Catch up on our Bachelor recap here!
The Bachelor premiered Monday night, and boy, is this season going to be something. I didn’t say it would definitely be “something” good or bad, just “something.” The first episode’s ratings were a record low, which I guess could be interpreted as an indication that people want to watch Bachelors who have been relevant in the last five years? Wow, so crazy. Anyway, a “source” close to Arie Luyendyk Jr. did an interview with UsWeekly following the season premiere, and basically, Arie is just as enthusiastic about being the Bachelor as we all are. So… tell me again why we went with this ghost of Bachelors past? I’ll wait.
The “source” told UsWeekly, “He would be happy to have done this and not televise it.” UsWeekly frames that in a, “Look at Arie! He’s here for the right reasons!” kind of way, but I read this in more of a, “WTF is he even doing here then?” type of way. I mean, really. The source adds, “He’s an old school Bachelor. He wanted to get in, find his soul mate and go back to his old life.” Hmm, if only there were other, non-televised ways of meeting your potential soulmate. Like, I don’t know, a matchmaker, or even joining fucking Raya. Finally, this source asserts that Arie “has no interest in being famous.” Sir, that is just not how it works. If you have no interest in being famous, you don’t go on one of the most popular reality TV shows ever. Come on, bro. This is 20178. Don’t act like going on The Bachelor is your only method of finding love left in this world. Because if it is, what does that say for me, a non-Instagram model who’s camera-shy? I don’t even want to think about it.
For what it’s worth, I will say that I don’t completely hate Arie as the Bachelor. Like, he’s not smooth at all, and I kind of like that about him. He seems—dare I say—real. I could do without the constant assertions from the contestants (probably at gunpoint) that he’s “soo hot”, and he’s no Kenny King (Kenny, if you’re reading this, DM me), but I’m not not into it. I know. I’m a totally new person in 2018.
Did you know we have a podcast dedicated to all things The Bachelor? Listen to The Betchelor podcast here!
Bachelor fans, brace yourselves, because there’s trouble in paradise. Nick and Vanessa are (reportedly) already fighting. Who’s surprised to hear that? Oh right, none of us. The reason may surprise you, though (or it may have if I hadn’t just written it in the headline, oops): Vanessa’s struggling with Nick being more famous than her.
A fame-hungry acquaintance “exclusive source” told UsWeekly that Vanessa is having a hard time with Nick being on Dancing With The Stars. “Vanessa’s not used to the attention being mostly on Nick,” the source says, which is pretty funny considering Vanessa met Nick while COMPETING ON THE SHOW HE WAS THE STAR OF. Like, huh? Nick was ALWAYS the center of attention, or did you miss the part where 30 other girls were making out with your boyfriend?
The article doesn’t really go into much more detail than that, probably because a whopping 0% of this is true, but I can easily picture this happening for real. Let’s not forget that Vanessa was trying to be an actress since 2010 before finally landing her biggest role of acting like she can stand Nick Viall. This is the girl who forced had her special needs kids to take time out of their busy day full of learning to make a scrapbook for some dude she had known for like, two weeks. Because these kids didn’t have anything more important to do, like prepare for their futures or anything. All that is to say, Vanessa clearly thrives on attention. Like, I don’t think we actually saw her eating that much on camera—unlike Corinne and her cheese—so it’s possible she just subsists on references to Canada and attention. Look, I mean, no one’s disproved this theory. So.
And now I’d like to take this moment to bring to your attention the way UsWeekly captioned a photo of Nick and Vanessa:
In case you don’t have your reading glasses on, that says “TV personality Vanessa Grimaldi and dancer Nick Viall attend the ‘Dancing with the Stars’ season 24 premiere” and a bunch of other shit you don’t care about.
“TV personality” is a strong way to describe someone who went on a couple of dates on camera—I would consider Ryan Seacrest more of a true “TV personlity”—but like, sure. I’ll allow it. But “dancer”? Calling Nick a dancer is like calling me a rapper. Like, yes, it’s something I have done in front of a camera when someone Snapchatted me doing “Fuckin’ Problems” at karaoke (crushed it BTW), but to imply that it is my profession is seriously misguided.
So yeah anyway, I imagine the conversation between Nick and Vanessa went something like this:
Vanessa: You’re never around because you’re always off filming shitty spinoffs. What’s a girl gotta do to get some attention around here, puke on you again?
Nick:
And scene. Anyway, Vaness (can I call you Vaness?), I know how you can get all the attention back on you. It’s pretty simple, actually: you plan a wedding. That way you can command the attentions of your family, friends, and the tabloid news cycle for the entire year and a half it takes to plan the wedding. It worked for Katie Maloney; it can work for you too.
