← The Viall Files
The Viall Files
E1098 - The Bachelorette is Cancelled, Taylor Frankie Paul, and Age of Attraction's Leah and Vanessa
01:55:09
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- [00:00]
Nick
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- [01:21]
Susie Evans
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- [02:44]
Nick
Just a reminder that Vi Files plus is ad free. So you get all your favorite Vi Files episodes ad free if you want them on Vi Files Plus. In addition, we got some amazing content like our Deep Dives, where we dive deep onto your favorite reality TV shows and topics. Obviously, we'll be diving deep into all things Bachelorette cancellation, Age of Attraction, all your favorite Bravo shows, as well as your Pop Extra where we dive into your favorite pop culture topics and maybe get into Chapel Roan. What's going on?
- [03:10]
Unidentified Female Cast Member
Chapel Roan, Club Shalom.
- [03:12]
Nick
What's going on with Chapel? I don't know. Lots to dive into. And we have our update specials where you get your updates on your favorite Ask Nick calls, all available and more. So just go to vilefiles.com to sign up.
- [03:24]
Unidentified Female Cast Member
Crazy.
- [03:35]
Nick
What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Vile Files Reality Recap Edition. I'm your host, Nick, joined by my wonderful wife and the household is with us. It's also Mary's birthday. It's her 25th birthday.
- [03:48]
Unidentified Female Cast Member
Thank you.
- [03:48]
Nick
She's very sad about it. The 25th is a tough one.
- [03:51]
Unidentified Female Cast Member
You know, honestly, I feel pretty good about it. I feel, I feel 25.
- [03:56]
Leah
I feel.
- [03:56]
Unidentified Female Cast Member
I feel maybe like, dare I say a little bit of an adult.
- [04:00]
Emily Longeretta
I don't know.
- [04:01]
Susie Evans
Congrats.
- [04:03]
Emily Longeretta
Yeah.
- [04:03]
Vanessa
Yeah.
- [04:04]
Nick
Well, we're just going to dive right into it. Hard to say we have a great episode, but I'm really, really grateful for the people we have present here because we are obviously going to talk about the cancellation of the Bachelorette, the entire Take Taylor, Frankie Paul incident. There's obviously a lot of nuance. And now that the dust has somewhat settled, I think this is a story that is truly just beginning and there's going to be more and more, more information coming out. But now that we know that the show is canceled, there was no premiere less over the weekend. Now we're getting into a lot of people having a lot of questions about how did this happen in the first place? Who are the key players? How did we get to this point? That is obviously very sad. It's very dark. And I'm very grateful to have both Emily D. Baker, Former Deputy District Attorney for LA county in LA county in
- [04:53]
Emily D. Baker
LA County Former Deputy District Attorney in LA County 4 makes me sound elected. I never wanted to be a boss of anything.
- [05:00]
Nick
But she is someone we often bring on to help us tackle legal questions of which this obviously this story and the situation has a lot of we also have Emily Longeretta joining us from Variety, who is a very seasoned entertainment journalist who we've had on before, who has covered the Bachelor franchise for how many years now?
- [05:19]
Emily Longeretta
How many years? I mean, over a decade for sure.
- [05:21]
Nick
So very grateful to have both these women here. We also have Susie Evans of Bachelor Nation as part of the household. And so our goal here today is to tackle a lot of these questions and have a nuanced conversation about how this all happened. Where do we go from here? What is the fallout? And really try to answer a lot of the questions and add context to a lot of conversations we're seeing going out there. But I think this is a group that brings a lot of experience and expertise in terms of how this all happened and what's going on that we will all dive into. So just grateful to have you with us and really glad we're going to be able to have this conversation together. I want to start by just saying I hope that it's the obvious that this is a terrible situation for everyone involved. And I know, you know, for all of us who have covered rally tv, there's been dark moments in reality TV with shows before. You know, there's been scary situations for people. This is a whole different animal. Lives are being ruined right now. Families are being torn apart. You know, careers are being ended. We don't even know how this is falling out. This is industry changing. This will have ripple effects for years to come. Wellness calls are being made right now. So I understand right now people are very interested and fascinated by the story. But like, you know, everyone jumping to the Internet, you know, when, you know, I guess all I'm saying is before you have your next hot take, where you want to jump on your phone and knowing that it's going to go viral and people are going to engage with it. Just, just remember that, like right now, there are people's lives being ruined. And it's a very scary situation for everyone involved. Children are involved, Children are involved. Again, families are being torn apart. And regardless of how you want to point fingers, there's a lot of victims in this story. I think the best place to start is this video. Last week, a video of this 2023 situation came out that I think for everyone. I think the safe was horrified by it. It is a very disturbing video.
- [07:21]
Susie Evans
As someone who was previously in a three year long abusive relationship and who is now a mother, I could barely even get through that video. It was so hard to watch. It was very triggering. I feel like I had like a rush of ptsd. It was, it was just very disturbing and incredibly hard to watch. I just have to say that I have to get that off my chest.
- [07:45]
Nick
Yeah. And I think it's just, again, it's incredibly dark. And the biggest question I hear, see right now on the Internet, is how did Taylor Frankie Paul ever get casted as the Bachelorette? The big question is how did the secret lives of Mormon lives ever get greenlit? Because again, this video is as horrifying as it is and happened in 2023. And what people I don't think realize is that they were in the middle of filming the pilot for Secret Lives of Mormon Wives when this incident happened.
- [08:15]
Emily Longeretta
Yeah, I mean, I think it's. I think what's so interesting is I rewatched the pilot last night because I, I thought the same thing. I thought, you know, we've seen, we saw a little bit of this. We saw a portion of this because the body cam footage of her arrest was in the pilot. And it was really intense. And she was very. I mean, and she's talked about it, she's under the influence and she was like completely distraught. And we don't know what led up to that. There were reports that he locked her in a garage, whatever it was. That led up to what we now have seen three years later. But then the show had to pause for 11 months. So over those 11 months, when she came back, she was pregnant with. With ever. And. But during those months that they paused, they. There was a police report, there was all of this stuff, all these details were on paper while, while the video wasn't out there, from what we know.
- [09:01]
Emily D. Baker
Right.
- [09:02]
Emily Longeretta
It was because there was a minor involved. So. But there was all of the paperwork and the report. So the Producers saw that when they continued.
- [09:10]
Nick
And that's kind of my question. I'm curious from you, Emily. You know, you probably have more insight than I even do. I think as fans of these shows, I think there's just a level of trust we put into the people greenlining these shows that they are doing their due diligence. And the fact that this incident happened while they were filming the pilot, to me says all the key players in the made main decision makers. It wasn't like they found out an incident happened in the past that they should look into. It was happening in real time, which means they had access to Taylor, they had access to Dakota. They must have been hearing rumors about what actually went down. And like, then that begs the question of who asked what and what due diligence, if any, did they go in and do. And it's my understanding that, like, to get this, to get cameras picked back up, there has to be some kind of clearance from legal.
- [10:02]
Emily Longeretta
Absolutely. Yeah.
- [10:03]
Nick
And what did that look like? Emily Baker, I'd love your perspective, but, you know, it sounds like, again, Emily. Yeah, two Emily's problems. But again, like you mentioned, Emily Langaretta, Varieties. Emily. That there was a child involved. So it looks like these court cases were sealed, but we're now hearing rumors that Taylor's first husband had been trying to allegedly track down this video and get access to it, because apparently he had heard about the seriousness of this situation and when was unable, apparently, to
- [10:34]
Emily Longeretta
get that with his daughter in.
- [10:36]
Nick
With his daughter involved. It was his daughter who was in this situation. So that suggests that people knew something. Right? We. We know that there's one person we know for sure knew this video existed, and that was Dakota.
- [10:51]
Emily Longeretta
He filmed it.
- [10:51]
Nick
He filmed it.
- [10:52]
Emily Longeretta
Yes.
- [10:52]
Nick
You know, he. He owns the ip. So I'm. I am curious, Emily, can you just kind of walk us through, just so people understand, because I think right now one of the main questions is, is how did TMZ get this video? Did they buy it from someone? A lot of people are speculating, oh, no, they didn't have to get it from Dakota. They could have got it from the court case. Can you give us your insight from a legal perspective of what are the most likely scenarios of how this video three days before the launch of the Bachelorette. And I think that's something that people need to acknowledge is the timing of this all. How did this potentially happen?
- [11:27]
Emily D. Baker
There's a lot of background there in the court docket, because the entire court docket in the criminal underlying case that Taylor, Frankie Paul is still on probation for. For her plea in abeyance, which means she pled guilty to a felony to have other charges dismissed. They hold the charge. So it's not on her record yet until she successfully completes probation. It's like a diversion program, but that's not done until August of 2026. But when this was all filed back in February 2023, the information was not sealed. So the description and the information includes that the officer watched the video and describes what was seen in the video. So from the earliest stages of this case, in the public court records, it says the video exists in that filing information. So I can't imagine that anyone grabbing the court records didn't know a video existed because it's detailed there. It's detailed in the probable cause affidavit, it's detailed in the police reports. And Dakota was filming. I can't imagine production wouldn't have said, can you show us what this is now? For it to become public is a whole second matter because the court does not have that video. There was never a hearing or a time when that would have been checked into evidence and given to the court. The court does not have it. The court would not have had it. There was no preliminary hearing or other evidentiary based hearing because she took that plea. That leaves Dakota, the DA's office, and the police. The police can't release a video with a minor of a DV incident under a public Records request act. And in Utah, they're called grandma requests. But the police can't release that because there's a minor and because it's a DV incident. And if they had, Taylor could have gotten it taken down and probably should sue the police department for improperly releasing it with her child. Or her ex could sue the police department because that is also his child and get it taken down. That leaves the DA's office, who doesn't respond to public records requests, they send it back to the police department, which leaves the person who filmed the video. Also, it's notable to me that TMZ watermarked it. We learned a ton about this in depth. V Heard more than I had ever known because an employee from TMZ testified about how TMZ does this. They have to have copyright clearance. They don't need copyright clearance on the body cam, which is why the body cam is not watermarked, but they watermarked it, asserting ownership over it, which means the rights holder had to either relinquish or sell copyright to it. And that's the person that took the video. I can't see other possibilities of how TMZ got that video and got copyrights in it.
- [14:19]
Leah
Wow.
- [14:20]
Nick
So just. I think. I think you're already very clear. But just to summarize, the IP owner of this video is Dakota, and the only way TMZ can watermark this video is if he gives Team TMZ permission to do so.
- [14:34]
Emily D. Baker
Yes. I can't see any other possibility, especially because in the surrounding action, we have not seen anyone going after the police department. We have not seen anyone talking about the police department releasing this improperly. It could not come from court. TMZ very carefully sidestepped that this was evidence in court. It was as it was described, but it was never admitted evidence that has a docket number in court. So they very carefully parsed where it came from. Also, the same day that TMZ had access to the video, they had access to the sealed records in the protective order case that Dakota filed. So the only way they're getting those sealed docket items is to have them either from the attorneys or from the party. And Dakota was the one filing those. So they have records that are sealed in the protective order case, and they have a video that was not in the possession of anyone but the police and Dakota. And even if Dakota gave it to a friend, they would still have to clear copyright on it.
- [15:44]
Emily Longeretta
So that was my question. That was my question, because some people have been saying, like, could Dakota have sent it to someone and then they sent it in? But even if someone else sent it in, they would have had to have clearance from Dakota.
- [15:55]
Nick
Yeah. And even if he sent it to someone, what are his intentions of why he's sending it to whoever he's sending it to? And I think you, you know, I think the big overall covering the story is who in Taylor, Frankie Paul's immediate circle, her friends, family, the people she was working with on a daily basis, who knew what, when. And I think those are a lot of questions that are going to be start being raised more and more. Back to you, Emily Langaretta. I'm curious again. You've talked to a lot of executives, and I'm shocked as someone who knows how these shows are made and the length is. To which I talked to a lot of former Bachelor producers over the weekend, and we'll get into, you know, what did and didn't happen once Taylor was named the Bachelorette. But I was reminded multiple times from a lot of different producers that you couldn't get on the Bachelor franchise if you had an unpaid parking ticket. Back in the day, and this is not because of the Bachelor franchise, is some sort of elitist group of people. They did this to protect cast.
- [16:59]
Emily Longeretta
Absolutely.
