The Viall Files - E152 Reality Check with Reality Steve

Episode Date: July 14, 2020

Nick is joined by "Reality Steve" Carbone today because well … 2020! This conversation is something we never thought would happen but on the The Viall Files we always say that people can learn and grow, and hopefully come out better on the other side. Nick speaks bluntly with Steve, not only about the personal impact he has had on Nick's life but how spoilers have affected other cast members in their off-air real lives and in a very real way. Dropped videos, bad sources, being held accountable, and making some wrongs right are all topics we hit in this episode. So buckle up and make sure to catch some thoughts from Nick at the end of the episode as he reflects on the conversation.  “…because you realized they’re human?” Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes! THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: BETTER HELP: betterhelp.com/VIALLFILES STITCH FIX: stitchfix.com/VIALL CROSS ROPE: crossrope.com/VIALL Episode Socials:  Viall Files @viallfiles Nick Viall @nickviall Krissy Lindquist @thekrissylindquist Steve Carbone @realitysteve See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

what is going on filers here we go again is it the filers five fives five fives filers we're gonna do a poll we should do it we should't, I would like, I would like the group to have. A name. A name. For those of the people who have been with us forever, I know this, you guys know this has been a real battle for myself personally. Does it keep you up at night? It does.

For those of you tuning in for the first time uh because of our guest one reality steve welcome hello we're glad to have you um i want to say i'm always i'm like the priest on eastern's christmas morning saying come back we're doing great things year round uh check us out on mondays for ask nick episodes. We give relationship advice. It's a very popular show. People love it. And on Wednesdays, we have thought-provoking conversations with often non-Bachelor people,

experts, actors, influential people. Check us out. Subscribe. Learn something. But I think, well, I don't know what you'll think of this episode with Reality Steve Subscribe. Learn something. But I think, well, I don't know what you'll think of this episode with Reality Steve. It's something.

It is something. It's really something. At the risk of not repeating myself about how this episode came to be, I'll let Reality Steve and I talk about that, so I won't get into that right now. But I've had a complicated relationship with Reality Steve over the years. And I've had my frustrations with him.

And so for me, the things I wanted to talk to him about were about those frustrations and just have an honest conversation. honest conversation. And for me, the big picture frustration with the reality of Steve has always been for someone who's been so critical of the franchise and the producers and some of the cast people on there. It always felt like a double standard in some hypocrisy in the sense that for Steve to openly criticize, and you'll hear it on this podcast, about the show should hold itself more accountable for how they portray individuals on the show, as he claims, inaccurately. And I don't doubt that sometimes people get an unfair shake, but they should be held more accountable for how these people are then subsequently treated as a result and in the stresses that the show has put on these cast members. And to me, that's where I get fired up in a sense that you'll hear us talk about my frustrations with Steve about things he's put out there about me, other people, things he's gotten wrong wrong whether it's through not getting it right

through his own bias maybe some sloppy reporting yeah and it's and it's bad sources and it's you know for me it drastically impacted my life and I know it's impacted other people's lives as well so we have a conversation about that and you know if you're a fan who enjoys people debating about the bachelor franchise you'll probably like that we get into the weeds a little bit but yeah it's one of those things where i'm someone who's been personally affected by the show and you're like your life has been affected by it and even the producers they've gotten things wrong i mean we talked about this. I have my frustrations. But it's always hard for me to hear someone kind of righteously criticize them

unobjectively when they're doing the same thing, but they have their own built-in reasons why. Yeah. So I'll let you guys decide what you guys think. Let the debate continue. Let the debate continue. I give some final thoughts after I say goodbye to Steve. So stick around for that about the things we do discuss.

But it's something. It's really something. It was interesting having Chrissy throughout this episode. Chrissy not only is the producer of The Vile Files, but she's been a producer in la for some time as someone who's produced uh amas uh dick clark new year's rocking eve and so i wasn't even thinking about that when we were talking about like yeah um about how like producer producers in general yeah granted the show the bachelor show is different than that experiences

but that was kind of funny it was kind of funny because i didn't really like know him beforehand like i knew of him and i'm a fan of the show but i didn't as a fan of the show i didn't go looking for spoilers and i'm just like i was blown away by like how much he claims to know but maybe he doesn't actually know and i think like you being somebody who is on the franchise and me being a producer that understands how entertainment works was an interesting combination yeah yeah um yeah and you'll hear us talk about um or reference his sources or why he thought he was right and sometimes and i'm always just like the overwhelming majority of his sources not all all, there's exceptions to every rule, are people with limited experiences on that show

or disgruntled experiences. You know, and it's interesting to hear him talk about the pressure he might've felt and things like that. So it's, I don't know, it's interesting. It's, I'm curious what you guys think. It's an enjoy. It's, I don't know. I don't know what it is, but's it's uh it's an enjoy it's i don't know i don't know what it is but uh it's definitely interesting here you go here you go how about it how's it going steve my gosh is this really happening right now uh well yeah maybe we'll see i might

not even air it we'll see how it goes um go ahead no i was gonna say i've already got my tweet set up to go after i feel like this i feel like this is the beginning of like a very awkward first date you're not really sure how either should navigate um yeah i i thought i you know fuck it i'd have you on uh steve had reached out to me a few months ago and asked me to be a guest on his podcast and i told him to fuck off no i'm uh i i i respectfully declined um but the reality is as steve knows there's a a relationship uh yeah listen i'm a part of the bachelor franchise and this show is separate than that i i but at the same time i uh do look out for my my bachelor family uh steve steve has a complicated relationship with i think the franchise would that be safe to say absolutely yeah so that's probably the that's probably the nicest thing you could say about it yeah

so i i didn't know if it was maybe the best thing um but that being said it was the first time steve and i had ever had any correspondence um and um i you know i kind of was like hey thanks for reaching out i don't know if it's the best thing maybe sometime in the future um and i will say it was a nice conversation uh via email that we had where um it was just more like you know what fine you're you're not maybe the worst person in the world. But I've been kind of, you know, to be totally honest, I've thought about having conversations with you, whether publicly or privately,

about, you know, just generally being annoyed with you and almost kind of fascinated with your perception of me. And it's kind of funny because I've had this conversation often with a lot of my friends in Bachelor Nation and, you know, you will, you do come up often about our thoughts and opinions of you and your thoughts and opinions of us. And so, you know, I was like, you know, I was like, well, fuck it. Maybe I'll just have like Steve come on and recap one of these, you know,

greatest of all time episodes. And as you guys are now listening, you know, they took this week off. And so I was like, you know what? Maybe this will be a nice way, certainly a Bachelor-focused podcast, but with the one Reality Steve. So maybe, I'm curious, I don't even really know totally how this all started, but like, how did you start RealitySteve.com? realitysteve.com It's crazy.

It is a crazy story. So this started back in 2000, it might have been 2002 with Joe Millionaire and that was like the early stages of like when Fox came out with this show and they're promoting it during their football games

and I'm like, wait, they're going to try and trick 20 women into thinking a guy is worth 300 million when he makes 20 grand a year? I was like, wait, they're going to try and trick 20 women into thinking a guy is worth $300 million when he makes $20,000 a year? I was like, this is awesome. Now, you've got to remember, this was 2000. I was waiting for Steve to be like, this is morally wrong. But no, Steve's like, this is awesome. Oh, God, no.

I mean, I was so hooked by their promos because I was like, because in 2020, this idea could never happen. Nobody would buy it. Nobody would think these women would fall for it. But this is the early stages of reality television. So basically what I did was I had to watch it. And then I watched it and I was fascinated by the women. And they were like, oh my God, I'm so in love with him.

And you really knew that they were in love with the fact that they thought he was inheriting 300 million. So I just wrote an email recap to three of my friends. And I did it for every episode of Joe Millionaire. And unbeknownst to me, as the season was going along, those three people were forwarding it on to other people who were forwarding it on to other people. And I was starting to get emails saying, hey, can I be on your Joe Millionaire email list? And I said, okay. So I made a list, and then it ended up becoming like 300 names long. And then Joe Millionaire ended, and they asked me are you gonna do another

show and I'm like I don't what's next and the very next show to come up in the reality tv dating genre was Trista's season of The Bachelorette so I never watched Alex Michelle's season and I never watched Aaron Berge's season but the first season of this franchise that I watched was Trista's Sutter's season or Trista ran at the time and now ever franchise that I watched was Trista's Sutter season, or Trista ran at the time. And now, ever since then, I have written an episode recap for every single episode in this franchise since then. So that's how it started.

A lot of work. And then once Trista's season rolled around, I'm like, I got to get rid of the email part of this. I go, too many people are saying, oh, it got lost in my spam. And I'm like, I need to start a website where I just put it up every you know whatever day it aired the day after whenever I think it aired on Wednesdays back then and I put it up Thursday

and I just said I need to get a website so people can go to that and I don't have to worry about emails anymore and that's that's how it started well I'll tell you what you know what a lot of people like to do out there they like to shop and we like to shop online but we also like to go in there, they like to shop. I like to shop. And we like to shop online, but we also like to go in stores.

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slash v-i-a-l-l for 25 off when you keep everything in your fix stitch fix.com slash v-i-a-l-l i have been jumping rope like a goddamn awesome jump roper which sounds weird but I tell you what I'm just trying to mix it up listen I'm a creature of habit which is fun but also not so great all the time especially when you're working out you have to mix it up you have to use different muscles I run a lot I do that stuff but telling you what jumping rope is working out so many different muscles and it's a lot of fun. Crossrope is an absolute amazing, great workout app that gives you awesome, cool, fun cardio workouts. You can even work on muscle strength because different jump ropes, they have weighted jump ropes, they have medium jump ropes, they have thin jump ropes.

The weighted jump ropes is a cool thing. It's really great. And I'll tell you what, it's an amazing workout. It burns calories, it has low impact for running. The jump ropes are easily changeable. you what it's an amazing workout it burns calories it has low impact for running the jump ropes are easily changeable so whether it's the weighted one or the not so weighted one it's fun and they give you a bunch of different exercises like i said you can free access anytime to quick workouts and fun challenges with the cross rope app now you can pursue your fitness goals wherever you are even at home that's the thing it's a great travel workout so if you're gonna travel jump ropes are easy to put in your backpack. You know, if you don't have like a gym, you can jump rope in your hotel room.

