The Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast - How to Make a Villain

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

Ben and Ashley break down the latest Bachelor Nation headlines, both on and off the Stagecoach grounds. We dive deep into the drama around the theory that Nick Viall and Ashley teamed up with Sydney to make a villain out of Maria! Don’t worry… Ashley will set the record straight. Plus, would Ben ever get a vasectomy??See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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The puzzle. Listen on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everyone thinks they'd never join a cult. But it happens all the time to people just like you. And people just like us. I'm Lola Blanc and I'm Megan Elizabeth. We're the host of Trust Me, a podcast about cults, manipulation, and the psychology of belief. Each week we talk to fellow survivors, former believers, and experts to understand why people get pulled in and how they get out.

Trust me, new episodes every Wednesday on exactly right. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. The Super Secret Bestie Club podcast season four is here. And we're locked in. That means more juicy chisement. Terrible love advice. Evil spells to cast on your ex. No, no, no, no. We're not doing that this season.

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It's time for Bachelor headlines. We've got a lot of headlines this week, some big ones kind of coming across all of our, you know, Twitters or news channels. The first one is, obviously this week, I should preface with saying that Nick and Natalie got married. There's going to be no headlines today about that because we have a whole separate episode kind of covering that wedding

and all the things that happened behind the scenes. So go back and listen to that if you want to hear more about Nick and Natalie's wedding that just happened this past weekend. Along with their wedding, stagecoach was happening and some Bachelor other reality show crossover moments happened at stage coach this year. Ashley, tell us about it. Well, we saw that Tyler Cameron was there, and he was

catching up with Maria from this past season, who also did her first big interview this week, and we're getting some headlines about that interview. We'll get to that later. But Tyler was also supposed to be at, well, he was invited to Nick and Natalie's wedding. He was unable to attend for, I believe a business commitment that he had at stagecoach. Also, Daisy Kent was there and she was there with her new boyfriend who's actually a former flame.

His name is Thor. Thor. The dude's name is Thor. Isn't that crazy? It's a solid name. Solid name. So maybe we'll get more from Daisy about that soon. We also saw Joey and Kelsey there and Jason Tartick with wow us weekly kind of messed up here he called Kat Strict tickler

his fiance they are not engaged but his I think we can safely say girlfriend now Kat Stickler TikTok star yeah they were seen kissing so I think we could call that thing official obviously that kind of leads us into the next headline And the Jason, Tardick, Kat Strickler, rumor had been kind of floating around for a while now. People were speculating that they were kind of dating.

So just for people that are unfamiliar with Kat, she's popular on TikTok. She has a four-year-old daughter, I believe. And she's known Ashley for her kind of comedic takes on life experiences, motherhood, kind of her own life. correct yes so my sister filled me in a little bit on her but she kind of came to fame on TikTok during COVID and it was a lot of family content between her husband and their newborn baby and um they ended up getting divorced and like being like hey actually even though we do funny TikToks here we're getting divorced um so there was that and now um she's been hanging out with a lot of Bachelor alum alongside Jason, like maybe you, Ben, have gone to dinner with her once.

I might have. Yes, I think I did. I think I saw this one coming. Yeah. Yeah, we, I did get to see the two of them together. And, hey, it's not my place to come out and announce relationships until they're ready. And so this is obviously a moment where they're ready because they're going out in public now. they seem very happy and very curious about each other when we were at dinner but maybe you know this did they meet on the podcast because he did a podcast episode with her I don't know that I know that he just recently put out an Instagram reel with that podcast but I think the podcast episode dropped a month or so ago interesting I know that he banks episodes ahead of time and I was just wondering because you know that's how he met Caitlin through a podcast episode wow what a channel

So some people slide into DMs and some people just, you know, have them on a pod. And ask them a bunch of questions and say, hey, I'm actually more curious about you. Can I take you to dinner tonight? Yeah, I don't know actually how they met. I did get to sit beside the two of them, but she was on the other side of Jason. And I was kind of catching up with Jason. And I do know at that time they were not ready to be public. Yeah, I would say that they've probably been together for like three to four months. Wow. So wait, is that cross? No. No. Yeah. Late February is when. when they were seeing on that vacation together.

Well, I guess if you're going on vacation with somebody, you probably... Yeah, you're probably interested. You already have been talking. When did Caitlin and Jason break up? July. It's almost been a year since they broke up. Yeah.