- [17:00]
Nick
When they were doing background checks and they would ask you questions like, does anyone have any compromising videos, nudes, or things like that that might exist. They weren't asking you for content to try to set you up in a scene that they're going to film. They wanted to know, because the people back in the day who made these shows understood the type of scrutiny and attention all of its cast was about to receive. They knew, like, the intensity of this fan base and how they would look into our past and just find anything they could to make content. And so the reason they were so careful about who they would cast is to protect its cast. Like, there is, you know, for all the conversations that go out there about the relationship between producer and cast and the evil producers, I mean, again, like, there is a huge. You know, I've been around enough for reality TV to know that there is a huge spectrum of how reality TV is made. The standards that they have in. In terms of individual producers. There's a spectrum of each producer's kind of bandwidth for, like, what they're willing to do for the sake of great tv. And for the most part, again, a lot, they're not as evil as they. Their reputation is. And they also. They. They are trying to find that balance to put into context how serious the situation is. If you remember. If you followed Bachelor Nation, you remember not too long ago, Ari, right? That was a very dark situation where here is a man who, at the last minute, afr. Changed his mind. All he did was realize after nine weeks, he might have liked his runner up more and agreed to film breaking up with Becca to set up Becca as the Bachelorette. And even though he did the franchise a favor, they screwed him, Right? They made him look terrible. And he. For a few days, it got really dark. He was the most hated man in America. And I remember talking to a producer at the time and kind of just being like, yo, like this. This is a lot. And their response was, he's going to be just fine. And the truth is, you can debate the merits of that, but the truth is, Ari is living his best life today. He's been on Traders. He's done a bunch of tv. The reality is, is the thing he was getting heat for was, in reality, nothing. People are allowed to change their mind. But in the TV Bachelor world, they made it into something huge. This is a situation where something illegal is happening. Some very dark and scary things are happening. We're talking about someone who clearly is struggling with their mental health. When we had the opportunity of having Taylor on the show and she talked about this situation, and if you go back and you watch that interview, it's not like she told a different story, right? She told.
- [19:41]
Emily Longeretta
Essentially, she's been very honest about what happened.
- [19:44]
Nick
And she was on our couch. You know, you, you, you felt her pain in the room. You felt her sadness and her regret. And that in no way that was. It's a disgusting video. It's a horrifying video. This is a very serious thing. This is not some reality TV drama that we've all can have fun with because, like, it's gotten a little heavy. But the end of the day, all the people involved are going to be just fine and living their best lives again. Lives are being ruined right now. Emily Longarada, do you have any, like, insight into, like, why Secret Lives was greenlit and why they chose to make the main storyline, this very arrest, this domestic situation where children were involved? Why. Why were they so willing to lead with that and center Secret Lives of Mormon Wives essentially started as a story about forgiveness. Should this person be allowed a second chance? And as humans and we watch reality tv, we want to believe that second chances are a real thing. We want to believe that we can make mistakes. Obviously not something as horrific as this, but that's the premise. And then season one kind of opens up like Taylor, Frankie, Paul talking to the other women, talking about her regret and her mistake. And then we all as fans kind of accepted that and then focused on all of Taylor's good qualities and we all became fans of her 100%.
- [21:05]
Emily Longeretta
I think it's exactly what you were just saying. It started as, you know, she became. She was so TikTok famous and she had this swinging scandal that they were like, this makes a great for great tv. Let's have her talk about this. And that's the difference between talking a scandal that can make a great TV show and a scandal that's breaking families apart. Granted, that also caused a divorce. So I'm not saying that didn't do that, but it is very different when there's children involved. So I think that they saw this as a, this is gonna be great tv. And then once that happened in the first episode, they obviously did take a pause for 11 months before they even picked up filming again. But they realized their priority at that time was ratings and was they saw success in numbers. And ultimately, as you know, from any producer, Their main job is to get people to watch tv. So it's walking that line of what is appropriate to use as a storyline and as a twist and as the most dramatic season ever and what's ruining lives. And we can't give this a platform.
- [22:04]
Nick
I'm curious, Emily Baker, I imagine in your experience as a lawyer, you've covered cases where video evidence wasn't available and you got testimony and you had people's stories kind of like from as fans, how we, how we all received this information about the original domestic dispute. And I'm just curious from your perspective, Emily, I imagine you know what it's like when video doesn't exist and then it does. And even though you can hear the same story, how seeing the context and the energy in this video and the darkness can completely change people's perspective on what we're hearing or seeing.
- [22:44]
Emily D. Baker
I think there's two sides to that because the district attorneys who would have read this case, who have done plenty of cases before, would understand what that means in writing. I think that the general public shouldn't be exposed to that as much as attorneys working in the criminal system are. And so it is a very different and much more visceral reaction to seeing it on video. But it's also why when you look at high profile trials, if there are videos, if there are audio, if there are recorded phone calls, they try to play that for the jury to bring them into exactly what's happening. There's a reason they say a picture's worth a thousand words, a video even more so because it is much more visceral. Words on a page do not convey to everyone the same thing that a video is going to. And this video is incredibly visceral for people and triggering and difficult to watch. And the fact that it was in existence for three years and, and just became part of the public discussion around this case because there are now, it seems, incidents being investigated.
- [23:54]
Vanessa
It.
- [23:54]
Emily D. Baker
The timing to me raises a lot of eyebrows and how close it was raises eyebrows. But I also have a lot of eyebrows for ABC because I, I can't imagine and please, I have way less experience in reality TV than I do in criminal law. But wouldn't production, if they're filming with Dakota, have asked to see this video because they knew it existed in all the documents? So wouldn't they have all known what was out there even though the public hadn't seen it?
- [24:22]
Nick
I think that's what we're all shocked by. Again, like, in my experience, I'm just shocked that this didn't happen again. I have too many experiences with and have heard too many stories of, of far less serious situations happening where people chances were taken away from them. I mean, we all remember. Do you remember Peter Krause?
- [24:44]
Unidentified Male Caller
Of course.
- [24:45]
Nick
Right. If you don't remember, he was about to be named the Bachelor. GMA made an announcement. Tomorrow we're announcing our next Bachelor. It was set up, they promoted it and then all of a sudden they were like, we're no longer naming our next Bachelor. And I don't know what happened, but my understanding calls were made, information was discovered and at the 11th hour before they are going to announce it, they didn't. Now again, I don't know why. I know of another situation that not too long ago someone was going to be named the next lead. And there were rumors started circulating about some stuff in this person's past. And I actually got a call. What? Have you heard anything about this situation? I said I don't, but I know someone who knows someone who I think might be involved. And I connected the dots. A phone call was made and that person was never made the lead. And again, it was like they double clicked on their due diligence just to make sure before we move forward and make this person the lead of our show and all these people who have again, there's hundreds of people whose jobs are on the line. You know, it's an entire franchise. Hundreds of people are involved whose lives will forever be different. And there's such a responsibility that goes into making these shows and the ripple effects of who it affects, which is to why they historically do this due diligence and the fact that like they
- [26:13]
Emily Longeretta
just didn't or they didn't. They just ignored it.
- [26:15]
Nick
Yeah.
- [26:16]
Emily D. Baker
The question is like on that, did
- [26:19]
Nick
they know the video existed? Did they see the video and ignore it? Did they just not want to know?
- [26:24]
Emily Longeretta
Yeah.
- [26:25]
Nick
About the video.
- [26:26]
Emily Longeretta
They would had to have known it was it existed because even the women of Mormon wives, I believe had said in. I think NBC News put out a report last week that was. They did a call with right before the premiere of Bachelorette was set. Some of the, some of the cast spoke to ABC execs and they raised concerns with the new case that is happening right now with Taylor and Dakota. I believe they said we've seen things on video, whether that's that video, whether it's a different video, whatever it is. But a source had told me last week that they were were unaware a video existed and that they had never seen anything until the TMZ story came up. So whether or not. But it doesn't seem they were unaware. It just more seems that they hadn't seen it.
- [27:07]
Nick
And then like, again, back to. We know Dakota knew the video existed. And this is. He's also someone who was a star of the show who chose to keep quiet. You know, like, why wasn't this video. We've heard reports that, you know, even Dakota tried to warn people, okay, if that's true, did he show this video? Did he not show this video? Why did he hang on to this video until this very time? And then it brings up a lot of other questions.
- [27:37]
Emily D. Baker
Can I push back on that just a little bit? Because law enforcement did have the video. Dakota gave it to law enforcement. The prosecutors had it. It's in court records. So I don't know if he was just sitting on it in that way because the court process was going on. But the question I had about that, because they had the video that was all in public record that ABC and Hulu would have had from the time that got filed in February 2023. But they didn't do a protective order when she was taking the plea in abeyance, which is normally done, it seems to me, so they could continue to film together.
- [28:16]
Nick
Well, I guess. What's that mean? They didn't do a protective order when
- [28:20]
Emily D. Baker
there's a domestic violence plea in abeyance like that. There would be a stay away order between the two parties and a pretty thorough protective order that would cover the time of the probation to keep the parties apart or to have limited contact to exchange children. There's a pretty structured protective order that would generally be in place if someone's on that kind of probation. Because the sad reality is that if there has been an incident that came to the court's attention, there's a ton of concern that there will be further incidents and they want to try to mitigate that with a protective order. In this case, there was no protective order done at that time. I wonder if that was to accommodate for future filming. And if that's the case, I can't imagine that lawyers would not have been very involved in those conversations about how these two can navigate continuing to film together. Because her plea and abeyance says she can't be around places where alcohol is being served or consumed. She can't be around any drug use. There's a lot of rules there that she would have to navigate while being on camera. And he's the one that would have been able to opt out of a protective order talking to the courts as the victim in that case. So my. My pushback is on. People did have that video and they were working it out through the courts. But also it seems that there were some accommodations made for production. And then where is production in that conversation with what's going on in court? And are you two even gonna be able to be within a hundred yards of each other?
- [29:56]
Nick
I mean, that's really. And it seems that they were really important context. It makes it even more crazy. I think I was just more speaking to your acknowledgement that he owned the video and this video got released when it got released. And regardless of what happened back in 2023, he made a decision recently. And why. Why he made this decision now versus at any other point. And again, you can condemn this video for what it is and find it as disturbing as everyone. Yeah. And you can be horrified by it. And you can ask the right question, which is, how did Secret Lives of Mormon Wives ever get greenlit? I think it's still okay to ask the question. Given what we saw in this video and given what some people knew. How was she ever put in these situations going forward? They're basically documenting someone who clearly is. Has some problems and needs some help and needs to be cared for. Was not only like that clearly didn't happen, but was put in these situations and made a TV show centered around her to activate her, centered around this very toxic and problematic relationship. And I don't. I mean, we're gonna get into, like, what we saw in season four because to me, that is one of the, like, we haven't been really even talking about season four of Secret Lives because it's honestly been incredibly hard to watch because what I know about how they set up their lead and versus what I saw on season four, if this situation doesn't happen, if this. If this video isn't released and they moved forward with the airing of Bachelorette, they set her up to fail. It was all. It was always going to end with Taylor, Frankie, Paul hung out to dry because of how they introduced, like, the baseline of being the lead of the Bachelor is you have to be ready, bare minimum. They were so cautious back in the day that, like, it was never ideal to name the runner up the lead. And sometimes they did it under, like, certain circumstances, but it was never ideal because, again, the optics of the lead not presenting as ready to find love. They couldn't go into after the final rose and have kind of their lead still be heartbroken over not ending up with the lead and then present. They wouldn't present as available for love. And then you compare that to how the lead in for Taylor Frankie Paul was season 10 where she's literally locking herself in the room and saying, I'm sick. I am not well, hooking up with her ex the night before. Like, again, you know, when they would announce the lead, they would tell you to basically go hide. They would say, be careful who you're seen around, who you're taking pictures with. This was about, like, they were trying to protect their lead. They were trying to set them up for success. And when you compare that, how that's always been to, like, what they did with Taylor, it seems incredibly reckless and negligent. You have to be emotionally ready to take on one of the most physical and emotional and mentally exhausting periods of your life. You also have to, like, be ready and wanting to find love. What we saw in season four was the exact opposite.
- [33:00]
Emily Longeretta
I think she said at one point, I'm not ready, but I want to be. I'm pretty sure those were words she uttered.
- [33:07]
Nick
Her lead in the episode 10 of season 4 is Taylor Frankie Paul locking herself in a room saying, I don't want to go. One of her co stars saying, you're not well, Taylor, you know when one
- [33:19]
Emily Longeretta
of your friends has to break into your house?
- [33:21]
Nick
Yeah, that. And that's not like it's an. Honestly, when it comes to these shows, again, it's a spectrum of, like, reality tv. What is real? What is a scene? Taylor. That didn't seem like a lame. It was a scene. But that didn't seem like they were like, all right, Taylor, we're going to come into your house.
- [33:36]
Susie Evans
And no, it's when Jesse said. When she said, who's here? And Jesse said, mom talk. It was like, it's the girls with like, we have cameras. Like, it's mom talk. It's not Jesse, Macy, Layla and Michaela.
- [33:49]
Unidentified Female Cast Member
It's not your mom talking. It's your co workers here asking if you can go and do your job, which is like, yeah, it was.
- [33:56]
Leah
Yeah.
- [33:56]
Emily Longeretta
I also want to touch on something you said. The video, the timing of the video release. I was over the weekend, obviously, like many. My whole entire feed was like, old past videos coming up. And Macy's interview from when she came here to talk to you guys about. About everything, when she was talking about Dakota.
- [34:13]
Nick
And we actually have that clip.
- [34:15]
Emily Longeretta
I'm setting it up for you guys.
- [34:18]
Nick
If we can go ahead and play that clip.
- [34:20]
Unidentified Female Cast Member
Yes, we can.
- [34:20]
Vanessa
I'm gonna bring it up right now
- [34:22]
Nick
to set up this video. Going into season two, we had many of the women on and we had, you know, I think Macy and Layla.
- [34:29]
Susie Evans
We were doing them in groups.