You can probably just even throw it in your carry-on. It's amazing. So if you're ready for a new cardio and full-body home workout, visit Crossrope.com slash V-I-A-L. Get up to $40 off your Crossrope sets. Plus free shipping when you check out today at Crossrope.com slash V-I-A-L-L. That's Crossrope.com slash V-i-a-l-l that's crossrope.com slash v-i-a-l-l so fast forwarding uh how did you become the reality steve that people know in terms of the guy who spoils uh the bachelor um well yeah the guy who spoils all things bachelor yeah so if you go back to trista season that was like 03 from 03 to 09 all i did was recap the show and make fun of it and i was like

look i was well aware the show was filmed in advance but that was early there was no twitter there's no social media back then i didn't go care to looking to see if there were clues of who someone picked or whatever you were just a guy who was a fan of the show and and and kind of snarked on it and recapped it and other people enjoyed it exactly okay which is now kind of a thing for a bunch yeah hate hate watching the show is essentially what people you know do and hate tweet so the first spoiler i got was jason mesnick season in 2009 someone Someone came to me and said, Hey,

I know you cover this show. I know you write a recap and you have a fan base. I was just made aware of something that happened on Jace at the end of Jason's filming. I'm like, really what? And they said, they just did a private taping of after the final rose where he dumped

Melissa and asked Molly out. And Jason is now seeing Molly and based on who it came from and how they told me they knew I was like, okay, this is legit. I know it's true. You know, it's true.

But when I give this to my readers, when I've never had a spoiler in six years, they're going to be like, how do we know this is true? And I, and I couldn't reveal my source. So I just, for that season, they're going to be like, how do we know this is true? And I couldn't reveal my source. So I just, for that season, for like a month, I teased it with all these clues. That was a horrible, horrible decision.

But about two weeks before the finale, I said, okay, here's what you're going to see. You're going to see in the finale, he chose Melissa and I think they were in New Zealand. They got engaged. But since then, there was an After the Final Rose private taping in front of nobody. It was just Chris Harrison and Jason and Molly and Melissa. He brought Melissa out, told her it wasn't working, asked for the ring back, and asked Molly to date him. Molly had no idea this was coming.

And that's what you're going to see on the finale. And then when it aired, I was vindicated. What do you mean vindicated? From that point forward. What do you mean vindicated? Vindicated in that what I had said two weeks earlier is what ended up happening. Like I had given a spoiler that was, hey, you don't know this is going to happen, but here's what happened. You probably have clues that he probably fixed Melissa.

At that point, that's not what you were even known for anyways, right? You're just the guy who's like a big fan of the show and recapping it. And then you're like, hey, I heard this thing. For that particular. And then you're like the guy who's like a big fan of the show and recapping it and then you're like hey i heard that particular and then you were like oh i guess he was right and then i'm assuming things kind of took off from there in terms of did you feel an expectation to start becoming this guy who find i'm assuming you must have your, your website, the traffic really must have blown up as a result of that. That finale day, my server shut down because I had never had that much traffic in my life. And I was in a mad hurry to find somebody who knew anything about computers and how to run a server and a website because I had no idea. I had been doing a recap for obviously an amount of viewers

that didn't need a big server and then it crashed that day. And so when I say vindicated, I just meant for that particular spoiler. And then from that point forward, the next season after Jason was Jillian Harris. I actually didn't have Jillian's ending, but the season after that was Jake Pavelka.

And from Jake's on is when it just started becoming this hey this is the guy that knows the ending to the show and people that know things liked to tell me sure but i guess i assume but but all in fairness like with with that experience happening of your server like shutting down all this traffic you must have felt some pressure and not even pressure, but incentive to try to find out these spoilers. I mean, you know, like if, right? I mean, I can only assume if you're doing this blog thing, all of a sudden one day, like it blows up. You're just like, I got to kind of try to replicate this because I'm assuming it was beneficial for your website.

this because I'm assuming it was beneficial for your website. Yeah, it's exactly what I felt, but I was like, this random, how I got the ending to Jason's season was so random, and that person had nothing to do with Jillian's season. So I was like, how am I going to find out the ending? Well, that's what I'm curious about. Maybe someone will come to me. What did you do from that point on? Did you? I didn't do anything for Jillian season in terms of spoilers.

I just did the same thing. I recapped it and hope that maybe somebody would email me and I never got anything for Jillian's. But then Jake season rolled around. He was next. And about I think it was the day before the premiere is when someone laid out the final four and the breakdown of, hey, this is Jake's final four. Gia goes home at three. The final two are Tenley and Vienna, and he's engaged to Vienna.

And I laid that out there I think the day after the first episode aired, and I said, here's what I got for you. Here's your final four. Here's the breakdown. Again, let's wait two and a half months and see if I'm right. And that ended up being right and then it was okay on to the next season and then it just turned into people liked telling me stuff and um yeah it could have gone this could happen to anybody i guess no i get that it happened to

me it's really weird well when you're first in anything it you know, that becomes, yeah, you become the person people first think of. And at what point did you start hearing from cast members? I think over the years, even before spoiling started, cast members would contact me saying they liked my column and they thought it was funny. Sure, yeah. But it would be while the show was airing, and then after the spoilers started, pretty much the same thing. I mean, I get people that will email me and say, you know, I disagree with what you said.

Most of them are positive. I know there are plenty of contestants. If you went back and thought for the people who reached out to you and said, hey, Steve, I'm a big fan of your column. Were you receiving that email before their respective season started airing? Or was it? No, it was always after. It was always after because I was commenting about what I saw.

But I got to assume. I mean, it's one of those things. I know the reason I ask is like sometimes people like reach out and be like, Hey, man, I think you're hysterical take it easy on me or you know like or uh you know what best so just remember that when episode four comes you're amazing be nice no nobody fired a whatever you call it, pre-shot salvo or whatever. Nobody ever did that. And nobody has done that really to this day. I think one may have reached out to me pre-show.

But honestly, they ended up being a non-factor in their season, so I didn't think much of it. Well, I mean, I would. It's always after it starts and I say something about them, whether it's, you know, criticism or making fun of something they said or did on the show. That's when it comes. And that's when it's like, hey, well, you don't know the full story. I'm like, I know, but I'm writing a column on what we saw. I can't. Yes, I do know things that do happen behind the scenes and I do hear stories of what it but that would be a separate column. If I write a column about what we saw versus what we didn't see,

but was told to me that happened behind the scenes. So it got so confusing to a point where I was just like, look, I can only recap what we see on Monday nights, but if I know something that might add to the story, I will. And I think, I think, I think Olivia Caridi might have been the first one where i really kind of dove in and said look this is not what is representative of what kind of went on um i think she was the first one i really took a took a liking to and took a champion

for i guess but she um and not because i had spoken to Olivia because I hadn't. You hadn't spoken to Olivia. No, she never contacted me. What made you? I had. What made you do that? Because quite honestly, you haven't you hadn't done that with other cast people. Yeah. And honestly, there might have been somebody before Olivia, but she's the first one that's coming to my mind right now. I just thought I saw all the hate that she was getting, and I thought it was a little extreme for something that was someone who wasn't trashing the other women during her ITM.

She wasn't saying anything bad. She was just being, you know, you've seen her at it. It was just overly confident stuff like, you know, I miss hitting it, but I don't go on it. Yeah. For my own. It's just like it was just a bunch of, she was just super confident and you can tell that she was really, really kind of doing what her producer

told her to do and say and probably got a lot of leading questions in her ITM from her producer and kind of went with it, not realizing, and this is something I've always said for years. I think when you, and you've been in the show however many times now, four or five, you know that when you're sitting,

probably your first, obviously you were way more experienced by the time you were Bachelor than when you were on Andy's season. But when you're sitting there on Andy's season and you're sitting in an ITM in, I forget, one of the Germany that you guys went, I don't think you're sitting in an ITM in, I forget one of the Germany that you guys went. I don't think you're thinking about what is coming out of your mouth in October of that year is going to air in February of the next year and the impact it might have, whether it's saying something about Josh or saying something about Cody or whatever the case may be.

Not saying that you did say anything about that. I'm just saying, I don't think most contestants when they're sitting there in an ITM are thinking about when this airs in front of a nationally televised audience, how it's going to come across. And, uh, well, and I,

that's what, that's what I thought with Olivia. Everyone who goes on the show is incredibly self-conscious about how they're going to be perceived. If they go on, everyone who decides to go on is like, well, what if I look bad? So there's that thought. To your point, when you're in these, you get very comfortable in the situation and you start having conversations and you start just talking and opening up. And when you talk for 30 minutes and

things are edited down to soundbites. That being said, there's a couple of things that go on here. to soundbites that being said there's a couple things that go on here one they do try to tell a story that happens to bachelor nation is just as guilty and i would very much include you in this and kind of and you're a driving force there too bachelor nation is just as guilty as kind of being the police officers and the judge and jury of the audience and you could say well the show made them look this way but like the it's one of those things where it's funny going back to like the alex michelle season where i was kind of joking about like no one knew what this was and you even had chris harrison explaining to the audience the insaneness of this top conversation right and people are just like fantasy suites like people

breaking up well group dates what the fuck is going on fast forward to several seasons later and now better nations watching it and certainly the show plays into the expectation of the audience but it's just like you're supposed to be grateful on group dates you're supposed to do x y and z you don't do overnights until fantasy suite all these unwritten rules that now bachelor nation when they watch it it's just like as soon as they show someone interrupting early on you go on twitter and be like i don't like ma'am ma'am ma'am you know like and and you do that and you play to the narrative and everyone does. You're just a part of it. And so what I'm saying is you could argue that the audience is just as guilty as the show.