Goodness gracious. I can't keep up with all this all the time. This is why I got you. I'm a good calendar. And you're a good calendar. Speaking of TikTok, Ashley, I was scrolling on TikTok and saw an interesting TikTok about Jason Ritter and his, you know,

wife. It's a really funny TikTok. Have you seen it? No, but I know that Jason Ritter and Melanie Linsky are big Bachelor fans. Jared has met them at an event and said that they were like the sweetest and they were the one that came up to him and they were all like, wow, we love the Bachelor. Yeah, yeah. So here's this story. She is claiming that she didn't know she was engaged to Jason when they first got engaged. The TikTok talks about how she went to this jewelry store and saw this ring. She loves. She loves her. love the ring, but she said it looked to like wedding ringish, engagement ringish. So she didn't buy it. She went home and they were watching The Bachelor and he pauses the Bachelor in the middle of it, she said, and hands her this ring that she had just seen at the jewelry store,

but doesn't say anything, kind of, about it. And she's like, thank you. This is a really nice ring. And they start watching The Bachelor again. Well, a couple days later, they're going to a family reuse. union. And at this family party, Jason starts introducing her as his fiance. And she's like, I did not know we were engaged. She's like, he thought he proposed to me in that moment. I don't think he did. And so they kind of had to do a re-re-do. So a couple things from this,

they're bachelor fans. Absolutely bizarre. I mean, absolutely hilarious. It's really funny. If you haven't seen it, go out there and look at it. It's great. That is so funny. What was he thinking in the middle of the bachelor episode just to like hand her a ring and no speech no will you marry me i like the idea that the bachelor was like he was like hey how should i do this and how do i do it in a sweet way let's do it during the bachelor i mean that's probably what he thought he was like oh the show talk romance for me i don't know well that's a funny story what would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth.

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Well, next headline is this Bachelor alum Ari Lyndeike admits he rushed into getting a vasectomy. This is so interesting because the last time I talked to them, they were so done with kids. But during a recent Q&A, Lauren was asked whether or not she'd want more kids. and she said, well, Ari did have a vasectomy over a year ago, but now I feel like we rushed it a bit.

I'm not sure that I'm done yet. So, you know, vasectomies are supposed to be relatively easy to reverse. Sometimes there's a little bit of a complication. I can't think about one of them, not only get two of them. Oh, my gosh, could you imagine? Oh, getting a vasectomy? Yeah, I can't imagine. Having to reverse it?

Yeah. I don't know. You guys are babies. I don't think that you're pretty much totally numb. I have no problem admitting that I'm a baby, but the idea of it just absolutely terrifies me. I honestly don't really know what the procedure looks like. I have an idea.

Well, I have an idea in my head. I also had a couple buddies get them and have really bad experiences. I have a couple that have really good experience. But I have one buddy who was like laid up for a week afterwards because things didn't go according to plan. and that just scares me actually i don't know it just like makes it makes me tingle i it should make you tingle that makes sense do you know where the incision point is yeah i do uh at least with my buddy i do it's underneath towards the pubic bone or because it's by the ball the balls

i guess it's like down there yeah it's down there okay underneath i think we call underneath i call that the undercarriage i don't know what other people call it i don't know what other people call it I don't know the medical term. Okay. Well, you know, Ari might be going back to the office. That would be wild. Good for him. That seems like a YouTube video waiting to happen.

Yeah, for sure. Well, final headline of the day is Bachelor Nation's Haley. Actually, don't say final. We definitely have to talk about those Maria TikToks. Oh, okay. Next headline is this. Bachelor Nation's Haley Ferguson gives birth to baby number one with husband. Ula.

Polva. Polvae yes so for so Haley was very open about her struggles with infertility there this first child is a dream come true she said via IVF and the baby's name is a baby's name is love is is it lovey Louvuee yeah Louvie I think it's Louvie L-U-V-I-L-V-I-L-V-I-L-V-I-L-V-A, which is very nice. Beautiful. Very nice. Said, you know, the love, said, you're the love that we've always known was coming.

The baby was born over the weekend, I believe, because she posted this Welcome to the World Post on Monday. Absolutely awesome. Congratulations to the two of them, welcoming new life into this world. final headline of today is Maria has been on Call Her Daddy. That's been a big thing within Bachelor Nation. Call Her Daddy is a huge podcast, and not many from Bachelor Nation have been a part of the recording. It kind of has swept, I'd say, Bachelor Nation by storm, just the fact that Maria was going on, and she's telling her story.

TikToks have now been released, kind of about the episode. The juicy parts of the episode. Yeah. So, Ashley, tell us more. Well, okay. So she has this strange theory that, like, me and Nick were in on trying to create a villain out of Maria. So. Were you?