- [34:29]
Nick
We were doing in groups, and Taylor was supposed to be a part of this group. And in the morning of, we heard that Taylor was unavailable because something happened the night before. And so that was part of this conversation that we had with Macy.
- [34:42]
Unidentified Female Cast Member 2
He sabotages things. Like, why do you think Taylor didn't show up today? Of course, it's always him behind the scenes sabotaging things.
- [34:48]
Nick
So I should blame Dakota a thousand percent.
- [34:51]
Unidentified Female Cast Member 2
It's like, anytime Taylor has a big event coming up last year for press. New York press, New York press, the press in la, she almost didn't show up because he purposely gets in fights with her, sabotages things. She's crying, she doesn't want to go depress. He sabotages all the exciting things. Like, you know, I mean, like, if your wife had a great opportunity coming up, you wouldn't be like, let me start a fight right before she leaves.
- [35:11]
Emily D. Baker
Right.
- [35:11]
Unidentified Female Cast Member 2
Like, even if you were mad at her, something was going on. You'd probably be like, we'll say it for later. I want them to succeed. I want them to be their best.
- [35:17]
Emily D. Baker
He doesn't.
- [35:18]
Unidentified Female Cast Member 2
And I think it's almost like a. Like a competition. Almost like, I think he's so insecure that he has to bring her down to his level, to be honest. And it's hard because this is exactly how I feel. So I'm just saying it. But then we do have to sometimes film in group settings. And he's a very nice, likable guy and I genuinely get along with him. So it's almost conflicting to me sometimes because I'm like, oh, like, why are you the way you are behind closed doors? Like, I wish you were like, this person to the front, like, all the time.
- [35:44]
Susie Evans
Do you feel like he, like, performs for the cameras?
- [35:46]
Unidentified Female Cast Member 2
Oh, 100%.
- [35:47]
Unidentified Female Cast Member
Yeah.
- [35:48]
Unidentified Female Cast Member 2
I always say that he's a wolf in sheep's clothing, and I stand by that 100%.
- [35:52]
Nick
I remember talking to Macy at a different time, and she had a lot of strong words against Dakota. And it wasn't like, oh, I just don't mess with him. She compared him to her an ex that I guess was very problematic for her. And described as, like, a dark person. Yeah. And so you watch this clip back and it just raises even more questions about, again, like, how. How bad was this? And again, now that we have this video from 2023, that none of us realized how serious this was. How were These people put in these situations to film these scenes, Season four, for example, that I just, I, I still cannot wrap my brain around. And any former Bachelor producer I've talked to is just like horrified by what they watch in season four. And another thing I don't think people realize because there's some key players, that people are not connecting the dots. You have Warner Brothers, who produces the Bachelor, so they have a whole team of producers that's, you know, that's their entity. You have the production company that makes Secret Lives. Those are two completely different companies, completely different motivations, completely different interests. They're not aligned. ABC Disney is the distributor of the Bachelor. Disney own is also the distributor of Secret Lives.
- [37:16]
Leah
Correct.
- [37:16]
Nick
They connect the dots. But those two production companies have completely different vested interests. And so there is so much care. Back in the day, another thing people aren't talking about that I think from terms of how did this happen? Is this from an industry standpoint? We heard a couple not too like, the Bachelor was on pause. Right. So this is almost like a perfect storm of again, how this happens. On one end you have Secret Lives, this hit show, one of the biggest shows on reality tv, Emmy award winning show, the Bachelor franchise is on pause, but it's a legacy show, one of the most successful reality TV shows of all time, but kind of going the opposite direction. They also were never nominated for an Emmy, which is a sensitive subject for all those people involved. And so you almost had Secret Lives. Everything they did worked, everything they were doing. And it didn't matter how toxic these scenes were, everything was working and they were being rewarded for it. Right. And then on the Bachelor side of things, not too long ago, there was these reports about toxic work environments, but. And there was a kind of a cleaned house, but even before that cleaning house, there was another cleaning house with some shifting in roles. And even the top executives at the Warner Brothers level are now new. So all the people, essentially all the people running, certainly the biggest decision makers running the show, have really no history in how this show is made. They don't really understand the nuance and the care and consideration that has to go into setting up your lead for success and how different the audiences are between Secret Lives. I mean, there's certainly a lot of overlap and they were certainly betting on that, but it's a different audience with different expectations.
- [39:07]
Emily Longeretta
Well, I think they saw that difference in audience paid off for something like Dancing with the Stars, of course, also owned by Disney, when they saw the success of Secret Lives and said, oh, we can put Two. Not even just one, but two of our cast members, because we'll make it a storyline on Secret Lives onto Dancing with the Stars and help revive that franchise that also is going, you know, kind of plateauing. And it worked because Dancing with the Stars was one of the biggest seasons for multiple reasons, but that was part of the reason. So it had one of their biggest seasons. So they thought, well, we can just throw it at the Bachelorette too, and maybe that also will work the same way. Not realizing that not only is the audience different, but the expectation of a lead on the Bachelor franchise is completely, completely different than a star of Dancing with the Stars or a member of an ensemble cast.
- [39:59]
Nick
And again, it's important. You said we the decision makers. We could do this. And I think it's important context to consider. The we involved is none of the people on the Warner Brothers Bachelor side of things.
- [40:15]
Emily Longeretta
No, it's the Disney World.
- [40:16]
Nick
It's the Disney. And the people historically, like the old guard, let's call it like the people who used to work on these shows for, for years. The people like Susie and I know, who really understood the nuances and were involved in all these, like, last minute decisions of not making someone the lead when they thought they were going to make them the lead. Like, they weren't involved in any of these decisions. And I haven't talked to anyone working on the show today, but my understanding of people who have talked to people, the Bachelor producers, maybe not at the highest level, but the people working on the show were as equally surprised and as horrified to see what they saw on season four.
- [40:50]
Emily Longeretta
Correct.
- [40:51]
Nick
Which is crazy to even think about people involved in making Taylor. Frankie Paul's season of the Bachelorette had no idea what they were about to watch on season four. Knowing what her lead in knowing that this was an entire season about a woman who was having mental health struggles, that was in this very toxic situation on season four. Again, I think sometimes as fans, we, like, again, we suspend disbelief. We're. We're watching these shows while we're doing other things. I watch it very differently. It's like I can see the Matrix. I know when a scene's being made. Right. I have the awareness of, like, that, okay, there's cameras there. There's, there's, there's mics. Right. So on season four and how long it takes.
- [41:29]
Emily Longeretta
How long it takes, I'm sure. Same for you, Susie.
- [41:31]
Vanessa
Yeah.
- [41:32]
Unidentified Male Caller
But I, I have to say I'm weary to believe that, like, Bachelorette producers had no idea. Like, do we know that, like like, that, to me, feels almost impossible because they are kind of under the same umbrella, and she's leaving, and they literally, like producers from Secret Lives, know she slept with Dakota the night before. Obviously, maybe we don't know. But I'm like, I. I find it hard to believe that producers didn't know something going into the Bachelorette.
- [42:03]
Nick
I. I agree with what you're saying, and that's what makes it so crazy, is that I honestly don't think they did because they're completely two different entities. Again, I think the people at Disney should have known. But talking to old producers when they announced Taylor Frankie Paul as the Bachelorette, and again, like, it probably should have never have happened. The show should have never existed from what we now know from this video. But, okay, here we are. The show does exist. Taylor Frankie Paul's a star. The people at Disney, they want to, you know, it's like a perfect storm of, you have the show that can do no wrong. You have the show that's trying to find a second life, and they, you know, they weren't in a position to tell anyone no. So to speak. But my point is, once they named her the Bachelorette, the producers I knew working in the Bachelor would have insisted that at least one or many people. There would have been so many meetings about, like, we need people on the ground of season four. They would have insisted on being there to oversee the production of season four, even though it's not their show, and even though they don't have a say in how Secret Lives is filmed or edited, they would have insisted so they
- [43:16]
Emily Longeretta
know what they're going to do.
- [43:17]
Nick
They would have said, if we're going to do this, we have to be heavily involved, because if you're going to do this, you have to make sure they set her up for success. I remember when I got out and announced to be the Bachelor on Paradise, right? I saw two different edits of the same episode, and it was honestly a subtle difference, and it wasn't even that big of a deal, but they made it look a little bit better than it was before, because before, when they weren't announcing me, they're planning on having me the Bachelor, they wanted to play both sides. It was like, oh, let's get people talking. But once they decided I was gonna be the Bachelor, and honestly, at the end of the day, if they would have aired the same version, but they were that careful about how they set up their person for success, because again, this is a show that's. It's. It's about someone finding love and open and ready and on some level, whether it's because they've had bad luck or whatever the reason, they are excited to finally meet their person.
- [44:16]
Susie Evans
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- [46:40]
Emily D. Baker
Listening to y' all talking about production, I do think they had to know that the video existed. I can't imagine they didn't see it. But even if they didn't, is that then an escape hatch? And it's not really about that video from 2023 coming to light. And it's about what they saw in season four and about the incident in February. But they can't really say it's about the incident February because it's still being investigated. Is it more about season four and the incident in February? And the video just becomes the excuse to put this on pause because I still have questions about whether it's canceled. As they said, we're not airing it at this time.
- [47:20]
Emily Longeretta
I don't think it's because I don't think it's from season four because the way the thing that really surprised me and Nick, Susie, I'm interested to hear what you think because when this report came out on the Monday that Secret Lives had stopped filming season five because of the February incident, which we still don't really know. We don't know anything about. We just know there's complaints on both sides. We know Takoda's claims, but we don't, you know, it's, it's hard to even do that, to talk about that without knowing the details.
- [47:47]
Emily D. Baker
Claims because the court records are sealed and TMZ seems to have them.
- [47:51]
Emily Longeretta
Exactly. But this was after season four had aired. This was after Secret Life stops filming season five. That they are like, we are still going full steam ahead with Bachelor.
- [48:03]
Nick
They sent her to the Oscars.
- [48:04]
Emily Longeretta
They sent her to the Oscars. They had her on Good Morning America and Live with Kelly and Mark. They had her doing a press event in New York that night where she spoke to reporters. I was on the phone with ABC almost every hour that day being like, is this still happening? Is this still happening? Because on I was supposed to talk to her on Sunday night before the premiere and they were like yes, she is still doing interviews. We are still airing up to Wednesday.
- [48:27]
Nick
They were telling me that is the big question mark. We don't know what's going to come out. Is it, is it any way match this horrific video from 23? Is it something else? But to your point, whatever it was, you assume they did an investigation. But whatever they knew, whatever they knew or didn't want to know, they were planning on moving forward.
- [48:46]
Unidentified Female Cast Member
Question for you guys thinking about. Well first I was reading this book, I've been reading this book, Cue the Sun. It's like about the history of reality tv. It's really great. And there's this like line in it that has just been making me think about this and it's. The industry required talking about reality tv. The industry required a new mindset, inability to tolerate moral ambiguity, creating strange, temporary but intense professional relationships whose residue would be edited into and in a sense become the show itself. Working behind the scenes as a reality laborer wasn't easy. Early on, or more recently without union protection, struggling the margins of Hollywood crew members were often flinty eyed scrappers who became numb to and also proud of their ability to endure terrible work conditions. But for the people at the top, the job could be an intoxicant. It gave you the godlike power to create stories from the lives of ordinary human beings. And I just wonder if what you guys think about the way kind of not even the production company but kind of like Disney at large, their like distribution model with like Marvel, all of that kind of stuff having this like melded cinematic universe and if they kind of just got in their head of like we have all of this reality TV world that we can meld the Bachelor and Dancing with the Stars and Mormon Wives into and then just forgot about the people involved.
- [50:05]
Nick
Yeah, I mean there's corporate synergies. I think there's been, there's been examples of this over the years. But again I think I've also worked on a lot of great sets with a lot of great producers and executives who like you know, there's always the question is like where's the line?
- [50:20]
Unidentified Male Caller
Yeah, well there's a, there's speculation about the moral clause contract and I'm curious. I, I signed my. That line didn't read really anything. So I actually don't know even though I was a contestant on the show. But I think a legal question might Be. If there is a moral clause in the Bachelorette's contract, how does that hold up? If one, if the franchise actually knew about this, and two, if they didn't know about it and this was, you know, being hidden or they, or they had never seen the video, is Taylor liable or Demida?
- [50:49]
Nick
Well, I'm obviously Emily Baker. I wanna know your perspective. But first, there are reports that Taylor Frankie Paul could be sued. I don't see any world that happens again. You can't make the entire premise of the show the plotline of season one of this actual incident, which you're acknowledging that you know about it. And then there is now video evidence of your treatment of this person and how you handled this incredibly sens. And these incredibly fragile people and the players involved. And then again, you have season four, you have Taylor Frankie Paul on camera talking about how unwell she is. And to me, if anyone has a case, it's Taylor Frankie Paul in terms of how she was treated Once this, once they started to greenlight these shows and move forward, which, interesting enough, there's that, that very famous Leah McSweeney. Am I getting her name right in Broadway?
- [51:49]
Unidentified Female Cast Member
Yes, Leah McSweeney.
