the season knowing they're going to make an end run and we're going to have you in hometowns. They don't do that. They don't like foul the 4TR-Rness of their season's journey. But players that are like in that bottom half, players who are going to be like

mid-season floaters and they're like, how do I get to paradise? I'll do anything. You can literally just exchange stuff with the producers sometimes. And they'll be like, yeah, okay, we need you to go do this crazy thing, blow this up, get in a fight with them, and we'll bring you to paradise. People have been given scripts for women to all of, like, attack this person. I never saw those types of things. They might exist. There is a line, and you two know this,

and this is something that I don't even know if I'm contractually obligated to say anything anymore. This is a game show. It falls under the game show category. So the level of manipulation and, hey, say this and say that is limited to none, because you cannot coerce and manipulate a game show legally. And so there is unique ways the producers do it. And that's why when people ask, is it scripted? I always say never.

I never saw a script. I did see, I did have conversations about, hey, what do you think you should do in this moment? Yeah. But my response has always been when people ask. The choice always fell to me. So the good and the bad always laid on my shoulders. Yes, they could say, hey, go do this. Walk into that room and steal her from the Sean Booth.

And I'm like, but she doesn't want to leave Sean Booth. Like, she wants to hang out with him a lot longer. She wants to hang out with me. I'm not going to take her from him. She's good. The decisions always fall down to the players. And so I think, I mean, I think without filtering it, it would be the players that are able to be told what to do is where does that come from them?

Is that just a desire to please? Is that a desire because they don't know the show? I'll tell you something that I tell players very early on is like the biggest skill you can have is on night one understanding where you fall in the order. Are you one of the final three or not? Because that decision, as I'm sure you all know, is pretty much made in the first week.

How would you be able to tell a player it's pretty easy, Ash? You're going to be in top three. Did you know you're going to be in top three? Because it sounds like Chad's trying to say that if you signed up, you should be able to tell if you're going to fall

the top three on night long. If you can, that's a difficult skill to have, but yes, you need to be able to tell, like, am I going to make it to the end or not? If you believe that answer is no,

and there are certain telltale signs that you can see if you're about to be put in a rivalry, you can see if they're making you the villain. There's certain things that those, at least used to. I don't know how Scott Teddy's going to run his crew, but it used to be,

there were certain things you could tell almost immediately if you weren't in the top three. Which producer, you're paired with all of that yeah the producer hierarchy was an important piece of that which now is like doesn't exist but um the basic idea is if you know you're not in the top three then you're just scrambling to stay in the show as long as possible so that maybe you can make a meaningful appearance get invited to paradise and see where that gets you um and so i hear what you're saying ben about like it's always down to the players and the individual person gets to make the choice

but I don't think that's exactly the experience of every player who has come through this system. You know, I know Vial kind of has ideas like that and says a lot of things like that on his podcast, like, because he's been at such a high level of it, he kind of understands how it all works. But it's like it doesn't work like that for everybody. And then that much I can say is always thought that Ben and Nick, they always have said it. They've said that over and over again, both of them. And I am like, I don't know, I've felt far more influenced than the two. Apparently, I can have my feet as firmly on the ground as you guys.

There's a lot more maturity coming from you two, though. Ashley, do you feel like there was, you had more opportunity to do what you wanted on Housewives than Bachelor? Well, obviously, I can't speak very much. I have two words that I think I am okay with saying. I think I was more aware and wiser while shooting. housewives. Let me also speak to this a little bit because Ashley, I think when you were on the show, and there was a moment in Winter Games where they asked me to produce Ashley even because

of our relationship, and she knew it. This wasn't a, this wasn't a secret to her. Yeah, of course. We, we, this was very clear and I was like, hey, Ben Ashley wants to talk about this relationship. I think you could be the person to do it with her. It, and so I did in an interview Ashley was easily influenced and also had a lot of trust I didn't have the trust that Ashley had

she saw these people have they have my best interest in mind and that's how you went into the show where I went into it. Yeah and he's my father's weird I still stay to that I'm not saying that applies to everyone but I think that my friendship with the producers