And first look at something like Olivia of playing into the bullying-ness. Because like we talked about when they aired Ben's season. What did Olivia do? I mean, regardless of mean figure eat regardless of the edit regardless of the edit that she got or what she said the producers nothing i saw on her season described her as a bad person you know what i'm saying even if you were like that's exactly what olivia did it was her choices to say those things everything you saw was like absolutely in context great still fine all it was is what that show is was demonstrating kind of a high school environment where these girls didn't like

these girls and these guys didn't like these guys and everyone was just kind of catty and and silly so i guess what i'm saying it's just like everyone is guilty of of kind of playing into that would you agree to including the producers i would i would agree and i would say including the producers well the producers are there to make a tv show and i have us be entertained i don't know if they're like but you know what what all the producers are really good at is getting us to say and do what we feel the most you know in situations we like to be it's like, we like to be, it's like, what do you really say? It's like, well, I'm just going to be polite. And what the show has always been

good at is getting you to express yourself as openly and freely in that moment and to not hold back. And sometimes when we take our filters off, we say things that uh could offend someone else and it sounds juicy your mental health is listen your your mental health my mental health right now it's a lot my mental health is also a lot the world the world i've never been in more need of mental health in fact i uh i've been seeking out some mental health help, if I'm being honest, and you can too with BetterHelp. It's never wrong to seek out professional help when it comes to your mental health, whether you're struggling with anxiety, worrying about finances, troubled in relationships. It really doesn't matter what you're worrying

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slash V-I-A-L-L-F-I-L-E-S. So that's betterhelp.com slash Viall Files listeners. Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com slash V-I-A-L-L-F-I-L-E-S. So that's betterhelp.com slash Viall Files, V-I-A-L-L-F-I-L-E-S. 10% off your first month. Visit betterhelp.com. That's B-E-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P slash V-I-A-L-L-F-I-L-E-S. And join over a million people taking charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional. I guess a distinction kind of needs to be made between producers and editors because the producers, like you said, are the ones there asking you the questions in the ITMs. The editors are the ones that we all know it is a trope in reality TV that there is

a thing called Frankenbiting. So when you say to somebody, I'm aware I've been a victim of it. Yeah. So when you say, when, when, when Nick Vile says a sentence on Andy season,

the first part of a sentence from night one is combined with a back half of a sentence. He said in week five, and that sentence is put all together in one long sentence that makes Nick Vile look like an idiot or a moron or, or calling somebody out when you never called somebody out but america sees nick vile calling somebody out because of a frankenbite then the response is going to be oh my god what a dick nick just called out

josh or cody or who i don't know why i keep bringing up those no no listen i i get like i get that i've been a a victim of it i'm not sure what your point is yeah uh in terms of my point is my point is you're you're talking about us being complicit and i'm being i'm part of it and bachelor nation is part of it but if we're being shown something that never happened and we're being shown a line that nick vile never said in consecutive words uh then you're being misrepresented why aren't you mad i listen i'm someone who like i said i wasn't a fan of how i was displayed on any season that being said yeah you shouldn't have been but that being said uh what you saw it how can i explain it you talk

about the frag and binding right i know firsthand i've I've seen it from my point of view. I've seen it from other cast members' point of view. There have been some things where I was super pissed at the show where I was like, I didn't fucking say that. That never fucking happened, etc., etc. Fine. Other times you see it because while they may not necessarily have that verbatim from that person. They are absolutely putting something together that ultimately had been said by that person or is driving the narrative. Like, it is a TV show. I also like the,

no, the bachelor has never, ever come out and been like, this is the Truman show ever. You know, like I don't get the point. My point is this, like not,

there are some people who suffer from the show i still would argue that most people and i would be curious if you actually hindsight being 2020 most people look better than they are then they look worse from the show think of all the people who go on the show and get an uptick in followers and are top five and they're just generally handsome or pretty and say generally nice things and don't get enough airtime. So everyone's like, oh, they're so sweet. And they have this little fan club. And over the years, you're just like, that person kind of sucks as a human. And a bunch of like, they do shitty things and say shitty things, some of which you've talked about and spoiled and et cetera, et cetera.

But they were thought of as sincere and sweet and innocent. And every season you get five or 10 of these people and one or two people take it on the chin. But the truth is we're all humans. We all do good and bad things. And when we decide to go on a show and put a shine of light on it, you know, we, you know, as people say, you signed up for it. We signed up for the possibility of putting our lives under a microscope and letting other people share their opinion.

So, I mean, I guess it's just like when people get so like they're, here's my point is they're so quick to blame the show for an injustice of something that happened when again, I think if you're gonna snark, if you're gonna criticize, if you're gonna like make fun of someone like you have of me in the past, then who are you like,

if you're pointing the fingers, there's three pointing back at you. I guess that's kind of my point where it's just like, fine, you want to criticize the show? Then what about all, you know, and I'm like, I snark. I tweet snarky things, right? But again, I'm the one saying, yeah, we're all a little guilty. So, like, I'm not sitting here being all righteous about certain things. I'm curious if you would agree with that

i to i guess a little uh i guess to an extent i would yes it's it's it's to an it's to an extent i would but i also am you know me covering the show and the way i cover it i don't you know whatever you want to call it hate tweeting and tweeting and hate watching and stuff like that. I'm not one that watches the show on Monday night and just praises it for two hours and calls it this glorious thing. And wow, what a great television show this is. No, it does. this is a, I'm just trying to get people to watch the show differently. And I can't tell you how many people over the years have said,

not even the spoiler aspect. They just like knowing kind of what really went on. And in places where I know what really was said or what really happened, I fill them in. I get the behind the scenes. Well, you do film in from things that you hear. So let me,

let's go back to, I am curious about discussing the evolution of reality steve um because part of which my willingness to like have you on and have this conversation is because i think you have uh grown and evaluated your own decisions in the past and i feel like you try better to be a little bit more responsible about the information you put out there than you have in the past 100 agree um so i'm curious there's no there's no doubt do you have um before i even ask some things that come to mind that you're like, I would have done that differently?

I think maybe I, yeah. Let me, have you, do things come to mind specifically? Oh, yeah. Gosh, I mean, there's quite a few. Let's see. The most recent being the Jenna Cooper incident. Was it a total screw up on my part how so i honestly not too familiar i mean i remember that general her and uh jordan yeah i mean my

reporting is basically what i mean they probably would have broken up eventually if i never reported anything but my reporting essentially ended their relationship on the spot because i what is your report i mean i wrote what it just remind the audience that jenna that jenna had a sugar daddy and uh she was texting the sugar daddy telling him i'm not interested in jordan this is strictly for my brand i had the text messages i forwarded them on to jordan i'm saying look at what your look at what your fiancee is saying to this other guy You got to know about this. I'm just, I didn't know Jordan, but I reached out to him. How did you figure that out? It didn't happen until three months ago.

A year and a half of, I had heard over the years, one of Jenna's good friends is Jacqueline Trumbull, who i've had on my podcast three times and we her her and i would always joke about him she's like steve i don't know where you ever got that stuff about a sugar daddy but i i know jenna way better than you do and i just either she's fooling her best friend or that information isn't true and i'd be like you know well i don't know what to tell you jaceline. I spoke to someone on the phone who claimed to be her sugar daddy, and I have text messages from Jenna to him. And then Jenna reached out to me in February and has basically been dissecting this for a year and a half. And it was a giant smear campaign put together by trolls who not necessarily hated Jenna, but were like so pro-Jordan

that they were throwing misinformation at Jenna so Jordan would break up with Jenna and they used me as basically the bait and I bought it. And it's not like someone sent me a text and I'm like, how did you prove that? You mean, how did I prove that it ended up not being? Yeah.

Or at the time that I reported it. Because here you get these text messages. I vaguely, now that you're reminding me, I remember seeing something out there about that, which it seemed, you know, rather damning. Yeah. And I didn't vet it well enough. I thought it was good enough based on what I read, who sent it to me, but I just did not vet it well enough. read who sent it to me, but I just did not vet it well enough. I should have been more thorough in who I was speaking to.

And I mean, that's the best way to put it. I didn't vet it strong enough. Certainly the text messages look legit. When I spoke to somebody on the phone, that seemed legit. But come to find out a year and a half later, all through Jenna's doing, Jenna was the one that researched all this because she's trying to clear her name. She came to me and said, Steve, maybe you're not going to believe this, but this is what I've been able to come up with. And she showed me a year and a half worth of research that she's done of fake Twitter accounts, fake email addresses, fake Facebook page comments, emails written to her mother, emails written to her. And we put it all together.

And I'm like, you know what, Jenna? I don't know exactly who it is that's behind this, but I know someone is behind this misinformation campaign. But you were 100% certain at that point that it was fake, that you were duped. When Jenna came to me, yeah, absolutely. When I saw everything that she presented to me and it'd be it'd be way too hard to go over on this podcast but no uh trust me people do think it's him i don't think it's jordan um i do think it's the third party who's really that interested in there's that you know how some crazy no i get it it's the scary notion that some random person why would someone so obsessed with jenna or jordan no offense to either of them but there have been bigger names in bachelor

nation that you look for what's the motivating factor so i'm curious so i wish i had that i wish i knew and they um so when you you know i don't want to name her name but when you uh when i was the bachelor and you had a certain person on and did an interview uh who said some wild shit about me uh what were your thoughts well you know personally i was pretty pissed off at you uh because one this was a crazy person i was aware of who i had blocked years before a year before and then when you came out with that story I remember you were you had this look on your face of like at this point you had been kind of trying to convince your audience that I suck that I am not who I say I am and then you had this

person coming on who was kind of echoing things that you had suggested of me and i and you you felt as you say vindicated uh the i remember watching it i was like this motherfucker and and we had some mutual friends one in particular who was the person who introduced me this other person who told me i assume they did reach out to you and said this person's not well uh and you kind of half acknowledged that but you left it on your website until i called you out on julia litman's podcast and then a year later you took it down and and gave like a half apology i thought i thought i i thought i um i thought i wasn't made aware of it by that person, our mutual friend in this, until after I had posted it. Correct.

I thought it was already been posted. You had posted, yes. And then they reached out and said, hey, just so you know, this is not a credible source. And you made reference to it not being very credible, but still kind of left it up without any context for anyone who was like you know listen to your content to to hear it i'm curious why you decided when did i take it down like a well when i went on uh julia litman's uh podcast uh and she asked about you know you in in the relationship bachelor nation has reality steve and i was kind of like you know what fuck it let me tell you what i think and i gave it was like here's here's my

problem with reality steve is like i don't know about all his sources i don't know about all his stories he talks about i can only speak to myself in a particular story that he put up there he i know he was told it's not reliable and i know it's still up there for people to listen to and then you were like so i'm assuming people came to you and said what the fuck steve and you were like okay fine i'll take it down and then you gave some bullshit thing that really pissed me off you're just like well it was my least listen to blah blah blah it's like if that if that's a justifiable reason to leave it up well i i do remember when i took it down i gave a full apology i didn't think it was a half-assed

apology i said that should have never gone up now granted it might have been a year later but i think i left it up because after we got past the point of my friend our mutual friend saying steve i don't know if this is credible it was me, it was just, okay, but it wasn't 100%. I guess I never followed up with it. And again, this was on me. The second that you called me out on Juliet's podcast is when I took it down, and I put a full apology out there that it shouldn't have been up. I should have never had it wrong in the first place why didn't you

take it down when you were first told I don't know this is reliable man a mistake on my part for sure I should have I'll take yeah I mean I well there he was I will like just now thinking about it yeah it was a mistake for fun I I have, I will say I was always curious. So my relationship with reality, Steve started when, for those of you who don't know, when I got broken up with by Andy, I was a mess. And Steve's laughing now, but this is a personal story for me. I went home, I went on it.