- [51:50]
Nick
So for those of you who don't know, my understanding that case, again, like, and we've talked about reality TV stars and their complaints. You know, you've, you know, I've heard reality TV stars say, like, they kidnapped me. When, you know, when reality, when they showed up for production, they were like, hey, you have to stay in this hotel room for three days.
- [52:07]
Emily Longeretta
You can't have your phone.
- [52:08]
Nick
We can't have your phone. And, you know, we've heard reality TV stars make, you know, kind of crazy accusations. When you find out the details, like, that's, that's not what that was. Right. And then there's another spectrum of, again, some terrible behavior. Leah McSweeney's case is centered around. Her accusations are, you knew I had a problem. You knew I was an alcoholic. Right. And it was that disability and that demon that I have was the very thing that you took advantage of and you put me in these situations. And while that case, that case is ongoing. It is. It's seemingly having more success than any of these other cases that Bravo's had to face.
- [52:44]
Emily D. Baker
Yes, Leah's. I mean, Leah's case just had a pretty extensive ruling come down from the same judge who's handling the Baldoni Lively case. He writes a lot. It's like a hundred page order, but it's moving forward to discovery. Bravo was Trying really hard to put it into arbitration mediation per their contracts. And the judge was like, this is going forward in court because the contracts don't really cover this to synthesize it down. But we're also seeing that in the Scandival lawsuit where Rachel is still suing Tom and Ariana, and that case is still moving forward about things that happened because of the show. So there's a couple of these lawsuits out there coupled with this, that might truly change the way production goes forward. I would be very surprised if. If the contestants don't potentially sue, which I have a question for y' all about. But also, I don't think they can morality clause, something that they would have found with due diligence, because it was public record whether they saw the video or not. All those public records say that a video does exist. Now, the incident after filming, I would want to evaluate what happened and what the clauses say about after filming, because that February incident then becomes a question mark. But not for March and not for 2023, and not for that incident in 2023 in the video in 2023, because they would have known. There's a fine line there.
- [54:08]
Nick
And again, use that incident as the plot line of the entire show. Right? Like, it wasn't like when they decided to greenlit this show, whatever. You know, whatever meeting they had where they said, hey, by the way, though, there's this domestic violence incident.
- [54:25]
Emily Longeretta
They used it as a plot.
- [54:26]
Nick
They're like, no, we're gonna lead with it. Yeah, that's. We're gonna focus on it. Which I think it just can completely changes the optics.
- [54:35]
Emily Longeretta
Well, that's the thing is, like we said, we go back to the video showed us how awful this incident was, but it was all out there. It was probably. We read this. We read the report. She. We knew that her daughter was in the middle.
- [54:47]
Susie Evans
She did several interviews. She did several interviews talking details that she didn't remember. She was the aggressor. She threw several chairs. She didn't remember hitting her daughter. But that it was stated that. That. That Dakota did tell police that she hit her. So, yeah, she.
- [55:03]
Emily Longeretta
This has been something that seeing it in person is. Or seeing it in video is harder jarring.
- [55:07]
Nick
And I think all fans watching it just, I guess, took for granted that these people in positions of power that you would think would do the due diligence kind of failed us all. And again, going back to season four, like, I think. I think fans need to realize what they're watching. In season four, they send Dakota to Vanderpump villa, right? And it's like Cheat Island. All the husbands go and they're playing, you know, truth or dare. And apparently allegedly Dakota hooks up with someone. And now you're filming season four, and then you have a scene where Jesse and Jordan are mic'd up. And clearly there was a conversation that happened before they filmed this scene saying, and this is how they make reality tv, right? Like, the premise is no one's an actor. So the way to get the most authentic, real response is to, like, get the surprise on camera. That mindset can be done with rather benign incidents where you just get someone who's like in a pressure cooker environment and it's honestly not that serious and you get an outrageous reaction. Or you get again, in this situation, just now that we have it all in perspective, this very toxic and dangerous relationship that started in 2023, to Emily Baker's point, in any other case, probably would have been a protective order where you would have gone out of your way to keep these parties separated from each other for everyone's safety. The opposite happened. And now on camera, the question is, would you do that to your worst enemy? Would you? If they found out that this person, they have a hard time going back and forth with, hooked up with someone else and on camera, surprise them with this news so you can capture their breakdown. Their breakdown.
- [56:54]
Emily Longeretta
Right. But that is the premise of a lot of reality tv. I hate to say that, but at the. That's the honest truth we see every weekend.
- [57:03]
Nick
I just didn't know that was the premise when a DV incident, I was
- [57:05]
Emily Longeretta
gonna say that's the difference. Is this very toxic, dangerous as you. The word you use, it's so accurate that there was already police reports involved. You know that these people are not in a good state of mind.
- [57:17]
Nick
And as an audience, we were sold that even though this incident where we didn't see the video, that we assumed there was an investigation. And we assume that as bad as it was in the story that we heard, that they did their due diligence and that it was okay for these people to be in the same room and to be on camera together. And seasons one through three, yeah, there was some drama between the two, but essentially Taylor was the star and looked great. And then all of a sudden season four comes out and it's just like a 180. And she's clearly not over him. She's clearly has some mental health struggles. We now go back and there's Taylor's posting about her mental health. She's out there wanting to talk about her mental health. She was like, I want to talk about my. And we all were just, like, liking the video. And you go back and it's just like, again, you can condemn the video. It's horrific.
- [58:09]
Emily Longeretta
Like we were talking about earlier, people shouldn't have to say no to opportunities, but at the same time, they shouldn't be given one. That is not healthy.
- [58:16]
Nick
As one former Bachelor producer told me, like, there were no adults in the room. And I just want to give credit to the women involved, because this all. Well, this all started again with whatever happened in February with these women allegedly coming forward and saying, enough's enough. Something is bad is happening here. And, you know, they're all adults, but, like, you know, often producers refer to their cast as kids. There's a huge power dynamic between producer and cast member, and there is an expectation, and there's a level of trust. And even in the. Like, when you're making most sets again, a lot of time, there are conversations and acknowledgement of making tv. There's like, all right, you do this for me, I'll do this for you. You might get some heat for this, but it's all gonna be good when the dust settles and there is a relationship and there's a level of trust. And clearly, none of that was going on here.
- [59:07]
Emily Longeretta
I mean, even back in season one. Again, I went back and watched some season one episodes this weekend, and, I mean, at one point, when Taylor's like, you know, they're having the discussion of if she shouldn't be in mom talk anymore because of this, because of the arrest, and Whitney says, like, you know, we're not going to get brand deals when we have someone that's, like, throwing chairs at people. So it was literally said in season one.
- [59:28]
Unidentified Female Cast Member
Yeah, they all knew.
- [59:29]
Nick
There's now a clip going around of the women confronting Taylor and saying, I know how you treat Dakota. You know, like, you're not the hero you think you are because you're keeping a secret, and you're only bringing it up to weaponize it against that person.
- [59:45]
Emily Longeretta
Right.
- [59:46]
Nick
And then it begs the question again, like, why aren't you coming forward? And you can't claim it's for the kids. Nothing about this situation is for the kids.
- [59:53]
Emily Longeretta
No.
- [59:54]
Unidentified Male Caller
I have a question. It's kind of based on a maybe dark theory that Emily Baker. You were saying. You explained the. I think it's the IP of the video, which makes a lot of sense. I. I don't know anything about this. So it makes sense that there's a watermark. So now TMZ owns the video. Is it possible that there was a person or an entity that owned the video after Dakota and that he signed that over to somebody and that somebody was. Or something like a network or somebody was sitting on it and wanted to release. I think you. Maybe you said something about the incident in February. Is that really what this is about? And releasing the video was more so a scapegoat to actually having to go through with the season. I know that's maybe potentially a crazy theory, but is it possible that Dakota could have released it to somebody else and then that person or thing released it to tmz? And would we ever get a final answer, like, legally? Is there a way to get that answer?
- [60:49]
Emily D. Baker
Well, ip intellectual property. Who owns the copyright in that? If Dakota had sold the copyrights in it, that should be contracted somewhere. He has not come out, to my knowledge, and said, I did not release this in a very strong way. I saw some vague statements from his people that said he wouldn't. He wouldn't do something to hurt Taylor in that way. But I don't think I saw him saying, I might be mistaken that he didn't release it. But could he have sold the copyrights in that?
- [61:21]
Nick
I saw something where his team suggested and pointed out that this video existed since 2023 and that the authorities have it had it suggesting that that's where it came from. And I think.
- [61:31]
Emily D. Baker
And that's absolutely not work.
- [61:32]
Leah
Right.
- [61:33]
Unidentified Male Caller
Which would be incorrect based on what you explained.
- [61:36]
Emily D. Baker
But could he have sold the copyrights to an intermediary? Yes, but you would have. I would expect him to have put that out there and distanced it, especially since it came out on their child's birthday. Wouldn't one expect it to come out that, I did not release this on this day? I did not have control of this? But then it raises the other question of this is still evidence in a case that is still ongoing because she's still on probation. So why would you sell the copyright in it? Because then it can surface at any time. And that seems potentially an issue. But yes, it's theoretically possible that he could have sold the copyright in that elsewhere. But he was a copyright holder, so he would have had to affirmatively do that at some point.
- [62:23]
Unidentified Male Caller
So he would have.
- [62:23]
Emily D. Baker
For it to be owned by tmz.
- [62:25]
Emily Longeretta
Right.
- [62:25]
Unidentified Male Caller
Okay. So he would basically know if it was sold to.
- [62:28]
Leah
To.
- [62:28]
Unidentified Male Caller
Yeah, I mean, obviously he would know if it was sold to somebody or something.
- [62:30]
Emily Longeretta
Right.
- [62:31]
Vanessa
And if he didn't want it on
- [62:32]
Susie Evans
him he'd be like, wait, guys, I sold this to. Right?
- [62:35]
Vanessa
Yeah.
- [62:35]
Emily Longeretta
Like, and his team would have jumped at the opportunity to say, like, it wasn't. It wasn't us.
- [62:39]
Vanessa
Right.
- [62:39]
Unidentified Male Caller
He doesn't own the Right. Whatever anymore.
- [62:41]
Unidentified Female Cast Member
Yeah.
- [62:42]
Emily D. Baker
And, I mean, there's There. This happens on YouTube all the time. And it happens with other companies that if they own the intellectual property or the copyright in something, they can give those copyrights over to another company to take those things down off the Internet if they get out there. There are companies that do that and actively protect copyrights and go around and take it down. We see it a lot with music, but it's theoretically possible to say, I never want this to see the light of the day. Here's a company that's going to actively rip things down off the Internet in case it ever leaks. But we've seen no information about that. And I don't know if we would, because how can that get out there if he's not sending that video around? Because it's never coming out by the police. It's never coming out by the district attorneys. Court doesn't have it.
- [63:32]
Emily Longeretta
Right.
- [63:32]
Emily D. Baker
So it's not like a dash cam.
- [63:34]
Vanessa
Emily Baker.
- [63:36]
Unidentified Female Cast Member
I. I have a question. I don't know if this makes any sense, but Disney as a company is so focused on keeping things tight on lock. They have so much power as far as, like, what they can keep out of, like, media narratives. And so would it be correct to assume that if they really wanted to scrub a lot of this stuff about Taylor, they could or.
- [64:00]
Emily D. Baker
No, Disney couldn't scrub this video if TMZ owns the copyright in it. So there's nothing Disney can do with that if TMZ owns the video.
- [64:09]
Susie Evans
And also everything that we know is from the show. Well, it's from the show or she's talked about or she's been open about and we've accepted her. Or you haven't accepted her, but she's been honest about everything that we have known about her thus far.
- [64:23]
Nick
There was also an NBC article.
- [64:25]
Emily Longeretta
Yeah.
- [64:25]
Nick
Where on this call that the women of Secret Life.
- [64:28]
Emily Longeretta
This is before Bachelorette was pulled.
- [64:30]
Nick
This was before Bachelorette was pulled. That there was this alleged zoom call with the women who wanted to pause filming and some executives with Disney. And that video strongly suggests that the executives didn't want to know.
- [64:46]
Unidentified Female Cast Member
Yeah. They said, I don't know a lot, nor do I want to know too much.
- [64:50]
Nick
That's just shocking to hear. But it just. It just speaks to. Yeah. Again, like, if they really wanted to know about this video or if they saw it or didn't see it or did, you know, want at least understood the severity of. Just seems like they just did the bare minimum just so they could get this show greenlit.
- [65:09]
Emily Longeretta
Well, I think it's also going back to what you said at the beginning that it. It's not. It's not the team that it used to be because ultimately she was on probation when she got cast. At the end of the day, she was on probation for. Had a felony on her record. She wouldn't back in the day that would. You would never even have gotten looked at twice if you're on probation.