I don't think that they were ever going to screw me over entirely I thought they're going to have me have a rough episode here or there But like I think ultimately, and this is what Alon would tell me throughout it, he's like, listen, just listen to me. Just trust me. Just trust me. And I would trust him. And look, it paid off. I'll tell you one anecdote of a producer who will remain nameless and is probably not even there anymore about a tactic used that to me was like the perfect example of why you can never trust them, even if they're your friends. This was early on in a casting process, this person sent a player that I was training. a picture, just some random night, a text message of the producer out at a bar drinking and said, when all this is over, we got to hang out and go get drinks. And that was gaining the trust of this player, right? Maybe it was a year later, two years later. I have another player

received that exact same image and text from that exact same producer. So this was just a standard trust building manipulation. And to me, that's like, that's before they even went in the limo. That's before they were even on the show, like, in the early phases of casting just to get them to, like, say more stuff or do whatever they wanted in these casting interviews, you know? And I'm like, that's who you're dealing with. I totally agree. There's some that cannot be trusted, but I felt like after at least my first season, I felt like I knew that I, that they cared about my humanity. I don't know. Maybe I'm still naive. You're still naive. You're very naive. Yeah, you're very naive. But here's what you have going

for you actually and you and i have talked about this so many times especially when we we were still making more appearances on the show the thing that you have uniquely different about you is they could tell you to do something there's no possible way they can ruin you actually because of who you are as a person so your authentic self no your your authentic self is going to have the the internal boundaries to not cross a line you came very close with Kelsey Poe. That could have really backfired on you. It didn't. It didn't because of how the show came off and what the storyline was going into it and how lovable you are. But it's going to be impossible to ruin you on any show because of who you are. Now there's other people

and we say this and when a league calls me before this season, my only piece of advice for them because I don't really have that much is stay true to yourself. Write down, you know this Ashley, but I tell the lead right down right now before the show ever starts before the magazine start getting printed before the media starts getting into it write down who you are

and what matters to you right now because when the show's done you need to look back at that and use this whole thing to just push you forward but not take away who you are same thing's true during the show when you're a contestant in filming

don't change yourself to try to make the camera like you but you're just likable so it's going to work for you but you're just You also have this element of, like, you know, emotion and your story and that help. Now, to go back to the questions, you've mentioned good players and bad players. Lizzie and Chad, you've gone through good leads and bad leads.

I think we need to nail down for the listener, though. When you speak to this, what exactly are you saying? What makes a good player and a bad player? I guess what makes a good player would be the better question here, or a good lead. How are you quantifying that? I would say that they are navigating all of these different audiences in a way that gets some screen time that is tonally the direction that they're going for. I do think it's possible like a Courtney Robertson, for instance. She got a villain edit on her season, but it worked for her.

She ended up getting the ring. I don't know if that's possible. to do anymore at this point, because when they villainize people, they tend to really villainize them at this point. But yeah, I would say leaning into what you're talking about with Ashley, that authenticity to bring out the parts of you that are good TV that are going to get the people who are watching to identify with you and want to follow your story afterwards. Because a huge metric that we use is Instagram, TikTok followers of who get, the most from each week who's able to do the stuff to get the screen time to be in the document.

And that can include things like not doing things that they're just not allowed to show on ABC, you know, like singing songs that they would never be allowed to share. It's a very complicated game. Yeah. I mean, yes, this makes sense. Okay, we have so many questions for Chad and Lizzie that I think this is going to be a good place to take a pause and we'll come back very soon. Follow the Ben and Ashley I, almost famous podcast on IHeartRadio or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers, but it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught. The answers were there, hidden in plain sight. So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, hunting the Long Island serial killer. The investigation into the most notorious killer in New York since the son of Sam, available now. Listen for free on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. On the podcast health stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night.

I'm Dr. Priyankawali, a double board certified physician. And I'm Hurricane de Bolu, a comedian and someone who once Googled, Do I Have Scurvy at 3am? And on our show, we're talking about health in a different way, like our episode where we look at diabetes. In the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic. How preventable is type 2? Extremely.

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