I, you know, they give you your phone back and they give you your phone back right before they'd be like, here, go on a plane. All right. See you later. Fuck you. No, the producers don't do that. They talk to you and make sure you're okay.

But so you get your phone back. And who do I call? Obviously, my mom and dad, who I had last spoken with since hometowns. And they don't know, like, what's going on. I'm like, well, here's kind of here's what happened and i talked to my parents as if you would talk to your parents like you just got your heart broken it's kind of an honest normal conversation now at this point this is long before the internet really blew up and social media uh reddit didn't even exist there were blogs and i was really naive to you know the popularity of the show i i didn't know who reality i had heard of reality of you steve but i didn't really fully

understand the scope of who you were and i knew enough to be careful on my conversation so like i remember thinking to myself don't use words like the bachelor or bachelorette or fantasy suite but like i i was like who the fuck knows who i am so like i said words like josh and andy and you know like as if i was talking to anyone and i can tell my parents and then i'll never forget like my dad at that point because you had some email correspondence going on with my dad and my dad like a lot of parents do get kind of obsessed with like what their kids are doing and based off of a lot of confusion and like protecting their kids yeah of course he's like really steve has some information he says it's going to be explosive and i don't know why i mean it is this paranoia because everyone goes on that

show is just scared they're just scared and and sure as shit, Monday morning, the day of the premiere, Steve drops this video of apparently you had a friend or knew someone who recognized me and recorded this whole conversation without me knowing. With your parents? Yeah, it ruined me. It ruined me both emotionally, mentally. You had a good laugh about it uh yeah it uh yeah i mean think about it like it was uh i was embarrassed um at the time

i didn't have a problem with josh in a sense and here i was kind of you know talking shit because i was just frustrated because you've just been broken up with. And I was afraid that the show was going to sue me. You know, things like that. I was terrified, just truly terrified, devastated. I had to like, people at work were confused. You know, they don't know. They think that whole video was staged. It was a whole thing.

It really affected me personally. And it was a hard thing for me to like, see, you know, you relishing it. But since then, it always seemed like for whatever reason, you weren't team Nick, not that I wanted you to be team Nick, but you, you seemed very anti Nick. And I always remember thinking to myself, why the fuck does this guy hate me? I don't understand. What did I ever do to him like clearly you were like talking to sources and i was just like what is you would always like referencing having stuff on me and i was always like what the fuck does this guy like have i'm

like i pretty much put everything out there like what is going on and i always like was like baffled by this, what seemed to be this. I felt like an obsession to prove to your audience that I was, I don't know, I guess not a great guy or something. And I'm got to ask, what was it about me that made you like, and I can't, you can't just, I'm sure you'll say you heard from people and I don't doubt that, but it can't just be that because I do know I have mutual friends who told me in conversations that they're like, I don't know what to tell you. I'm good friends with Nick. He's a great guy, blah, blah, blah. And I'm sure you heard other people be like, I fucking hate Nick.

He thinks he's all that. I don't know. Which I don't doubt that you did, right? I mean, I rubbed a lot of people on Andy and Caitlin's season the wrong way, especially in that context, some of which are great friends now, but not all of them. And so I'm curious is why did you have that opinion? Okay.

First off, I never hated you. I don't hate anybody from this franchise. Fine. But you seem to have an agenda of trying to. For sure. Okay. So acknowledge that. For sure. Okay, so acknowledge that. For sure.

Because I feel like your audience would be like, come on, Steve, you weren't super. For sure. No, I was never a fan for a long time of you, but I didn't hate you. I was just like, I guess you were an easy target because you kept going on the show and whatnot. So there was an easy target there.

Okay. There is one thing, though. You are correct. I have heard both sides i have people that you like you said have have told you i've told steve um nick's a great guy and i have heard both sides um but without having spoken to you i'm gonna keep my side of the the side that i had for the longest time i one thing that did set me off and this was actually one thing that did set me off.

And this was actually one thing I was going to bring up. If, if you were to come on the podcast was, I think it was in the same Juliet interview when we were talking about you. I think you had mentioned to her about this email conversation that I had with your father. You use the word bully or threatened your father. And I thought that was, I mean, it was definitely easy for you to say, but unless I produced the conversation, which I could, I never did,

but I could have. I think people could have read that conversation from the second your dad first emailed me while you guys were off in, I think it was in Germany. I have the whole email conversation. There was no bullying. There was no threatening. And at that point, I think the gloves were off on my end. I would argue that you had a target for me long before that. And it certainly felt that way for me. Hold on a second. Hold on real quick when when you went on Juliet's podcast that was and said all this stuff that was leading into your season of The Bachelor I mean by the time no that was that was six months after me at least six months after my season of The

Bachelor was done airing I mean I think Vanessa and I had broken up at this point okay so that was okay so you had been on so again i had been a target of yours long before before that now as relates to that email list i you mentioned that i i you're right i didn't realize that my dad was the first to reach out yeah so in fairness to you my dad reached out to you that being said i just all i'm saying is i remember talking to my dad uh about the emails and i'm just saying whatever you said you scared the shit out of him and so what i'm saying what i said that scared the shit out of him fine well why don't you say it no what i think what did you think that i said to your dad that must have scared the shit out of him was, like I said, he contacted me once you guys went overseas for Andy's season.

We were kind of going back and forth. I think I was sending any time. Like, I was I don't want to say I was using your dad as a source, but I was like, you were trying early in the process. Hoping to. Yeah. early in the process. You were hoping to. Yeah, but I was like,

when I would get a group date picture of whatever you guys did in those countries, I'd be like, do you see your son in this picture? Because I didn't recognize you by face yet. So I was just asking your dad for help of, is Nick on this date or is this him? Sure. Or if I had,

tell me real quick, when did you have your first one-on-one on Andy's season? Santa Barbara. I think I was the third overall one-on-one. Oh, that's right. You were early. Did you ever have one overseas? Yeah, in Venice, Italy.

In Venice. Okay. So maybe I was doing this, hey, when you go overseas, it's two one-on-ones or a two-on-one and a one-on-one and a group date. And I was telling your dad, hey, the group date's today i i got a picture of it nick's not on it so that means must mean he must i was just like filling your dad in because that's what he wanted to know what's going on with my son that was in his initial email to me for sure and i think what i think what i told him as we got towards the end that scared him was it was my opinion of producers i, you have to be very careful of these producers. I know that they're probably in contact with you,

telling you, updating you on your son. I said, you got to understand their job is professionally to lie to families and to tell them all the great things that are going on. So be careful about the edit, which ended up being right. Your edit wasn't great. Well, fine. But do you still stand by your decision

to say that to a a naive parent whose kids going on do you i mean do you really think the producers are lying crooks who have no considerations or feelings for their cast members no feelings and considerations no but i don't think they have your best interest at heart at all what do you mean by best interest i think they tell you i think they tell you things you want to hear and i think that we do that as humans like everyone we do that with people we say we love but i'm just but i also think that in the think that in the end, they ultimately don't care once your season is over, unless you're somebody that has been on two or three or four times. But the stories that I've heard about people telling, you know, I had a girl that was eliminated night one, one season that I had on my podcast, who told me that the producers were like, oh my God, you are perfect for him.

And then when she gets eliminated, it's like, oh. What does it have to do? Never saw you going home. But how is that proof of your point? It's just blowing smoke up their ass. No, I mean, I can tell you. Because they blow smoke up your ass. I can tell you, as someone who's been the Bachelor on the Bachelorette, especially as it refers to Night One, no one knows anything.

It's a lot of guessing everyone who gets why is the producer saying that you're gonna go far because they probably thought that i mean also keep in mind night one no one knows shit like i didn't know who was important at night one i didn't know who like i didn't know who was a producer versus sound versus cameraman i didn't know who was an executive producer versus like a showrunner i didn't know shit so keep in mind whoever you had in your pockets who went night one home when I won, they didn't know shit. And whoever they said was a producer literally could have been a handler for all, you know, trust me. I thought certain people were certain they don't know.

Right. And a lot of people say like, yes, are they like, do they make you feel good about yourself? Sure. Is that like some sort of crime? It also might be true. There have been plenty of people. I know this for like women and men have gone night one. There are producers who are like surprised. They're like, I thought you were going to be, uh, uh, you know, top four. There's also a difference of opinion. I know for me on Andy season, there were some producers who were like, wanted me on the show. They thought I

would go far. They came into my room and say, I think you're going to do well here. And I was like, eh, you're just telling me that. And they said to me, well, I guess we'll just see how it goes. And I had other important producers who didn't even want me on the damn show. They thought I would be boring, you know know people i'm friends with now and so my point is i'm from a night one it's they're they have difference of opinion at the end of the day they're like well let's just see how it goes and even the producers are like haha i was right about so and so haha you were wrong about so and so etc etc so to say that some of the producers like somehow manipulative and mean because they said, I think you're going to go far.

And this girl gets home sent night one because maybe she said something. And I've had this happen to me. That was just fucking weird. And I'm just like, yeah, I'm not into her. And like, she's got to go because the bachelor and the bachelorette have a lot to say who stays and goes. It's certainly a conversation between producers. But if you're like,'t know i'm not interested in him and the producer's like yeah i don't know they don't really do anything for us either peace okay maybe maybe my example of the girl who got eliminated the first night is not the greatest example i'm not saying that you i'm not

saying it could be somebody have their stories again i'm someone who's had plenty of conversations with producers on the show of voicing my frustrations but you've heard me say it too it's just like it's so easy to for cast members to complain i know you even agreed with me one time when i said this on like an after buzz no cast very rarely do cast members go on twitter and say hey you know this moment when i looked bad and you're all like, I said that, I did that, my bad. Because you know what? That's often the case, right?

But anytime someone looks bad, they're so quick to like say that they were coerced or it wasn't, it was out of context. It was Franken-bitten. And I'm just like, I was there, man. You're a fucking dick. And that's how they're showing you, right? You're a fucking dick. And that's how they're showing you, right?

And just like on Andy season, I was an absolute baby on my mime date. I was a total baby. I was. I was like, this is stupid. I hate this. I was like, and you know what? That's how they aired it. And they made it seem like a capital crime.