- [65:26]
Nick
Not at all. And again, like, you know, it does, you know, obviously the franchise. Bachelor franchise need, you know, again, like many of us were excited and supported Taylor Frankie Paul being the Bachelorette with the idea that like. Like this, the franchise needed a. Needed something new and needed a refresh. They needed to be, you know, they needed to catch up with the times. But again, what. I am just so shocked. As someone who's familiar with Bachelor world, the. Again, this, this is a story to me about, like, from the very beginning, whether it's just of negligence and sloppiness and just a lack of consideration for the. For the cast involved from the very beginning and to. Once you did make her the Bachelorette, just the lack of effort and conversations that went into making sure they were setting her up for success. And it's just interesting again to think, consider that the people who make secret lives, you know, they're the ones winning the Emmys. They're the ones that's the biggest show in town. And so if, I guess, you know, I don't. I have. I mean, I know the players involved, but I don't know how familiar they are with. I don't know if they watched the Bachelor or they were fans or they followed it or they cared about it or they knew its audience.
- [66:42]
Emily Longeretta
I guess you work in reality tv, you're aware of.
- [66:44]
Nick
You're aware of it. But again, like I just know, like I said before, I don't know what happened and didn't happen or what conversations, you know, once they named Taylor Frankie Paul the Bach Charette, I just know the people who used to be in charge, and I know exactly what they would have done. Many of them wouldn't. Would have fought to have her name the Bachelorette that I understand now from talking to them. But if that wasn't their decision, if they got vetoed at a higher level, they certainly would have said, fine, but these are the things that must be done for us to move forward. And that obviously did not happen.
- [67:19]
Susie Evans
It also begs the question, like, she is an adult. She is the mother to three children. The second that her hitting her child with that stool, that should have absolutely sent her into a rehab facility to get better. That should have been the wake up call that anyone has ever needed. I don't think her environment or her support system allowed her the space to get help. I don't think anyone was. They're filming these seasons back to back. We have heard her on camera, mic'd up, saying, like, I. I'm not okay. I'm not well. I need help. I don't wanna do this.
- [68:00]
Nick
And it just became storyline.
- [68:01]
Susie Evans
And all of it became storyline. No one was like, maybe we should take her serious. Maybe we should pause, give her six months in a rehab. Maybe she'll come back better.
- [68:12]
Nick
And then another thing to consider is that Secret Lies was filming at an unprecedented pace. Like, we're already on season four. They're filming season five. And so Taylor literally went in from filming season four, being put in these positions like the day before, because they
- [68:28]
Emily Longeretta
filmed the day before, and then went
- [68:30]
Nick
into filming the Bachelorette, which, again, from personal experience, is just. It is a. One of the most difficult times of my life, of everything that is demanded of you. It's exhausting. It's every day, 18 hours a day. You are responsible for all these other people's emotions and feelings. You have the pressure, the literal pressure of having to get engaged or the audience will think you're ungrateful, that is, you know, and then she got done filming the show. We assume that she's in some kind of relationship. And it's my understanding they immediately picked up the cameras and started filming season five of Secret Lives and put her
- [69:10]
Susie Evans
back with her toxic ex who she has had domestic violence.
- [69:14]
Nick
And to say it kindly is reckless. And I think it's honestly far more nefarious that it is. I think it's. It's.
- [69:22]
Emily Longeretta
Do you think Secret Lives continues after this?
- [69:24]
Nick
I think that's a big question. A lot of people are having conversations about, well, is this the end of Bachelor?
- [69:29]
Emily Longeretta
Well, I want to ask you that
- [69:30]
Nick
also, probably, but I think the real question is Bachelor. It may be a legacy show, but it was already on pause.
- [69:38]
Emily Longeretta
Right.
- [69:39]
Nick
Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is one of the number one reality TV out there. I don't see how Taylor can come back, especially as we are understanding the context of the environment she was made to put in. She can't come Back.
- [69:51]
Emily Longeretta
Can it continue without her?
- [69:52]
Nick
I don't think it can. Honestly don't think it can continue without her. There's already division in the group. And then how do you. How do you even air season five, whatever they have filmed? How do you air that with Taylor still in it? And again, now we have a lot more eyes on just how dark the situation is. And now a lot more people are gonna be questioning, is this okay?
- [70:12]
Emily Longeretta
Well, there has been cases in reality TV before. There was a season of the Challenge when one of the people in it got canceled for saying some controversial things and the season had already filmed and they literally edited her out of the whole season.
- [70:25]
Nick
Yeah, but that's not.
- [70:26]
Emily Longeretta
Is that something they can do?
- [70:28]
Nick
I don't know. I don't know how much he's involved. But there's a difference between, again, someone doing something very wrong outside of the show and having. Being one part of a storyline.
- [70:38]
Susie Evans
Like, I think they edited out Demi from season four.
- [70:41]
Emily Longeretta
Sure you do.
- [70:42]
Susie Evans
Yes.
- [70:43]
Nick
Yeah, I think parts of it. But she's still in.
- [70:45]
Emily Longeretta
She's still in it.
- [70:46]
Nick
They couldn't do it all. And again, you gotta understand that this is like the show itself is centered around this DV situation.
- [70:56]
Emily Longeretta
Yeah. And I mean, Taylor is the star. She makes the most amount of money. She is the top person on the call sheet.
- [71:01]
Susie Evans
Which wasn't that in the NBC News. Wasn't that. They tried to.
- [71:05]
Emily Longeretta
Like, they argued against that. Yeah. Because they were like.
- [71:08]
Unidentified Female Cast Member
Well, apparently there are rumors that. Or there's speculation of bringing like Miranda or Layla.
- [71:14]
Emily D. Baker
No, I think those are complete.
- [71:17]
Nick
Well, first of all, the season's air. That's people talking as if like this. This is filmed live.
- [71:22]
Emily Longeretta
I know. And a lot of people, like, I think a lot of people who don't. Who. If you're not in the business or you've not have a connection with the industry. It's like, it's hard to realize that the amount of time and effort that they'd have to shoot a whole new scene, like, so much. For sure.
- [71:35]
Unidentified Female Cast Member
The other. Yeah. The other rumor is that there's Taylor season will air on Hulu instead of abc.
- [71:39]
Emily Longeretta
I think that's the question is like, will they just dump it all on Hulu? Which in my mind, that's how. That's somewhere. When I was. But also that's going to get more views than it would be on ABC anyways.
- [71:50]
Emily D. Baker
I was just gonna say sidesteps some of the scandal putting it on Hulu, where they've aired all the other seasons of Mormon Wives. But then also, if there's contractual issues for the male contestants not having the season air, what does that look like? And does that mitigate some of the potential damage with the contestants who. And I don't know what the structure looks like for Bachelor, but took the time out to film. I don't know what that looks like for them if it doesn't air. And I don't. I really don't know. And I'm sorry, I feel very Bachelor Nation ignorant. But they don't know who the Bachelorette is when they show up. Right?
- [72:29]
Emily Longeretta
They did know this time.
- [72:30]
Nick
They know this time, but they. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Yeah.
- [72:34]
Emily Longeretta
Yeah. Because they all want it. Made it like we want it. We're here for Taylor. So they also were able to do the. Do the background check first, too. I will just say that. Because a lot of. Some of them are very eager to get out on social media and as you said in the beginning, share their hot takes, which is fair. But you also knew who you were going on for. We have to say that.
- [72:53]
Nick
But back to your discussion about secret lives. And will that. Does that have a life outside of this? Another interesting and I'm curious your perspective, Emily. Disney has a new CEO. I think, like last week was their first week on the job.
- [73:07]
Emily D. Baker
No.
- [73:08]
Nick
Yes.
- [73:08]
Unidentified Male Caller
Tough week.
- [73:09]
Nick
Which means that there's no goodwill for any of the high level people at Disney.
- [73:14]
Unidentified Female Cast Member
Yeah.
- [73:14]
Nick
Like, if you're a new CEO, you have every incentive at this point to clean house.
- [73:19]
Emily Longeretta
Because unfortunately, that's how the business works here.
- [73:21]
Emily D. Baker
Right.
- [73:21]
Emily Longeretta
When someone new takes over, a lot of the time there are layoffs right away because they're trying to, you know, lower the costs. So now it's like, well, who do we cut?
- [73:29]
Nick
Well, but then back to that.
- [73:31]
Emily Longeretta
They deserve that.
- [73:32]
Nick
But let's assume. Okay, setting that aside, you look at secret lives. Yeah. All right. Well, okay, let's say they decide to put batch right on Hulu because somehow that gives them something, some freedom as a streamer that they don't have to worry about, like corporate sponsors or something like that. Well, again, if. Are they cutting Taylor from it? If they cut Taylor from it, I think anyone who knows about this industry, all I've heard is that, like Taylor, Frankie, if anyone has a case about how you know, it's Taylor. So it is in Disney's best interest to keep that relationship. Good. So are you firing her and then moving on without her?
- [74:12]
Emily Longeretta
It's almost like just end the show and start a new show.
- [74:14]
Nick
Yeah, because. Or do they keep her on while fans are all like, how is that
- [74:19]
Leah
going to fall again?
- [74:20]
Emily Longeretta
It's the question of what's worth it for ratings. Because will it get ratings?
- [74:23]
Leah
Yes.
- [74:23]
Emily Longeretta
If the Bachelorette aired tomorrow, every single one of us would be watching. We can all say that. So it is this conversation of what is worth it for ratings and what is protecting someone's mental health and honestly, their safety and their children. So I don't know what the answer is. I don't know if this means that the Bachelorette should air or that Mormon wives should air. I guess that's, you know, above my pay grade. But I do have a question about contestants. What. What do they legally. Can they. Do they have a case? Emily, Is that something that could they. I know there's been some rumors about
- [74:54]
Emily D. Baker
that I don't know what their contracts look like. I would love Yalls perspective on what that looks like for the contestant end and what their contracts look like going in if there is an obligation to air because that gives me a little bit more information. But I imagine pay structure is based on how long you're on the show and not by filming. Does that work by when it's released?
- [75:15]
Nick
I don't remember the like the contract I signed. I know it was a very long one and I know I didn't get a lawyer to look at it back in the day the first time I signed the contract. But I was reminded that you are signing every right you have away by saying, you know. And it was my understanding that Warner Brothers legal because that's the contract Bachelor people signed. It's with Warner Brothers, not with Disney that they covered every, every angle to protect the network and not the cast members. Like, my guess is if it's like some sort of class action lawsuit, I don't know how much the men have to gain. They would also be ending their reality TV careers before it started, you know, if they decided to get together Ensue.
- [75:56]
Unidentified Male Caller
You mentioned you make as much money as based on how far you go. You make no money at least unless they have changed it with having a celebration.
- [76:05]
Emily Longeretta
They have not changed.
- [76:05]
Susie Evans
I was gonna say that they have
- [76:06]
Unidentified Male Caller
not changed when I was on the show. And I think everybody else, you do not get paid to be a contestant. So you kind of put your life on pause. And a lot like I knew a lot of girls that quit their jobs to go on the show for the opportunity for the, you know, everything that comes with it potentially, or just falling in love or just having fun or whatever that looks like. But you do not make A penny. And a lot of people go into debt to provide wardrobe and all these things for the show. And not that there's. I don't think there's any legal protection for the contestants. I don't know. I feel like I signed away everything and was just like, hope for the best. Hope for the best. But I don't know that for sure. Oh, I. I was told before going, you are not guaranteed a spot until you are walking out of the limo. You could be an alternate. Like, you could stay this whole quarantine in the hotel and you still might not be on the show. And I was like, I was assuming that was my role because they warned me and that.
- [76:59]
Nick
And that happened almost every season.
- [77:01]
Emily Longeretta
Yeah.
- [77:02]
Nick
Where someone flies out, does all the things, and then there's a knock on their hotel room and letting them with a plane ticket.
- [77:10]
Susie Evans
Emily Baker, you mentioned earlier the timing of this video being released and it being released on their son's birthday. What does that tell you?
- [77:21]
Unidentified Female Cast Member 2
I.
- [77:22]
Emily D. Baker
It's just a very odd timing that I would think that if this was unknown that it was coming out, you would have seen very large statements of denial that we didn't see. So that's what I was. I was looking for very big statements of denial, and I saw very big statements from Taylor's camp. I did not see statements that were quite as loud in denial from Dakota's camp. They were sidestepping. And then TMZ's statements were also sidestepping. And I don't know. I mean, the child's birthday lining up with the release of the Bachelorette. But it's also. My lawyer mind is quite cynical. There is a custody case going on between Dakota and Taylor and that has been ongoing. That has now changed because of his protective order.
- [78:14]
Susie Evans
Was he granted temporary?
- [78:15]
Emily D. Baker
Yes, because of the new protective order filing that was filed the same day that the video came out. The protective order filing that came out the same day that the video came out had the sealed documents that TMZ has about the February 2026 incident and the details of those. And then it kind of all lumps together. So those things all happened on the same day.
- [78:41]
Nick
What do you think? What do you make of Dakota filing for that protective order when he did after the video is released compared to, like, why, like when it happened, like three years ago. Three years ago?
- [78:54]
Emily Longeretta
Well, she didn't have a baby yet, but.
- [78:56]
Nick
Yeah, but. Or anytime before or in February.
- [79:01]
Emily Longeretta
They also were in an. In an on and off relationship. Like, we can't remember that. They were also, like, Together for some.