No, I didn't even know who Maria was beforehand. But she has this conspiracy theory that Nick and I got together with Sydney. We brought Sydney to production. and we're like, hey, this is our friend, Sydney. She'd be great to take down the villain or something of this season. I actually is kind of, she needs to explain her theory a little bit better. But the reasoning that she had a little suspicion was just because there's a picture of Sydney, Nick and I from, I think, September 22, when Nick came to Audrey's for his book signing.

And then Sydney was Audrey's social media coordinator. And she took a picture with Nick, quick picture. Don't even know that. Oh, yeah, we took her, we took Nick and Natalie to her vintage store in Newport. May have taken a picture there. Who knows? But that was it. Nick and Sydney had not spoken and have not spoken since this event in September, 2022.

He has absolutely no relationship with Sydney. So if you're wondering why the heck Nick would care about bringing Maria down in any way, supposedly the two of them spoke in like a flirty way years and years ago before he and Natalie were together. It was like DMing. I don't know if they ever met in real life. But that's why Nick was like, oh, this girl Maria is going on the, going on the show. She's such a villain. I think what she said in this TikTok on the podcast.

was that Nick one time warned me while we were talking years ago that if I were to ever do the show, I would be the villain. So in her conspiracy, he wanted to make sure that she was the villain and then hired this girl, Sidney, for the producers to bring her down. is not an accurate it's not an accurate theory whatsoever Nick does not know Sydney in fact Nick thought Sydney was absolutely ridiculous on the show and called me to talk about

you know how she is in real life so you have it you have behind the scenes now of the conspiracy for Ashley to bring down Maria it's like I and I also had no idea who Maria was until Sydney got back from the show and was like, so, there was this girl

named Maria. I was going to say, if you plan this conspiracy, this was not a genius planning because only one person kind of got brought down, and that was Sydney. Maria kind of has shined and taken off from this experience. Yeah, that was like, oh, wait, you weren't even the villain. It was like, Sydney was the villain. I would expect you to be a lot better at planning a conspiracy. I feel like you'd be pretty good at it.

Like you could really think it through. Thank you. You're a gamer and this one was not thought through. I'm really good at like being a mastermind. Yeah. Given enough time, Ashley can absolutely do incredible thing. And I'm not going to mastermind anything when like the producers are the ones that actually have the hands at work, you know?

They get they get paid to actually be mastermind. They get paid big bucks for it. All right. So you have it there. You have the inside track to the conspiracy that never existed. There was no, Ashley is telling us that there was no behind the scenes planning with Nick and Jared and Ashley and Sydney to make anything happen this year on the show. Correct. Correct.

Okay. Hey, that's all the headlines we have for you today. We'll be back talking about more things in Bachelor Nation. Great interviews coming your way. If you haven't yet, please tune in to listen to the Nick and Natalie Wedding Breakdown. There's some great stories there that really made the night special. Also, we have an interview with Chris Souls coming up, talking about his singleness where he's at in life,

what his plans are for the future, just getting back in touch with Chris. So, until next time, I've been Ben. I've been Ashley. Bye. Follow the Ben and Ashley I, almost famous podcasts on IHeartRadio or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Hi, my name is Enya Yumanzor. And I'm Drew Phillips.

We run a podcast called Emergency Intercom. If you're a crime junkie and you love crimes, we're not the podcast for you. But if you have unmedicated ADHD... Oh my God, perfect. And want to hear people with mental illness, psychobabble. Yes, yes. Then Emergency Intercom is the podcast for you. Open your free IHeartRadio app.

Search Emergency Intercom and listen now. Hi, I'm Jenna Lopez and in the new season of the Overcomfit Podcasts, I'm even more honest, more vulnerable, and more real than ever. Am I ready to enter this new part of my life? Like, am I ready to be in a relationship? Am I ready to have kids and to really just devote myself and my time? Join me for conversations about healing and growth. All from one of my favorite spaces, The Kitchen.

Listen to the new season of the Overcombered podcast on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA. right now in a backlog, will be identified in our lifetime. On the new podcast, America's Crime Lab, every case has a story to tell, and the DNA holds the truth. He never thought he was going to get caught, and I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. This technology's already solving so many cases.

Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's start with a quick puzzle. The answer is Ken Jennings' appearance on The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs. The question is, what is the most entertaining listening experience in podcast land? Jeopardy-truthers believe in... I guess they would be Kenspiracy theorists. That's right. To give you the answers and you still blew it.

The Puzzler. Listen on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everyone thinks they'd never join a cult. But it happens all the time to people just like you. And people just like us. I'm Lola Blanc. And I'm Megan Elizabeth. We're the host of Trust Me, a podcast about cults, manipulation, and the psychology of belief. Each week we talk to fellow survivors, former believers, and experts to understand why people get pulled in and how they get out.

Trust me. New episodes every Wednesday on Exactly Right. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.