Like that's certainly, and people who watch it interpret it as a capital crime but i still did it i was absolutely guilty of what they showed they just kind of went you know they went a little bit above and beyond but it's still like they didn't coerce me they didn't say this sucks nick you should really act like a petulant child they were like why are you being so fucking weird man we're just miming chill the fuck out that's a producer who works on so many shows and has had so many things go wrong that you have no control over this whole conversation is just like completely insane to me in what way in a way that like we have like producers can like want producers are like kind of programmed to try and be like okay how can i

kind of like try and figure out what's going to happen knowing that everything I've tried to plan for or anything I've tried to figure out is going to go wrong and it's not going to happen. And that's what I say, that producers are great at creating situations and scenarios. And then the things that are said that go on kind of play out. Listen, I think to your point, Steve, and I've mentioned this before, like the best way to describe it is you go back to the drama that happened between Sean and I and Caitlin season. Right. Yeah.

Sean hated me. In fact, that was all Sean. Right. He called me the other guy. He didn't give me a chance. That was Sean. Now, if you want to accuse the producers of making sure he never got over it, fine. You know what I'm saying?

They never gave him a reason, know what i'm saying they never gave him a reason even though i'm friends with producers and i don't really have proof i'm certain even the friends i know the producers really liked me but i guarantee you they didn't go and sit sean down and say hey sean we know you hate nick but give him a chance man let me explain to you why he's a great guy they certainly didn't do that right and in the human situation they might have done that they just let it play out. And if they were like, if there were moments where they could like egg him on and poke the bear to

make sure you're hating me more, I am certain they did that, but make no mistake. Sean hated me from the get right. And that's what, and that's what I'm saying. That situation in itself really is what goes on in that show. I think then it just turns into this is a case-by-case scenario

because what you dealt with has been, like you said, that was your experience. But when I've had people specifically tell me I wasn't allowed to eat, I wasn't allowed to go to bed until I gave a producer a line that they told me to say. It does happen. That's all I'm telling you to acknowledge. It does happen on the show. They will tell people, you cannot go to bed until you say this line or give me what I want.

As someone who's been in it for so long and talked to so many people, I've literally never. I've heard it numerous times. That's the problem. You haven't heard it. I've heard it numerous times. That's the problem. You haven't heard it. I've heard it numerous times. I don't doubt that. But I also think that a lot of the people you talk to have revisionist history and are affected by the show and are a lot of reasons mad they didn't go far. I mean, I don't want you to name your sources.

And I know some of your sources, but a lot of them are people who aren't top four, who feel like, again, the girl who you're like, they told me I was going to go far and I went home night one. She's fucking pissed. She didn't go far. Her ego is bruised. She feels misled. She's had all these hopes and dreams. She's probably spent five grand on dresses only to go home night one

and she's super fucking pissed and you know what she's gonna take who do you think she's gonna take it out on and the perfect person to go to is you to vent their i mean you are the person that disgruntled cast people go to to air their grievances and i think that has created this kind of narrative and it's fun for you to like be that like you know the other side of like you know what i'm saying do you do you appreciate do you think there's some fairness in that there have absolutely been contestants who were wronged on the show who came to me after the fact absolutely and but it doesn't mean what happened didn't happen when by wrong do you would you agree

that like actually wronged or like they just feel annoyed and pissed because it didn't go their way you're not going their way and being wronged are two very different things i think a lot could be but wronged ended up being whatever it may be a frankenbite or that didn't happen in that order didn't happen in that sequence ended up turning into trolling, hating, go kill yourself comments to where I go back to what was portrayed on the show you trolled

me for three years so that's where I'm just like well come on Steve now we're criticizing the show kill yourself or you're a loser I don't think you can blame the show because there are some unfortunate people on the internet who do you blame there's nothing anyone's ever done on the show that's been aired in any way that's justified someone saying you should

go kill yourself that's my point you know there's there's nothing that the show has chosen to air or edit in a certain way that could justify that sort of behavior on the internet. So what I'm saying is, yeah, I blame the person who decided to be nuts. You know what I'm saying? There's two points. I mean, there's hate versus criticism.

I think that's what we're talking about. Trolls do hate. People like myself criticize and make fun, but not to the point of totally degrading. Now, I guess in my earlier years, I absolutely did. But I'm talking about recently as we talked about how I've kind of changed my stance on certain things. No, but that's what I'm saying. It's just like I don't think anyone can say, well, the show aired this and they made me believe this.

So therefore, you know, that's why I tweeted what I tweeted. I don't think that's a very good argument. Oh, yeah, absolutely not. That's all I'm saying. Well, I don't. But the other thing is, then I would love, it's never going to happen, but I would love for them to change the contract that they have you guys sign because it's literally the worst contract in history. worst contract in history. The fact that that contract specifically states that they can misrepresent, they can surprise,

and they can do whatever you want, and you have no legal recourse, why is that in there? Because they know that you can do nothing in return. I am guessing that every reality TV show people go on says that. I don't know. No, I'm sure a lot of the things are the same. And that's just... No, I'm sure a lot of the things are the same. And that's just protecting liability. And if I were just to play lawyer of Warner Brothers, just because we are like people perceive their world for... You know what I'm saying?

Like it's a very gray area for being like, I felt wronged and therefore I can sue you. So they're saying, listen, I don't know what we do, but if you're offended, that's not, you can't sue us. You get like, right? Because if if i was like i wrote a poem and you didn't air the whole poem you wrote half the poem and i was somehow you know able to like sue you how could you have a show they would be sued oh you wouldn't we bachelor wouldn't exist a hundred percent you know because uh i i i hear stories about people who are pissed off at producers for shit i'm like how are they mad well why did you have so and so on and tell their side

of the story i don't feel like it would like the cattiness that goes on with cast members and the shit that they go to producers and complain about is insane and i gotta tell you most of it it's nonsense and even for even for me, like I'm always, I'm a pain in the ass producers. I'm just like, I have my requests. I'm just like, well, come on, just don't, why do you have to do this? Why do you have to do that? And I'm just, I'm just saying it from my point of view. And then when someone else has a different point of view, you know, and that's what I'm saying. It's just like, it's, I'm not here to defend that they don't do anything wrong, but they're such a scapegoat on so many levels for so many cast members who are just annoyed someone else got more attention and was more likable.

I think there are certain people that do that. I mean, I will talk to a contestant who will absolutely berate another contestant over the phone to me and say, why is she so popular? Why is he so popular? Why is he so popular? Why are they getting so many followers? And within five minutes, I'm seeing them commenting on their own page and liking their posts. So it's a lot of very much high school. It's very catty.

And I get that part. But my thing is when, when the contract specifically States, they can defame your character and they can tell untruths about you. I mean, that's then you're crossing a line that yeah but it's in there i've seen the contract it's in there so what i mean that's that's the contract so what but that's what causing that's what's causing

producers to put somebody in a light and show something that never happened in the sequence that it did which then causes the reaction by the fans so just i don't know i guess what i'm saying is you can't no because you can't have a show because then you would have people i think you can have a show without misrepresenting a person no you can't absolutely i mean again you're you're what i'm saying is that's that you're you're you're getting into semantics you're getting into personal opinions about how they feel they should be represented we all see ourselves as awesome we look in the mirror and just like i'm the funniest smartest person i've ever met and then other people will be like well i'm not so sure and then you get you know what i'm saying when you say

misrepresented you talk about like in the beginning of this podcast you're just like do you think people go on the show and even remember what they say and etc cetera, et cetera. And that's kind of my point is like a lot of them don't remember. They misremember. They, they confuse staying up all night because like shit just has to get done. And producers being like, Hey, we have to finish this. Like we just have to finish it to like saying, you know, Kelly, when, when Kelly was on Ben and Ashley's podcast, they locked me in a room. I wasn't there, but I can guarantee you that didn't fucking happen. She wasn't locked in any room. She wasn't like, they were probably like.

Oh, Kelly Flanagan. Yeah. And again, I bet Kelly believes it, but I know it didn't happen. You know what I'm saying? People have their own stories. And the reason why you have that shit in contracts is because there wouldn't be a show. And the reason why you have that shit in contracts is because there wouldn't be a show because in a country that's over litigated and people love to sue everyone for every reason, you wouldn't have a show. That's why doctors have crazy malpractice insurance, some of which is justifiable, a lot of which are, you know, people feel like they, you know, it's like they have the right to sue. I don't think because those things are in the contract that you can immediately equate the producers as, well, see, it's in their contract.

So they must be the devil because only the devil would make sure that's in there. Because if it's in there, that means they're going to do it. It's that's that's lawyer talk. That's lawyer that the producers have going to do it. That's lawyer talk. The producers have nothing to do with these contracts. In fact, this contract probably was created 20 years ago. It's probably outdated. And the producers working on the show now have no idea. They're just like, hey, we got to have this in there because we have to protect the liability of the show. And they're not having it in there to guess what most people would do. They have stuff in there to

say, listen, we have to cover all of our bases. And we have to have the most extreme shit in there to like guess what most people would do they have stuff in there to say listen we have to cover all of our bases and we have to have the most extreme shit in there because we can't predict how people are going to interpret their experience i've found it funny that no producer has ever done an interview they're not allowed to part of their contract yeah they're not allowed to you're asking me a question i don't have an answer to because yeah the creators of the show and the studio has decided because it's it's it's the same a lot of producers sign non-disclosures as well same reason why you know coke has non-disclosures about their secret recipe why do you know like there's a secret sauce and what they do it is a business i mean that's the thing it's just like why does the show have to be so transparent and open there the show isn't like it's not a religion you know what i'm saying it's

not uh that's what i don't get because they because they try to present it as oh we just we bring people on a show we turn up we turn on the show has made fun of themselves happens yeah i don't think they're getting better they're getting better has the show ever publicly stated that everything you see happened exactly as it happened and no editing in any way i mean even the show even you've heard chris harrison say things like listen we sell we film hours of tv edited down to an hour and a half by definition that's edited so how we choose to share like it certainly leaves room open for people feeling like they were misrepresented and that alone so i guess you get what i'm saying i i also don't think that they've taken enough responsibility for how contestants have been treated and you and and the. And one of the biggest ones that comes to mind is what happened on your season with Caitlin.

The fact that they put Caitlin through the ringer about your sex before the overnight date and then had her on on your after the final rose to read all the negative stuff about her was so counterproductive. That was bullshit to me. I would throw it back on you to say, you know, you talked about the Jenna story or the story I shared with you. Those are things that affect, I can tell you this much, and I know I'm saying this for guilt, the show has done things that affected my life negatively. You have done things that affected my life negatively. And if I were to look back and put a value on that, you have probably caused more personal stress in my life than the show has. That's just from my point of view.