- [79:06]
Nick
Yeah. Well, it's just like. But just when you think about the timeline of these events, again, we were first made aware that something happened in February between these two. A lot of. We don't. We know less than what we know. Then the women come forward, say, this isn't okay. We need to put this on pause. The executives are essentially forced to honor that request. And then all of a sudden, the beginning of last week, then this more and more information comes out from very intimate information from Dakota side, his call log, you know, other rumors from their relationship that seem very tied to, you know, and it just. It just feels like. And when you consider that clip that we aired from Macy, it just kind of felt like that was. That last week, Monday was the beginning of getting a story out there. And then like. And then all of a sudden, but like, oh, no, they're still moving forward. Then more information came out. No, they're still moving forward. Then more information came out. No, they're still moving forward. And then it's like, all right. Then they dropped the thing that was. Despite the kids being involved, despite, you know, how this was going to affect, you know, these children going forward in these families, it just seemed like there were determination to ruin her.
- [80:14]
Emily D. Baker
When did filming of five stop? Do we know roughly when that happened?
- [80:18]
Emily Longeretta
So, no, it was announced on Monday. It was announced on Monday. But the incident between them happened the end of February. So I think they said that 24th, 25th. And I think within two days after the incident that women were like, we don't want to film these conversations. It's just not appropriate.
- [80:33]
Nick
Yeah. And they were, I think, in the middle of season five.
- [80:36]
Emily D. Baker
But that all happened in session. He couldn't file the protective order while they're filming if he's still filming with her, because that's where his money's.
- [80:43]
Emily Longeretta
He may. We don't know if. Remember at the end of season three, I think it was, he had, like, refused to film. So there may have been a point where he stopped filming. We don't know that.
- [80:50]
Emily D. Baker
And that's also a question for production, Nick, because production's looking at a very volatile situation. And if either of them, Taylor or Dakota is trying to opt out, production continuing to force them into the same space, yes, might be good for the show, but you are pushing on a powder keg of a volatile situation that she truly stands quite a lot to lose because she's on probation. And if she does not complete that probation successfully, there will be a felony aggravated assault on her record. And so There's a lot of questions for me around whether. I mean, clearly he filmed season four. I don't know if he was filming season five. But where that protective order gets filed, I wonder if it coincides with the end of filming or if it coincides with the release of the video and him being concerned about retaliation or about custody because custody is also part of that protective order, because there's still an investigation and a criminal case hasn't been filed yet. It's not uncommon to see a protective order get filed potentially before a criminal case gets filed. But there's a lot of legal wrapped up in all of this. So the. The timing of filming, I'm wondering if that plays into the protective order or a concern about retaliation for the video.
- [82:06]
Emily Longeretta
I will also say when. When filming stopped. Stopped. I spoke to two separate executives that had said to me that it wasn't that serious. That, like, they thought that filming would be back up within a week. Like, they did not think it was like something like this case, that first case was. So we don't. Obviously they don't know because they.
- [82:24]
Nick
We don't know if that's true, but
- [82:26]
Emily Longeretta
they did not seem worried.
- [82:27]
Susie Evans
I will say Taylor's obviously has put out, I think, one statement. Right. Since all of this has happened.
- [82:35]
Unidentified Female Cast Member
Yes.
- [82:35]
Susie Evans
She was saying that obviously this is, you know, she has been enduring abuse at the hands of Dakota for a really long time. Emily, Would she need video proof to have any legitimacy towards that? Or, like, is her, like, what she's been through and what she has to say? Enough.
- [82:55]
Emily D. Baker
I mean, it. It really depends on the context because I think watching the seasons of the show and I have not finished season four, I don't think there's a question that the interactions between the two of them are incredibly toxic. And though the incident in 2023 she took responsibility for. I still have Questions from the 911 call that's talking about the garage door opening and closing. You hear her talking about it in the body cam footage. There are more to the incidents than what we're seeing. I don't know what production saw and cut and did not air that's going on between the two of them, but we also see in filming and we don't know how much is cut. Y' all know better than I do that there's times when she seems to go from zero to 60 and being angry about things that she's learning, things that she's seeing, and the cast acknowledges that. So does she need video? She might have it depending on what production has caught. And I think a lot of people have seen her experiences. But I think, to Nick's point, the question remains, where are the boundaries of production when somebody is in a cycle that is continuing to get more and more volatile and cameras are constantly up, she's not going to take a break. I mean, realistically, what does her choosing to walk away from the Bachelorette cost her? Like, what's the opportunity cost of that? And is that a decision someone can make that's already under that much duress?
- [84:25]
Nick
And could she have been threatened with quitting the show if her contracts suggested that she had to fulfill her obligations?
- [84:34]
Emily Longeretta
Right. I mean, it almost seemed in season four that she did not want to be the Bachelorette. She almost seemed like she was not.
- [84:40]
Nick
Almost.
- [84:42]
Emily Longeretta
She did not want to be.
- [84:43]
Nick
She literally said she didn't want to. There's so many scenes of her looking really bad and not like. Just like, not well.
- [84:52]
Emily Longeretta
Yeah.
- [84:52]
Nick
You had her co star saying, you're not well.
- [84:55]
Emily D. Baker
What's the opportunity cost of that, though? Yeah, what's the cost of being the Bachelorette for her, but also for her castmates? Does her being the Bachelorette buoy her castmates in what their opportunities might look like? And is there an incentive there, too, to say, we've. You've got to be the Bachelorette because it. It benefits downstream 100%.
- [85:16]
Nick
You got her mom, her family, you know, like, that pressure of, you need to do this? I mean. Yeah, that's a great question, Emily. It raises a lot of questions. And again, who knew what when? For all the people who were in our orbit. And again, I do. As far as the women on this show, the fact that they did come forward, I think they do deserve a lot of credit for they had as much to lose as anyone, and they still had the guts to say, enough is enough. This isn't okay. But again, I also can't get past the last episode of season four. Again, like, we watch Dakota walk into Taylor's house with the baby, and we just assume we're just like observers on the sidewalk. That is a scene. So how did they. How did they know Dakota was gonna go there? He has a smirk on his face after they clearly hooked up that night as he's leaving.
- [86:06]
Susie Evans
So, like, did they stay there all night? Did he call them that morning and be like, hey, I'm about to walk out. Do you want to pick up cameras?
- [86:12]
Nick
Is productions having conversations with Dakota saying, hey, man, this is your last chance, and egging him on and things like that? Also, how much footage exists that we didn't get to see that's on the cutting room floor, that if there is legal action taken, there's so much more evidence about how all these things went down.
- [86:30]
Emily Longeretta
Right.
- [86:30]
Nick
To me, season four of Secret Lives is like a documentation of her treatment and their lack of consideration for her well being and anyone tied to these two shows. Even though there's a lot of life, like there's a lot of opportunity for a lot of people to say, well, that wasn't my lane, so to speak. But then the question is, who does it boil up to and who what, where does the buck stop, so to speak? Because you, you can't have these multi million dollar enterprises with a bunch of people being like, that wasn't my responsibility.
- [87:03]
Susie Evans
Like during that 11 month break, they should have all agreed that Taylor, Frankie, Paul and Dakota do not deserve any sort of platform. They're not okay enough to have this platform or to have this TV show. They clearly need help. There is something going on here. There is a bigger picture and they should not have been handed the pressure of this franchise and clearly like supporting her family, the pressure of the Bachelorette, like it's just, it shouldn't have been. She was not okay enough.
- [87:37]
Nick
And again, you can, you can see this video and you can condemn it for what it is. And it's a horror, horrifying video. And I think you can still have empathy for the situation that Taylor was put in. And I still think you can think it's really gross after we kind of consider how this all went down. And again, this video happened in 2023, I think most people would agree it, this, the show never should have gotten green light and that would have been. She would have been better off then propping her up, building her up, setting her up, putting her on this massive platform and then destroying her. And again, even if this video doesn't come out the way they set up season four going into the Bachelorette, it was going to be horrific for her. Without question, people, you know, all the Bachelor fans that didn't watch Secret Lives were going to start seeing clips and when it got real messy on the show, they were gonna go start looking at all these things and it was just gonna be a horrific experience for Taylor no matter what. And I find that to be deplorable.
- [88:38]
Emily Longeretta
Yeah.
- [88:38]
Vanessa
Yeah.
- [88:39]
Emily Longeretta
So I'm gonna ask you again and Susie, is this the end of the Bachelor franchise?
- [88:46]
Nick
I mean, probably. I don't know. It's hard to say. Cause you go back to like, what is it about? Is it about Ratings. I mean, if they were to insist to cast, like, right now, there's a lot of eyes on Bachelor Nation and the show. So if they decided to make another show, it would have hype.
- [89:04]
Emily Longeretta
Yeah.
- [89:05]
Nick
There would be interest.
- [89:06]
Leah
Right.
- [89:06]
Nick
And are they. I guarantee you Warner Brothers feels like they got screwed by the people at Disney. And again, that's not to say that they weren't responsible. Again, whoever they, the exec, whoever they decided to hire or how they chose to run that franchise, there's a lot of criticisms. I think they were wildly underprepared. I don't think they had the expertise to know what to do to. How to handle this franchise and how those decisions are made, I don't know. But there's. There was just so much negligence on so many areas across Disney, Warner Brothers, the production of Secret Lives that, like, this never should have happened. And there was. I had someone like a friend talk about, like, it almost reminds them of the housing crisis, like the big short, where it was like, for Secret Lives. It was like it was everyone's making money, everyone. Like, they couldn't do anything wrong and people just lost the plot and then it all caught up with them and came crashing down. But at the end of the day, again, I think people just need to be reminded there are some serious victims in this situation.
- [90:12]
Susie Evans
Starting with the children.
- [90:13]
Nick
Starting with the children. And many people after that. And I think, again, there's more questions to be answered and asked. There's, I think, a lot more that's going to come out. But I hope we did a good job just sending the groundwork or painting an accurate picture of how this happened and why it didn't need to happen and how dark of a situation this is for everyone involved.
- [90:39]
Unidentified Male Caller
I actually have no idea if it will continue or not. I genuinely think it's 50. 50. I'm curious, as somebody that has been reporting on it and you watch it, you consume it, do you think. Think would fans be receptive if they were to do something, if they just went in a different direction or, or did something else? Do you think fans would appreciate it or. Or watch.
- [90:59]
Emily Longeretta
I think fans would watch. I don't. That's. It's tough because I don't think it'd be responsible, in my personal opinion, to Eric. I think it would do well. I think it would, of course, do well. I think if the Bachelor franchise is going to continue, I say go full, like, fun paradise. Just. Just skip over this and just go into paradise next season, next summer. Let the, Let the, like, air settle do you have. You think these men an opportunity on Paradise.
- [91:26]
Unidentified Male Caller
We have breaking news. Jordan has just filed a restraining order against Jesse, according to court documents obtained by tmz. And she filed an opposition to the TRO the same day.
- [91:42]
Emily D. Baker
Oh, that. Let me pull up the docket real quick. Because he filed for divorce, right?
- [91:46]
Emily Longeretta
Yeah.
- [91:47]
Emily D. Baker
If he filed for divorce last week, filing a civil protective order might. Filing a civil protective order is done online. It's the same thing that Dakota did. And it can start to set what the custody arrangement looks like while the divorce is pending. So let me pull. Let me pull those up real quick.
- [92:11]
Nick
We know that Jesse and Jordan are getting divorced. Clearly, there's a lot of information coming out. Again, this speaks to their. This is an ongoing story. And the fallout continues. And again, this speaks to, like, just. I don't think Secret Lives has a future. Not this cast. I think there's a world that they can do a spin off, but I just don't. With all this toxicity and all this darkness centered around this cast, things have clearly fallen off the rails.
- [92:39]
Unidentified Male Caller
It's like, as a culture, we need to see this and be like, okay, do we need to take a step back? And.
- [92:45]
Nick
Yeah, my experience with Jordan has not been very positive. My experience with Jesse has been it's really giving that Jordan's following Dakota's lead. But that's just speculation at this point. I think, obviously, let's just see how things play out. But. But again, it's important to condemn this video. Again, I think you can still have empathy for Taylor. And I think in our experience, we've become friends with her over the years and gotten to know her. I've seen her bring a lot of joy to a lot of people's lives. And again, that doesn't in any. But this is just a really sad situation, and it doesn't need to happen. And I just think there are a lot of humans in here that just. No one. No one looked out for them. No one gave a fuck about them. And I think the question is, is who benefited from not looking into it, Staying silent, not bringing up a. Like, there's a lot of people who benefited from not bringing this to light much sooner than it did.
- [93:45]
Emily Longeretta
And maybe they didn't because now they're losing money. Ultimately millions. I mean, around probably 50 to 60 million is going to be lost at this, doesn't it?
- [93:54]
Nick
What are you able to find, Emily?
- [93:55]
Emily D. Baker
All right, so with relation to the divorce of Jesse and Jordan that was filed on March 19, the same day that the video came out, the same day that everybody was at the courthouse, there was a domestic relations injunction that is pretty standard filed that day. But then after that, a temporary restraining order was requested on March 20, and then an opposition was also filed on March 20. But everything on the docket from March 20 is sealed. Everything. And the oppositions are sealed. So there is quite a bit of litigation that happened on March 20th. All of it sealed. All of it was requested to seal the entire case file. So if any documents are obtained from this docket, there is always an outside possibility that they were public for just a blip, but that's incredibly unlikely. However, there is nothing inherently improper about parties providing those to tmz. It just becomes a more directed placement. It's not that they're obtained through the court docket because the entire court docket less of very few things are sealed. And a request to keep the case sealed is all from March 20th. So that was all done then. And the motion for the restraining orders and the oppositions are all within that divorce docket that started on the 19th, the same day that everything else.
- [95:24]
Emily Longeretta
Yeah. And TMZ says they did see the court docs, so someone did show them to them. If, like you said, they may have been, as we know, they may have been public for a few minutes, but.
- [95:32]
Susie Evans
Yeah, but they would have needed what? Heads up.
- [95:35]
Emily D. Baker
It's unlock it. It's unlikely to me, based on this docket, that they would have been public for a blip, because I don't see a filing on there that indicates where it was asked to seal those or remove those from the public docket. Of course, it is always possible that there is a blip before they are sealed, but that's unlikely when the party filing it is the same party who the documents are seen from, because generally, if the party filing it chooses to file it unsealed, the other party comes in and says, no, please seal these. And then it happens later and you see that filing. And that's not what I'm seeing on this docket. Is it an outside possibility? Of course. Is it likely? No.
- [96:15]
Nick
Well, a lot more that I'm sure we'll get into as this all unfolds. I just want to thank both Emily's for. For joining us. You've been super helpful and I hope you guys all appreciate this conversation. And again, it's a lot of gratitude to both you women for helping us have this conversation. We're not done yet here with this episode. We do have Vanessa and Leah from Age of Attraction up next to talk about their experiences going in the finale which is this Wednesday on Netflix. We also have a big announcement here at the Vile Files coming out on Wednesday as well. We are excited to bring to you but up next we have Leah and Vanessa and then we'll see you back on Thursday. If you're a pet parent like us, you know all about Chewy. And when they say they have everything you need to keep your pet happy and healthy, they're not messing around to keep them happy.
- [97:05]
Susie Evans
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- [97:43]
Nick
Chewy has everything you need to keep your pet happy and healthy. And right now you can save 20 off your first order and get free shipping by going to chupanions.com vile files that's twopenions.com vile files to save 20 off your first order with free shipping chupanions.com/velile files minimum purchase required New customers only. Terms and conditions apply. C Site for complete details Let me guess, you've got a folder of saved Instagram workouts you never actually do or you've been doing the same routine for two years. I was definitely right there with you. As someone who gets busier and busier, you know how I feel about going to the gym and how much of a waste that is. And then I discovered Ladder. It's another great workout app that gives you a variety of different workouts. You know you don't really need much of any equipment depending on how much strength training you want to do. For example, I've done a lot of great workouts without any equipment and someone as busy as I am and I'm constantly on the go. I've used the Ladder app in my hotel room. I've used it on the road where I have no equipment. There are also a lot of great classes with equipment that you can have, but it's great for all you busy people out there that want a variety in your life. You want to track your progress with your workouts and get a lot of great different experts and trainers classes like pilates, bodybuilding at home, dumbbell only, hybrid strength, glute focus programs, kettlebells and pre and post natal workouts whether you train at home or the gym.
- [98:59]
Leah
Gym.
- [99:00]
Nick
Now I don't go to the gym very often but if you are also someone who does go to the gym but you always feel lost. It's like a travel personal trainer. You can take it to the gym, bring your phone, you bring your tablet and got a lot of great workouts. So it's kind of like a trainer in your back pocket. It costs less than a dollar a day. That's elite level personal training for a fraction of what you pay in person. Ladder now includes nutrition tracking at no extra cost. It's AI powered food logging and macro insights. Integrate with your training plan, remove the guesswork with ladder and get a real coach in your ear telling you exactly what to do for every workout. No thinking, everything planned for you. If you have an iPhone, head to Ladder Fit V I A L L and take a quiz to find your perfect ladder plan. Use our link and get a free 7 day trial with no credit card and $10 off your first month if you join. Leah, Vanessa, welcome.
- [99:49]
Leah
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
- [99:50]
Nick
How are you ladies doing?
- [99:51]
Vanessa
Good to see you guys.
- [99:52]
Nick
Excited to see you both.
- [99:54]
Vanessa
Well, so excited.
- [99:54]
Nick
I'm, I, I've asked everyone this question. What drew you to this show and why did you say yes to Age of Attraction?
- [100:02]
Vanessa
Well, first of all, I live in a really small town so I don't get to meet a lot of people. And so I really wanted to take the opportunity just to get out and meet other people. And then when I heard that they didn't get to know how old I was, it was like fantastic because I was the one lying on the apps and saying I was younger because I did, I always lied on there. Scroll down to born in 1985. Like I was 16. Yeah, I was scrolling down, I was like whatever. Yeah, I was not going to put my age on there because when you did, I mean it just the people that I was meeting in the group or the people that were wanting to swipe on me were not the people I wanted to swipe with, you know, so I, I wanted to not be judged for my age, really, honestly. And so for me I had to give that back and not judge other people for their age.
- [100:51]
Nick
Were you drawn to younger men?
- [100:54]
Vanessa
Yeah. So I didn't go to college until I, I had, I was the teen mom. So I went to college a little bit later when my daughter started going to school. So that was seven years later. So I started dating people that were seven years younger than me, you know. And so for me then I just kind of fit in more with like the younger people.
- [101:13]
Nick
Oh, interesting.
- [101:14]
Vanessa
Yeah. But I mean, never did I think I was going to be this young. But we're here now. I mean I was like, you didn't
- [101:20]
Nick
realize you develop a tast.
- [101:24]
Vanessa
So my sister used to always joke because she said that I like the 22 year olds and she would call them deuce deuce. And so I was like, they're saying deuce deuce. And I'm just keep going up and down.
- [101:34]
Leah
What about you, Leah, for me? My sister in law sent me the application. She was like, you should do it, you should just try it. And I was like, you know what, what do I have to lose Because I'm still single, you know, I still haven't met the right person, so. And I figured if it actually it works out, maybe this is like my person, you know. Cause like God got me this opportunity for a reason and it's kind of dope. I'm like out of all these people, you know, I applied, I was like, I think everyone else got founded, everyone got reached out to. I didn't, I was writing. I think it took me hours, you know what I mean? Just trying to be myself. I'm telling you, I was like, I had to save it, screenshot it because it would time out. Yes, it's a process. And so I was like, well, if a man's doing that, this has got to be good. And so for me I was like, the more the merrier. Let's see what's up.
- [102:21]
Nick
And hearing from Vanessa, she was like, yes, they don't get to know my age. Obviously with this show, as you ladies both know, we obviously were interested in exploring relationships with age differences. But you had the opportunity to meet plenty of men your age when you went into this. Were you, had you dated younger men before? Was that something that you found yourself doing or was a relationship with Chris something that was new for you?
- [102:49]
Leah
So I've dated both older and younger. So when I was younger, I dated older. When I was now older, the young ones come to me cause I don't look my age and I just don't even tell them anymore because they don't believe me. And so when I When Chris came, what, 26? I was like, you know what he said? He came to me very confidently. Like, the way he looked at me. And then he said he made money. I was like, well, he's sounds like he's set, you know, he knows what he wants and who he is. So I'm like, well, why not? I mean, I've dated other 20 or, you know, upper 20s, and it was fine.
- [103:23]
Susie Evans
We did see that you, Vanessa, had you explored Chris. It ultimately did not work out.
- [103:32]
Nick
Explorer.
- [103:36]
Leah
Yeah.
- [103:37]
Susie Evans
You went on a journey with Chris.
- [103:40]
Vanessa
Sure did.
- [103:40]
Susie Evans
An experiment with Chris.
- [103:42]
Vanessa
Sure did.
- [103:44]
Susie Evans
What was it about Chris that just didn't work for you?
- [103:46]
Vanessa
He did come on kind of strongly in the beginning, and I was just, you know, open to it. But then as I got to talk to him a little bit more, I just felt like there was a disconnect. Like, I just felt we just. We weren't aligning, you know, and for me, I thought, there's gotta be some. This isn't it for me, you know. So it was a disconnect at the
- [104:08]
Susie Evans
pier is when you find out when we first all get to Vancouver, you find out for the first time that
- [104:16]
Leah
that was a thing.
- [104:18]
Susie Evans
A thing first. Did you think that she knew going into that?
- [104:22]
Vanessa
Yes. I assumed because I had spoken with my partner about it, so I assumed that they would.
- [104:28]
Susie Evans
But you had conversations. You. I mean, we saw you kind of work through that. Was that a hard thing for you too, to work through?
- [104:36]
Leah
No, it was. We literally, once we were able to talk about it, we. I let him know what was going on, how I felt, and we sat on the couch and I just told him how I felt, and I told him. I was like. I felt very alone. Like I didn't know. Like, everyone knew because Vanessa had told her partner, I'm pretty sure, probably asap. And then Chris went this whole time and never even crossed his mind to tell me. And so for me, I'm like, well, why? Because he literally harped on the fact that he's such a good communicator. He's like, I'm a great communicator. I was like, okay, awesome. And then, you know, he does speeches for a living. I was like, great. And then when it pushed came to shove, he couldn't even just let me know what happened because we weren't even dating. So I wouldn't have even been mad at the fact. Right. I was like, it'd just been nice, a heads up instead of feeling blindsided because I thought. I thought everyone knew. I thought all the girls knew, all the men knew. And I was like, like, wow, not everyone now. Yeah, I know now.
- [105:25]
Vanessa
Yeah.
- [105:26]
Nick
I'm curious. In that moment, you know, with this show obviously being centered around, like, age differences, did you see that as a sign of immaturity from Chris and, you know, oh, it showed that he is younger or was that just more like, not like character? Because that's kind of heavy, but, like, you can. You can be a 40 year old and. And withhold some important facts in dating as well. How did you see it in that moment?
- [105:54]
Leah
For me, because he did come across like, oh, I'm a great communicator. For me, it's like. How do you say this? It's more of a character flaw, I would say, because I can't say immaturity because he's had tough conversations with people, you know, But I don't think he's had it with women because he also led me to believe that he dated a lot of older women. And so then when I asked him, he was like, well, technically we didn't really date. We kind of just had like a thing. And so I was like, oh, so you're not even used to hard conversations in general. So I think that plays a huge role.
- [106:27]
Nick
And at that point, like, did you see it like an opportunity to like, yeah, like, how did you work through that difference with Chris in terms of, you know, was it more of like a mistake and maybe you needed to, like, set new expectations of what you want in a relationship or.
- [106:42]
Leah
I definitely had to set my boundaries and what I expect from relationship because we didn't get to spend as much time as all the other couples. We kind of were a last couple. So I. We probably only got to spend maybe like six hours. You know, you're talking like, prior to prior. So, like, our hikes, we went, our dates, we did hiking, things like that. So this is our first time together, being in it. And so, yes, maybe he didn't want to ruffle any feathers. He didn't know how I would react. But it's like, he didn't give me that chance to even react because it's like, at the end of the day, it's okay. Like, we weren't even a couple. So, like, of course, our whole goal here on the show is to find, you know, to talk to everybody, do what you gotta do, you know? So for me, it's like he didn't even give me the benefit of the doubt.
- [107:20]
Emily Longeretta
Right.
- [107:21]
Susie Evans
But I do feel like when y' all had that conversation once, you finally did.
- [107:25]
Leah
Yeah.
- [107:25]
Susie Evans
It was a very quick, like, nipped in the bud.
- [107:27]
Leah
Done.
- [107:28]
Susie Evans
Done.
- [107:28]
Leah
It didn't. It didn't. For me, it didn't linger on. We. We squashed it. Because once we talk about it, forgive and forget, and then we're moving past it, like, I don't let things linger. It's not that serious. Yes.
- [107:37]
Emily Longeretta
Right.
- [107:38]
Susie Evans
Vanessa did. Was the comment Logan made about visual age.
- [107:45]
Vanessa
Yeah. I didn't know how to take that honestly, because maybe people just lie and gas me up and tell me that they think I look younger than my age. So when he just put it out there like that, I was kind of speechless, actually.
- [107:59]
Nick
Did he ever apologize?
- [108:00]
Vanessa
Oh, immediately. I think after he said it, like, he. He knew. It's like when your puppy bites you and they're like, oh, I shouldn't have done this. Like, oh, you know, that was not good.
- [108:12]
Nick
A big part of your storyline with you and Logan was the lack of intimacy early on, which is just kind of a fascinating conversation between men and women and how that conversation goes when.
- [108:29]
Susie Evans
Also, very relatable conversation.
- [108:31]
Nick
Yeah. Like when. When the women are feeling like maybe they're not getting what they need in the bedroom versus when a man might feel that. I'm just curious, like, how can you just walk us through what was going on? Yeah. How did you want to go about communicating that?
- [108:45]
Vanessa
So it was interesting for me because, you know, you think, like, you're with a young guy, and everyone's like, oh, they have so much stamina, and they're so. They're so virile, and it's just going to be, like, this fun. I was expecting fireworks on the 4th of July, and I was getting cold sandwiches on Memorial Day. Like, there was just, like. There was just, like, nothing happening. And then I started to question it, like, maybe he isn't attracted to me, you know? So I did have the conversations with him, and he's, like, devoutly religious, which I didn't really know that going into it. And he's, you know, this was something he was concerned about how he would look and his religion and that sort of thing.