Okay. I would say at the time that that video came out, I could imagine that it did. Yeah also any i don't but i'm also saying i don't think anything i did out with that video being released um i would do it again if i got the same video of somebody else my point of saying too is to not say that you're the devil or you're a bad person or even that necessarily you should apologize for everything you've done. I'm just simply saying the game you're playing is a bit hypocritical in the fact that you are a part of Bachelor Nation. You've made a successful business out of it. You are someone that people go to as a reliable source. There is a sense of responsibility that you've wanted and have and some of the decisions you make

impact people's lives directly or indirectly and it's the same thing you're saying that the franchise does um and i'm like well yeah you're all kind of guilty but why you know all this finger pointing seems to be a bit i don't know hypocritical i i i see what you're saying um in your case absolutely there was something that just lit my fire about you i don't know what it was um and for the longest time yeah i would just anytime i had a negative nick story i would run with that versus hey hey a positive nick. I wouldn't say anything about that. I agree. Okay.

But there was also a part of me that was like, when the video came out, I was like, oh, wow. Yeah, it's probably not going to be good for him. Maybe he's sued. But the fact that they put you on four shows after that proved to me that they didn't really care that the video came, that you did that. Because if you were in that much trouble, they never would have put you on the show again. Fair enough, Steve. My point is that, and I've heard you say stuff like this in the past sometimes you like to justify your decisions by saying well i mean it didn't really matter anyways and then ended up being working out and that's fine but also the producers will say that

too it's like hey we wronged you here but we made up for it there and the producers have done that all the time where it's just like some i I will say they are good at that. Like sometimes people can take it on the chin, man. They're just like, I've had producers be like, Hey man, we're sorry. We,

you know, oops. You know what? They made it up to me, right? Like when I went on paradise, I was like, I shouldn't fucking do this.

And they were just like, Hey, just trust me. And I'm like, fuck it. Okay. And you know what? You listen, what happened in paradise is what aired. But that I felt like, fuck it. Okay. And you know what? Listen, what happened in

paradise is what aired, but that I felt like for the first time ever, they just gave me a fair shake. Right. And, and they made it up, they made it up, you know, and they did right by me. And I'm what I'm saying is so like this idea of you criticizing them and you're like, well, I mean, what I did was like, it's not not great but it proved to me that was fine because you went back you know i don't know if that's a justifiable excuse you're just like listen i i would or wouldn't have done that and no i was talking about yeah at the time it wasn't at the time but at the time like i said it was more wrong place wrong time and maybe you were going to get in trouble for it but i didn't think at the time i'm sure it did cause you a lot of grief but it wasn't something that i would have taken back now knowing it i was still would have posted the video but

but that was just like i said i think that was just chalked up to wrong place it's just bad luck on your part because it's never happened to me ever since i don't have a never had to me i mean i'm annoyed by that but i don't like i understand why even if you said now i would still post it i don't like it but that's your business model and fair enough um i know i mentioned this i'm going to ask you but like looking back now yeah would you have handled uh the demi and christian situation the same the reason i say this is because you essentially outed demi sexuality uh yeah you outed demi and that i know having talked to demi and i asked for her permission to talk about this um she was in paradise when you tweeted about it or said, I put a blog about it or something. And there was a big meeting between her and the producer saying,

this is out there. And she hadn't had a conversation with all the people in her family. And it was a devastating moment for her, um, of being a off the grid and, and taking this risk of like being willing to talk about it on national television without having talked to anyone. Now people want, if they want to listen to sit in debate, be like, well, why didn't she tell her family first? That's not really anyone's prerogative or how Demi

decides to kind of out herself about her sexuality. Would you have done things differently? And do you have any thoughts on that about um that maybe maybe you shouldn't have done that and would you do with that again and again a bigger picture of the responsibility you have as someone where do you draw the line between affecting someone's personal life and just simply saying well it's a spoiler yeah um because that one combined both if it's a spoiler. Yeah. Because that one combined both. If it's a spoiler of, hey, Nick got the first impression rose on Andy's season, that's just a spoiler. Yeah, like whatever.

Exactly. Yeah. This one happened to combine both. Here's what I'll say. Knowing now what I know, no, I wouldn't have. But at the time that I posted it there was no malicious intent behind it and i will say that i from the information that i was given and that i knew and that i had seen i thought people knew i thought her family knew because um but but but you that's what i'm saying

if i if i knew her family did not know if i knew her family did not know back then i probably i yeah i probably i probably would have i mean But my opinion was based on the fact that I had seen pictures that were posted on social media accounts of Demi with an ex-girlfriend before Christian. So, and then when… Posting a picture with a girl doesn't mean she's out with her family. You know what I'm saying? I know, but there wasn't like one. There were so many. I just assumed… Well, I like one. There were so many. I just assumed.

Well, I think you said assumed a couple times. Assumed. We know what assumed. I assumed her family knew. Yeah. I also knew that the other thing was I knew that Demi was seeing Christian before she ever went on Paradise. And people down in Paradise had already met Christian through Demi and knew that they were seeing each other. So to me, it was more of everybody seems to know, so why can't I report this?

That was the way I was thinking at the time. You're asking me, why did I report it? That's the why I reported it, because I knew that everyone down there was being, I guess they were putting on an act, pretending like when Demi walked down the stairs with Christian and said, hey, everybody, this is Christian. And they all had to pretend like they didn't know that they were together already before they even went down to paradise. Well, yeah. I mean, it was my whole thing was the issue of the whole thing, the way it was presented.

I didn't I thought I thought they were trying to pull the wool over the audience's eyes. And what I was doing was kind of what I always do, giving you the behind the scenes of, hey, this isn't new. Demi wasn't surprised that Christian showed up on the beach regardless of what she says. Well, that's kind of my point is that I get your business model. I get that's what you're attempting to do and maybe oftentimes harmlessly. But all your information, while maybe a lot of it accurate, is all coming from third-party perspective. Like, for example, you've never been on set.

You've never done that. You've never been there, right? And so what I'm saying is you were probably so caught up and, well, it's my job to do this. It's my job to report this. This is what my audience is expecting of me. So that blinded you from recognizing that this could really impact this person's life. And until I know for sure, I'm not going to, you know, say anything. And

again, you know, some of the other stuff i pointed out but yeah that and i will say and the reason i you know not to be too hard on you i know you've gotten better because recently and i don't like we're not going to name any names but you after you email me got a bit of information about sub one that you thought wasn't great and you reached out to me to reach out to this person to protect them and it could have been a very juicy story for you and i really appreciated you doing that um huge story but uh i think yeah it ended up kind of being nothing but that that's not really the point the point is you you seem to want to do your due diligence and you thought about the person before you thought about your website. And I did appreciate

that. So yeah, I just, why I wanted to challenge you on this stuff is because it seems like I hope that you are becoming more cognizant of that. And that sometimes proving that you're right versus the show. And that's, I'll never understand why you want to like, well, this was a setup or something. It's just like, well, if anyone thinks that Christian who was never on the show before, who shows up in paradise, if they didn't think that there were conversations with producers, we all know, we've talked about it enough. Alumni saying we have to take a psych test. We have to take a medical test. We have, you know, there's a, so Christian didn't show up without doing those things. We all know this, right? So what you were doing by saying, Hey, these were conversations, Christian and Demi might have

known each other. This was a preexisting relationship. In fact, when it aired, it was aired of saying, this was a-existing relationship demi went down there and said you know i thought about this and and i think about this person and that doesn't mean it was all staged and planned i've had like listen in paradise you know talk about paradise right people go down there you'd always say people are like should we date i want to go date and nowadays now now at times it's like it is set up. But you know, Jen and I had conversations. I had met Jen before I went on Paradise. I went on Paradise and I showed up. I said, Listen, I think Jen's coming. I don't know when she's coming. I've talked to Jen.

I want to meet Jen. I'll go on dates with other people before that. But just so you know, as soon as she shows up, I mean, I just let it be known i told everyone who asked i was like you're just i don't care what you think i'd planned or not what you're not going to call me as a liar right and my point is like who cares no one like this idea no one cares anymore about the plan and so as a result of you calling out what like people know anyways you outed demisexuality yeah i did and um it just i guess that was maybe because that was one of the first times where something like that really intersected with a major spoiler. If it was like Demi went on a date with a girl down there, it wouldn't have been a big

thing. But when I reported the ending to which couples ended up together at the end of Bachelor in Paradise season six, it just seemed weird to me to leave out oh by the way you're gonna see the first same-sex couple that this show was ever produced which i kind of looked at as while i thought it was the way it was handled wasn't great i saw what they were you know this this show could now throw their hat behind hey look at us we're pro lgbtq like and that's what they were that's what they were doing and they wanted that out there and if that's that's how they wanted

but again now now we're getting into me now we're getting into interpret it what you think the show's intentions were as a justification for doing it um i think i think there definitely was just because i mean i think the show's always trying to me was talking about it months in advance. That's the problem. She was saying she was going to bring her girlfriend on the show. So I want to hear where you eat. There's two answers. Were you totally wrong for doing it or were you?

Oh, was it justified? I feel like this is a black and white answer. And would you do it again? Black and white. I want to give you an opportunity to say the right thing. Gosh. Knowing what I know now, no, I wouldn't have done it. I would have waited.

Okay. Thanks for saying. I'm sure Demi will appreciate it. Just say you were wrong. Knowing what I know now thought i thought more people in her life were very well aware because before she ever went on colton season i knew she had been with women i don't think you're a malicious that's why i don't think you're a malicious guy and that's why i don't think you have it out to ruin people's life and that's kind of my point

is that sometimes uh you get caught up in your you know world as we all do and your motives and we have a way of justifying our actions by you know we convince ourselves that what we're doing is right and righteous and okay especially when you know we're criticizing other people's and sometimes that criticism is the same criticism other people can say about us is kind of my point. But I do think you've learned. I see what you're saying. And yeah, and nobody knows about, I mean, trust me, by you bringing that story up about what happened with us a couple months ago and me coming to you with that, people's now heads are going to spin and just going to be like, oh my God, what was it? And I'll never say anything. And it's nothing that's going to

ever get out there. But if it would have got out there it would have been huge it would have been huge for my site it would have been huge um major news every outlet would have covered it and it would have been embarrassing for this person involved uh because they didn't know it was happening so but we can agree that i found out about it you can well i think i'm glad you did the right thing we can agree that you don't necessarily deserve a pat on the back for doing the right thing even if you would have even if your website would have blown up i don't think any award should be you know given to reality steve for being like yeah yeah i was a human for a minute yeah but i also think yeah i but that one there's a but honestly think it was just a matter of if i if I ever told somebody about it like you or I just said.

So I'm just saying by saying, but like, had I done that, it would have been big for me and I didn't. So I'm a great guy. Oh, no, I'm not. No, I don't want to. I don't want to sound like that. No, let me let me ask you this in this because this is just as guy to guy. this is just as guy to guy, I've always taken the approach that

bachelors and even the contestants, not necessarily the lead itself, but the lead can be included, that you go on this show and you have 25 women that are handpicked by a casting agency and a bunch of producers to be on your season, mostly for a television show. They're not casting the 25

best possible fits to be Nick Vile's wife or fiance. They're casting a television show. They're not casting the 25 best possible fits to be Nick Viles' wife or fiance. They're casting a television show. We know this. So my whole thought has always been the lead thinks of the show, the male lead thinks of the show as, you know what? It'll be a good experience. It'll be fun. Probably make some lifelong friendships out of this. But if it doesn't work out with the girl, big deal. This is a show that's watched by 6 million people on any given week. There are so many more women that I could get if it doesn't work out with my girl,

then it doesn't matter to me, as opposed to the bachelorette lead that goes on the show. I don't think they look at it that way, that like, you know what, if it doesn't work out with so-and-so, God, I'm going to be such a hot commodity that a bunch of guys are going to slide into my DMs, which they're going to anyway. I've always just thought that the guys look at it a little bit differently. Like, you know what, if it doesn't work out, great. I was the lead on a television show for 11 weeks that was centered around me. My name is out there. My brand is out there right now. I could pretty much go on this show and i don't want to bring up your dating life in particular but i think there are women that we have seen in the

news with you that i don't think you would have been able to go on a date with if you weren't the lead of the bachelor that's my guess i could be wrong well maybe she was so enthralled by you by andy season listen to answer your question i don't have an answer for you i don't know i i didn't i haven't pulled all the bachelorettes there could be some truth to that in a sense of like, all I know is when they asked me to be the bachelorette, I was sick to my stomach at first because I was worried they wouldn't cast someone I was going to fall in love with. And it had nothing to do with-

Bachelor, not the bachelor. Oh, I'm sorry. The bachelor, sorry. Bachelor. And again, it's not to say I wasn't worried I would cast pretty women and nice women and cool women but a person i'd want to spend the rest of my life with it was because i wanted it to work out so much i really never got passed up what if it doesn't work out i mean sure like it's just common knowledge that if you're going to go

on and get some attention whether it's the being the bachelor or the bachelorette, you are going to get attention. Now that tension has both been a pain in the ass and has been positive. You know, it's been quite awesome. And when, as far as my daily life goes, it actually makes it harder to meet people sincerely than it does open doors by going out with someone in the public eye. But if you're asking me what every bachelor or bachelorette thought about why they, I don't think that much thought went into it before they said yes. It was just a surreal opportunity that they were like, you know, like the reason why I say I get sick to my stomach because I knew I was going to say yes to it. And I felt like I should say no.

And by no, I mean like, I just, I'm scared this is going to work out. And I knew the pressure, but of course I'm going to say yes it's the bachelor and i think that's why everyone says yes because it's a big deal you know and i don't know how i i don't so i can't interpret it every leads you know motives and and if a guy has thought to himself in the back of his mind well if it doesn't work out i mean i guess i i won't have a, you know, people being interested in me or having a general curiosity. Yeah, I mean, I haven't spoken to most past leads, male leads, but just looking over the male past leads, like someone like Ben Higgins, Sean Lowe, I think, just out of opinion, my own opinion, I think those guys were sincere. But you throw Juan Pablo at me or Chris Holes. Why didn't you say my name? To me, I think that those guys are just going you you throw a juan pablo at me why didn't you why don't you say my name to me i think that those guys are just going on to get laid chris

old that's the way i look at it yeah chris souls literally lives in the middle of nowhere if anyone should have been the bachelor based off of like this the show likes to pretend and it's kind of funny it's just like we need to have this guy be the Badger because he can't find love. If anyone who's ever been the Badger fit that profile, it was Chris Soles. He lives in the middle of fucking nowhere. So, like, yeah, I don't think Chris was, like, out there, like, slinging it. I know Chris. He's not, like, and this is not, like, a slight. He's not some, like, suave ladies man who's just, like who couldn't get enough of action,

and all of a sudden... Crushing the 200-person population around him. 200? Two. It's his mom and dad who still live two miles away. All right, one last thing I wanted to ask you, Steve, and this is more of a fun thing. Why do you care so much? Is it just like a spoiler thing in terms of when you like and i'm sure you will again like all these guys are just going on on claire season and i am sure you'll

get like 10 or 15 women have been like i was dating so and so and hanging out with so and so or i hooked up with so and so-so like a month or a week and i think you know my stance on that is like who the fuck cares listen uh what jed did was wrong i was as hard on him as you were uh he lied to a girl made her think that they were dating told her to wait for him uh etc etc that's not okay but then i remember like on on on hannah season reports came out about peter how he was dating some girl in like december or etc etc and she was like peter broke up with me to go on the bachelorette i'm just like this is the most non story i've ever seen because they broke up And you had a different opinion about that.

I'm curious as like why. Yeah. I think now I'm starting to change my tune on this one a little bit. Because of what Jed did, I think going forward now, I'm going to be looking for more along the lines of that. And it's not good. I don't care. I think now reporting from this point forward, I don't care if the guy slept with the girl and she took him to the airport to go film Claire's season.

Yeah. I mean, that would not be the coolest thing. It wouldn't be the coolest thing, no. But my thing now is, because Jed set the bar so high on... I think my biggest thing now is, if you were... Claire's season is an outlier because of what happened. This is the first time in 41 seasons now that we had a cast announced, and then they had to wait around for a month. So absolutely, 100%, if not every single one of these guys that makes Claire's final cast,

I know for a fact, I got to believe, I'm assuming here, but I got to believe they hooked up with somebody in the last four months and I wouldn't. I like how you corrected yourself. I know for a fact from, I got to believe. So I got to assume. You got to. Yeah, I got to believe. You're one of my biggest frustrations

with you Steve or sometimes you're like fact well I mean I strongly think this because I can't answer for 30 guys but I think it's safe to assume that yeah it's safe to assume that I think most of the Clears guys probably had some action in the last four months this is not because they're bad people or anything

it's like the world doesn't no one knows what's going on in the last four months. This is not because they're bad people or anything. It's like the world doesn't know. No one knows what's going on in the world at all right now, let alone tomorrow or next week. You saw Listen to Your Heart and Greatest of All Times. Every episode is, we're still looking for guys for Claire. These guys don't even know if they're going to go back

on. They don't know if they're going to get COVID. They don't even know if this season's happening. You can't expect these people to put their lives on hold yeah um and regardless of claire's season that's kind of the same every time i i didn't get the green light i got a call in november i i met casting in chicago in early december um then they flew me out in january and they didn't ask me to come on until like the last week of February. And I was always like, well, we'll let you know. We'll see. We still don't know. Meanwhile, you're still thinking, I don't even know if I'm going to say yes to this. This is

insane. And what you don't like, you don't like stop your life. If you meet, go out to the bars and meet a girl and like maybe hang out for a few days and maybe hook up and then you know that's the problem is like the show again bachelor nation include and i include you in this not even so much not even the show itself the the audience and and you're kind of like you're kind of the leader of like bachelor super fans of like you know and and they have this idea it's just like well you have the wrong reasons because like you had sex with someone two weeks before filming you were supposed to be like preparing your heart for love you know like meanwhile devoting yourself for the picture in your room in reality these people don't even know if they're going on the damn show or if

they'll say yes or or etc etc and it's like used against them and the court of public opinion is somehow they're just like sleazy people for like having a life and i i just never really understood why that was used against cast people yeah i think like i said i think i've kind of changed my tune on this i i i don't think i'm going to report any of them trust me i'm already hearing about claire's guys women have already come to me about claire's guys and i told them all the same thing look number one we don't even know if he's gonna make it on the show because he could get out there and test positive or he could get out there and end up being a backup and never make final cast but let's see how so let's

see so he's got to pass those two if he gets on the show let's see how far he lasts it might not even be relevant he might just be a background player this season but i'm looking now for basically jed wyatt are you a jet you have a girl yeah yeah if do you have a girl at home that you left who thinks they are in a monogamous relationship with you and that you were here for telling as you were landing in L.A., I will call you when I get there. I miss you. Wait for me.

As opposed to just a hookup. Yeah. That's what I'm looking at now. If it's a hookup, I'm sorry. It's just not important anymore to me. And I've probably just come to realize it. I always wondered why. There was a period of time where you kept referencing how many women in bachelor

nation i had sex with that you slept with first of all i remember you always say the number and i always remember like well that's not right it's less and i also remember thinking like who the fuck cares did i say a number you gave a number i don't remember what it was it's been a while but you said it as if like see he see, he's a bad guy. He has sex with people, some of which might have been on the show. Terrible person. I was just like, this was like a mutual dating experience. And so, like, what the fuck, man?

Like, what? Am I not allowed to go on dates? am I not allowed to like go on dates no I guess my thinking was at that time of what I told you earlier about bachelor leads like this is all had happened these are all women that I had heard you had been with

before you became the bachelor I was just like I think this guy is just going on to have a good time and sleep with more women that's the way I looked at it you say that's not the way you thought about being a chef who probably had a shared experience that could understand the point that you're coming from i don't know i'm saying thanks christy i think i think i was by the way nick i think i was right on my number i i think i was right you're telling me i'm i was right even though i'm telling you you weren't okay well

because i think i i'm not denying that i haven't hooked up with people outside of the time on the show. Yeah. But I don't even remember what you said. I don't remember being like, well, it's not that. It's less. But also, like, I'm not sorry. I'm also like, why do you have to justify it? No.

And you shouldn't be sorry. All I'm saying is that I think there are people that I know about that you don't know that I know about. That's all I'm saying. That has nothing to do with whether I about that you don't know that i know about that's all i'm saying that has nothing to do with whether i know i don't know who you know about i'm just i just know how many people i can tell you i don't know how many people reality steve has been with there you go i don't know yeah i don't know how many people you've been with steve i don't and if someone girl told me is like i've zero if i've some girls like i've had sex with steve i'd been like and i'm assuming you know i'd be like well i know someone you've had sex with and you don't know that i know um but yeah yeah like i said there was a there was a time where

you know i mean and honestly it you're writing you're writing very much a lot of what you said about this thing that I had out for you and it really is kind of hard to explain looking back on it now why it was what it was out for you. Yeah, but and honestly like in the last, I don't know two years, I don't you know, basically ever since you got off dance with the stars. I don't think I talk about you very much at all because there's really unless you have a great guest on and i talk about something for for closing i'm assuming ever since you started having your podcast and having alumni on your podcast and i think you mentioned olivia but it sounds like you've

gotten to know some of us on a personal level and we became people to you rather than people who went on the show that you and sounds like internally they're like well they went on the show and they asked for it because that whole thing of like well you went on the show and so your fair game and it sounds like you became a little bit more sensitive to yeah like we were stupid people who said yes to a crazy experience having no idea what we were getting into and and uh and that's it and we were just yeah and that was it we didn't have like malicious intentions it's funny there there was one time in paradise and you may get a kick out of this steve that you know again we all have talked about you out of like kind of like why

does he don't like look we're all afraid about nothing you know like it would be as if like bachelor nation casted a bunch of criminals and we're just afraid that people are going to find out about all the shit we've done well none of us affecting like i'm not trying to sound like a jerk here and no offense to you steve thank you for coming in for your time however i am just because this person is clearly affecting people's lives in general, like on a regular basis, like your actual lives at home. It's not just about the show. It's like, we know what we should do. I forgot who said this, but it was someone was like, they were serious too. They wanted to hire a private eye to follow you around and just like record your life so that when you would like report on us,

we would just report right back on you, you know, because we just felt like we just walk the street. But here's a picture of Nick eating at Chipotle and stuffing his face with a bunch of guacamole. And then you're going to be like, here's Steve at the guacamole burrito. Here's Steve, also at Chipotle. And we'll just be like, leave us alone. Well, yeah, I've just kind of become this de facto authority on the show to where, like you said, people come to me.

And obviously the credibility I've built up over the years of just having the right spoilers, whether it's spoilers or behind-the-scenes stuff, obviously people come to me for info. And for the longest time, it was more, I've got to produce info rather than I've got to produce the right info. And there was absolutely a time where I got too big for my britches. It sounds like you felt a sense of responsibility. Pressure. Pressure. And then you told yourself, well, that's what I have to do. And justified doing it as a result of that.

Again, I really appreciate you coming on and having this conversation because I do – Because you don't think he's malicious. I don't, and I think you have grown. And I do – it's nice to – listen, this podcast is all about growth. This podcast is all about saying I've been wrong before and I see the bigger picture. We're not here to chastise anyone.

I've, you know, I mean, on a weekly basis, when we have a guest on, I acknowledge things I've thought before or learned. So I do appreciate you coming on. So to me, this has really been a fun conversation

to have and to share some light and i think going forward i feel like you will give cast members more of a benefit of the doubt and maybe even the show a little bit um you know especially the frontline producers that they're not the monsters and just because something's in this outdated contract doesn't mean that they're like doing evil shit. And just because someone feels wronged after going on the show, you know, sometimes it might be justified. It also might be their own personal frustration with how their experience played out.

I'd probably just leave it to the cast members. Yeah, I'll probably ease up on the cast members. I don't know. Maybe I wasn't going to go that far. As a producer, get up on the cast members i don't know maybe i wasn't gonna go that far but as a producer on the producers yeah yeah i'll just leave the cast members uh yeah but no i this has been this has been a lot of fun and obviously it's been a long time coming people for years have been telling me you gotta have nick on your podcast and that's why i reached out to you and uh i think it was january and and you know January. And you didn't say fuck off.

And you were just like exactly what you said at the beginning of the podcast. Like, look, I need to think this over. I need to think this is a smart thing to do. And if anything, maybe you come on mine, which I didn't have a problem with. I just thought you and I should probably get together at some point, whether it be on any platform. And if it wasn't on a podcast before COVID hit, I was going to be out in LA and there was a talk of, hey, hit you up when I was out in LA. Yeah, it would have been more fun to do in person.

Just talk privately. Yeah. Yeah. Privately. So, but yeah, this has been fun. Anything you want to plug, Steve, before we let you go? I do want to say that for everyone asking me about Claire's season and where we're at, and look, like you have said, we don't even know where we are in this world. They are going to do their best.

Hey, I'm going to give them credit here. Let's just turn up. Everyone, special report. Yeah, I'm actually going to give the show credit here for something. This is one of the first shows and movies that's going back into production. They are all in Palm Springs right now, starting to film Claire's season. As we know, it's going to be in one location the whole season. I will say this, even though we are in COVID times and it's very hard to know what the

hell is going on, this show is going to take, you know, the only thing that's risk-free is to never leave your home, which clearly isn't going to happen. But they are taking every possible precaution to make sure Claire's season goes off without a hitch. They are definitely thinking of the contestants and the crew before they think of, oh, let's get another season on the air. I'm hearing they're going to be testing cast and crew

every third day throughout the whole season of a COVID test. So this show is not just, and I understand everyone's like California, it's one of the highest, you know, they're getting more positive tests every day. They're setting records. Yes, but when you think about it, and Nick being a sports fan, I know you know this, you talk about the NBA bubble.

It's almost like this bubble aspect is kind of one of the more safe places you can be, assuming everybody tests negative. Once the guys land, they're testing, then they're quarantined for a week, and they're going to test two more times during that quarantine. So you're going to have to have three negative tests before you even start filming the show. They're going to do their thing. And that being said, who knows? Who knows if they still get through it?

And if they have to pull the plug, they will do the right thing i have no no doubt uh and again that's not to say the show hasn't made mistakes and and people everyone's human um yeah where can people find you steve on social media yeah uh it's at Reality Steve on Twitter and at Reality Steve on Instagram as well. And then my website, RealitySteve.com. And what else is there? Oh, and then my podcast, the Reality Steve podcast. It's really not a lot of a change in name in any of those. So yeah, but that's where we're at on all those socials.

Steve, I really appreciate you coming on. This has been a lot of fun. I'm sure the people listening will get a kick out of it. Wow. Like I said, that was, that was something. It was something. I, again, I want to thank Steve for coming. As I've mentioned, listen, this podcast is about having conversations sometimes with thoughts, ideas, and people that you might have disagreements with and a willingness to talk about it, a willingness to look back, acknowledge maybe things we've gotten wrong, recognize how we can improve, and then maybe

change it in the future. And grow. And grow. So I do appreciate Steve coming on and, you know, owning up to some of the things that I asked him about. But like I said, that's generally been my frustration. I know we talked, we kind of got in the weeds in the episode about like Steve pointing out things about the franchise and me saying, well, yeah, I might have had my frustrations, but that your argument doesn't make sense. But the bigger picture was, you know, when you, for me, it's just like, I listen back and here is Steve admitting that he released a video of me having what I thought was an innocent and granted in public, but private conversation that he released the world knowing

and acknowledging that I could have been sued. Information about Jenna, knowing that he broke the relationship up. And I can only assume for a year and a half that really affected her life. Outing demisexuality for two or three years, having a biased agenda against me, which for me, my frustration is too, like Steve talked a lot about,

again, the show misrepresenting people. to hear steve say hey listen yeah there were information i got about you that was negative i put out there when i got positive information i left alone and i'm thinking the choice the show that's a choice and the show again it's once again have my frustrations but people acknowledge the edit you know feel like oh well it's also i won't judge i won't judge you based off the edit but steve for the past you know for a good three years was trying to paint a picture of who i was as a person my credibility my character while blaming the way you were portrayed on the show as a reason to be able to do that and his audience who he see who want to see him as a credible source for the character of the people who go on the show, that's when I say, you've affected my life more than the show.

That's why. Yeah. towards his own confirmation bias about deciding who he thought I was as a person based off of people he talked to and deciding to dismiss probably more credible sources, people who actually knew who I was as a person and put that out to the world, which affected my life. And to me, it's just ridiculous for reality Steve to be so adamant about the character and the decisions of the show and the producers when again,

he's been just as guilty. But like I said, I, I, I think he started starting to see that. I almost feel like he started to see that a little bit more in this conversation and we'll see how he, we'll see how he handles his website going forward. Yeah.

I just found it so ridiculous. That's fair. It's fair. It's ridiculous. There was a couple of times you were just like huffing and puffing. I was just huffing and puffing. Trying to hold back. Because I am a producer.

I've been a producer for over a decade. And so I do hear that side of it. But his argument was just constantly like, well, they misrepresent you. So I'm basically putting out all this information about all these people based on what I'm seeing, which is being misrepresented. Well, then if your problem is with them misrepresenting them, then why wouldn't you find the real people who have the real information to be credible to do the opposite of what you're complaining about that was been my frustration is i think again we talked a lot steve's convinced himself throughout the years of him being right i don't think that when steve was putting this information out he thought he was

painting an inaccurate picture i think he believed his own bullshit. I think now looking back, he acknowledges that maybe he had some bias and I appreciate him saying that. And almost the pressure of having to put something out was more important than it being accurate. One thing, you know, I forgot to ask him a question. I'm going to throw it out there because Steve mentioned he's going to give his thoughts

on this episode on his podcast. So, you know, plug, you know, go listen to Steve's podcast. But the question I never asked him is like he again he's critical of the show itself sometimes he seems to even get off by an episode or a series not getting ratings and i'm thinking why are you so intimate about biting the hand that feeds you i i don't understand question the only thing the bachelor franchise has ever done to reality, Steve, is make him money. Yeah. Why do you want to put the demise of something that's like literally... I know he's like playing the counter argument.

I understand that. And I'm sure he'll probably say that he's covered Big Brother, I bet. And I bet he... Survivor, I think. I'm sure he's done these other things. And now with Love is Blind and Too Hot to Handle handle i'm guessing he's probably uh covered that but i'm also guessing maybe i'm wrong that his traffic on his website significantly has a bump with anything batch related and so if that show were to be off the air or if he was to take it

down i gotta assume that it would affect his bottom line. Yeah. But who knows? I don't. I'm honest. I am honestly curious about that. But anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed it. He had so many thoughts. Well, it's been something. Don't forget tomorrow to tune in to Chris Kattan, our episode with the very talented, legendary SNL actor, Chris Kattan, my friend. And if you're looking for something light and fun and funny in these times, what a perfect episode for you to tune into.

And again, for those new to this show, because you wanted to hear reality, Steve and I go at it. Make sure to subscribe. Check us out on Mondays for our Ask Nick episodes where we give relationship advice and people share their stories. And on Wednesdays, we have thought-provoking people, actors, talent, experts for just enlightening conversations and discussions. So thanks for tuning in. As always, thank you, Realize Steve, for coming on. And until next time, have a great day.