- [109:24]
Susie Evans
Do you feel like having the conversation with Teresa and kind of finding out, like, oh, maybe everyone else is having sex. Did that kind of get in your head a little bit of, like, why am I the only one out? That's not.
- [109:37]
Emily Longeretta
Yeah.
- [109:38]
Vanessa
I mean, having that conversation, it kind of put things in perspective to me because I felt like, yeah, they're doing that. But. But then I felt also that, like, Logan was trying to go for something deeper. You know, that he wasn't just like, hey, this is just gonna be like a cheap fling while I'm in Vancouver, you know, Like, I think he was being a little bit more intentional and more thoughtful. So after that conversation, I. It actually made me think better of him.
- [110:05]
Susie Evans
No, totally. I mean, definitely.
- [110:07]
Vanessa
Yeah.
- [110:08]
Susie Evans
Yeah. His answer was very respectful, and I appreciated that answer a lot than I think maybe what I would have expected him to say. It was a nice surprise to hear that from him.
- [110:19]
Nick
And I guess. How did you. How were you able to get out of your head and believe him versus, you know, as they say, the comparisons of Thief of Joy and just be like, oh, is that a line? Are you making that up or is this.
- [110:33]
Vanessa
Well, I think after a while, like, the tension built up and he couldn't hold out.
- [110:39]
Nick
I was gonna say, like, he saw. He's so religious. He waited three days.
- [110:44]
Vanessa
He took his cross necklace off, and I knew what time it was.
- [110:51]
Nick
Leah, with you and Chris, it was a fascinating conversation about. I guess quality time was really what that disconnect seemed to be about with you two. Chris kind of described. He's, you know, like, I really like her, and I like spending time with her, but, like, all day, you know, and you obviously, at least that's what it seemed like. Quality time is important in terms of your love language, and you really wanted to share those. This, you know, very limited time overall for you guys to get to know each other.
- [111:27]
Leah
Right.
- [111:29]
Nick
But, yeah. Could you just speak. Speak on that a little bit more from your point of view on that disconnect that we got to see with you and Chris?
- [111:37]
Leah
Yeah. Okay. So, like, so if in Whistler, me and Chris probably went on, like, three dates, so we probably maybe spent like, a couple of hours each time. And then we go to Vancouver and we have our first brunch date, and we have a great time. We have a great time at brunch, and then we get back home, and I'm like, all right, let's keep the party going. You know what I mean? I'm like, all right, this is great. And then he was like, I'm gonna take a shower and go to the gym or take a nap. And I was like, that's it?
- [112:00]
Nick
Yeah, I think it was nap, shower, gym.
- [112:02]
Leah
Yeah. And I was like, we just. We just, like, you know, we got turnt up. We're like, this. And I was like, that's it. And that was it. And so then for me, I was just left to sit on the couch with no tv, no nothing. And I'M like, all right, this is what I signed up for. Because you have to realize, like, so
- [112:17]
Susie Evans
different when you think, yeah, there's no tv, you have no phone. You have, like, nothing else.
- [112:22]
Leah
I had a book. I had a book. I had a book, you guys. And I was like, that is important.
- [112:26]
Emily D. Baker
Yes.
- [112:27]
Leah
That's like. I literally was like, this is it. And then for me, I'm like, we just had such a great time. I thought we were gonna just talk. And just for me, quality time isn't with the camera in our face. 20, you know, I'm saying, like, that's off the camera so you can get to really know somebody. So for me, it's like, I didn't get to really see Chris unless we had that camera. Does that make sense? So for me, I'm like, okay, well, we filmed, like, well, let's actually just get to hang out now and be us and just relax and kick it. And he was, like, going to sleep.
- [112:55]
Nick
How long did he nap for?
- [112:57]
Leah
I couldn't tell you, because I just. I went. Probably went to the gym. Well, I think I read my book, and then I left.
- [113:02]
Nick
Okay.
- [113:03]
Leah
There's just no point. Like, what's the point?
- [113:05]
Susie Evans
When we caught up with all of y' all at dinner, after you had met family and friends, you had some opinions on Teresa not telling her kids John's age, right?
- [113:21]
Leah
I mean, I think everyone was thinking those opinions because I saw everyone's faces around the. Around the table.
- [113:24]
Susie Evans
You don't feel like you were alone in that?
- [113:26]
Leah
No, absolutely not. Was I alone, Vanessa?
- [113:28]
Vanessa
No, you were not alone.
- [113:30]
Leah
Yeah.
- [113:31]
Vanessa
Yeah.
- [113:32]
Leah
No, because I looked around, and I was like, is it. Am I. Am I the only one that really thinks? Because the whole goal of this. Purpose of the show is to not care. Like, we really date. We date whoever we want to date. We don't. We were excited about their ages. It doesn't matter. No one looks their age anyways. It's perfect. And then for her, I just feel like she just got. What is this, like, a sense of, like, there's, like, an entitlement where she gets treated like she didn't. She didn't get required, all that. I had a sign holding up, like, age, age, age, age, you know? And it's just weird that people just had different expectations for different people, and so. But I get to realize I didn't know Theresa. I know her like that, so I didn't know her. She had kids. I knew she had kids. I didn't know how many. I didn't know her Kids were older than John. So I had. That's why I had a conversation.
- [114:18]
Vanessa
I asked.
- [114:19]
Leah
I was like, oh, well, how old are your children? And then she was like, oh. And so that's why I was like, Ah, one's 29. I get it now. So I was like, I understand. I get what you're saying. Because I didn't know. Okay.
- [114:29]
Susie Evans
So once you got a little bit more context, you kind of understood where she was coming.
- [114:33]
Nick
Yeah. I mean, just to play devil's advocate, I totally get where you're coming from. And certainly in reality, the reality TV world, it's hard not to compare and get in your head. But as I'm sure, like, both you ladies acknowledge that just the world, as I think Theresa was trying to point out, is just very judgmental when it comes to especially older women dating younger men. And I think just any couple in an age difference, I think we're just so used to, like, people leading with negativity. You know, it's like the. The. The jokes or the assumptions, like, it. It always tends to be negative.
- [115:14]
Vanessa
Yeah.
- [115:16]
Nick
So I think for anyone in a relationship, they're really excited about and see the potential, it at least makes sense why their initial instinct is protect that and keep kind of those outside voices. That was just kind of my read on it at the time.
- [115:31]
Leah
But I would see them out in public, like, as in. And like, he was happy to be out with her, and she's older, you know what I'm saying? So the least she can do is like, all right, you know what? I'm gonna tell these. Tell my children his real age. Cause he's proud of me. They're literally walking hand in hand, like, in this.
- [115:46]
Nick
Oh, I totally get it from John's.
- [115:48]
Leah
But I think it's cute to me, like, I'm just like, it's great.
- [115:50]
Susie Evans
Do you feel the. That kind of stigma that, like, older women with younger men is not normalized? It's weird. It's like people judge it more than they judge older men with younger women.
- [116:03]
Leah
They're gonna judge regardless. But I'm like, well, if you're happy, you're happy. It's like, that's your job to not care about what everyone else is saying about you.
- [116:10]
Nick
Sure.
- [116:10]
Leah
Regardless, you know what I'm saying? Like, if I found, like, a young guy, I'm like, as long as. If I'm happy, all my people are going to be happy for me.
- [116:17]
Vanessa
Me.
- [116:17]
Leah
You know what I'm saying? And like that. Yeah. So everyone's different.
- [116:21]
Susie Evans
Do you feel that? That Kind of like stigma.
- [116:24]
Vanessa
I, I definitely think there's a stigma to it. And people like to make jokes. People like to be funny and like to make jokes about it. And I. The good thing is they don't care. I don't care what they say. It's my life and I'm gonna do it.
- [116:36]
Leah
And you happy?
- [116:37]
Emily Longeretta
Right?
- [116:37]
Leah
Yeah, I think that's.
- [116:38]
Nick
Yeah, I think obviously that's the goal, right? And for all of us to get there. I think just sometimes when, now that I first started dating, I wasn't like that day one, I wasn't like, I don't give a fuck what anyone thinks. You know, like, it's hard not to get in your head sometimes. The feedback we receive, there's. There's some truth in it, right? There's like, well, maybe I should consider that. Or maybe I'm just like caught up in a whirlwind. So, you know, I think it's. It's great to get to a point where you don't care what other people think. And I think realistically we kind of all have to go at our own pace and process, you know, some of our fears and insecurities we have with us taking kind of these bigger leaps in relationships.
- [117:16]
Leah
That makes sense.
- [117:16]
Nick
Yeah. But I do appreciate the great tv,
- [117:20]
Leah
but we, look, we grown adult women, we know what we want. Look, I'm not gonna lie. If she would have said something else, I might have. I literally, I was like, am I gonna be Theresa? And I was like, it's so funny.
- [117:32]
Susie Evans
Nick was like smiling in that scene.
- [117:34]
Nick
He's like, this is great. I really appreciated you in that moment.
- [117:38]
Susie Evans
I remember after that, that there was a little bit of awkward silence where then I came in and clarified that there were no rules. And you could kind of take that and do with it what you wanted to. And you were kind of like, yeah, right?
- [117:51]
Leah
Yeah, I was side eyeing. I was, I was side eyeing you so hard. I was like, girl, you knew there were rules, okay? We all know there's rules. And I was like, but she didn't have to play by the rules. But I'm gonna let it go. And we're this. You saw me woosa. You did. You did.
- [118:05]
Vanessa
You woosa.
- [118:07]
Leah
So I was like, when did she flip? But okay, yeah, I did because I was.
- [118:13]
Nick
We're on no one's side.
- [118:15]
Leah
But look, I. And I was like, you know what, Leah, we're gonna drop it.
- [118:20]
Vanessa
But I do think, I do think that it was a missed opportunity, you know, like none of us wanted to do that no one wanted.
- [118:26]
Susie Evans
I would not have told Chris, mom.
- [118:27]
Leah
I'd have been let me think. I'm 30.
- [118:28]
Vanessa
But it was a missed opportunity. Like she could have had that moment.
- [118:31]
Nick
Well, you know, listen, on the other side, you're right. You know, I think if her children. If her children's opinions are going to matter, which I assume they would, they
- [118:40]
Leah
were gonna matter eventually.
- [118:41]
Nick
It would make sense for the rip
- [118:43]
Vanessa
that bandaid off now.
- [118:44]
Nick
Well, I mean, you need to know. Otherwise find out regardless, you know, otherwise, if they will play a role in your decision, then they need to probably know as soon as possible. So it's an interesting conversation.
- [118:55]
Leah
You're welcome. You're welcome.
- [118:58]
Nick
Vanessa, we've. It'll be interesting to watch your relationship with Logan unfold. But you guys fight like cats and dogs.
- [119:08]
Vanessa
Yes. So I was famous for. I was single for a while before going into this experiment. And I would always just go on like three dates with someone and be done. Like my first date, okay, it was good. The second date I was like, eh. Third date I was like, okay, that's it. So I really kind of had to push myself to put the work in. And I think he was kind of the same way. Like, he was just doing the situationship and I was just going on dates. And I think, like, both of us, like, I don't know, we just have this. This connection that makes us want to put the work in. And so we wanted to take the risk. We wanted to put the work in. And we fight with each other, but we fight for each other.
- [119:47]
Leah
Okay.
- [119:48]
Nick
I say this with love because I had been engaged a couple times before I met my wife. But you. We learned that you had four engagements prior to coming on Age of Attraction.
- [119:58]
Vanessa
Yes.
- [119:59]
Nick
Can you give us a little background on your relationship history?
- [120:02]
Vanessa
And she's great.
- [120:04]
Unidentified Female Cast Member
Sure.
- [120:05]
Vanessa
Yeah. So I have been engaged four times, one for each decade.
- [120:10]
Leah
Awesome.
- [120:10]
Vanessa
Talk about it. So, yeah.
- [120:12]
Susie Evans
So for me, do you still have all rings?
- [120:14]
Vanessa
Honestly, I will say that some of the rings I gave back because I feel like it's good karma. I feel like if you give the ring away, like the universe will give it back back to you.
- [120:23]
Susie Evans
So that's what bigger one comes.
- [120:25]
Vanessa
And truly, that's the truth.
- [120:27]
Nick
And the ones that you kept?
- [120:29]
Vanessa
Yeah, no, I don't think I kept one. I. I had one that I got made into a little necklace so I could give it to my daughter because it was from her dad. I put the diamond into a little thing. Yeah. So that was the only one that I kept. But the rest I Gave back so
- [120:45]
Susie Evans
I could get a bigger one in return.
- [120:47]
Vanessa
That's facts.
- [120:48]
Nick
And what did you learn about yourself along that relationship journey of yours?
- [120:52]
Vanessa
Through the engagement journey?
- [120:53]
Nick
Yeah, just, you know.
- [120:54]
Vanessa
Yeah. So I learned a lot about myself. And for me, I was feeling, you know, I. I like that concept of being engaged because you're actually in a commitment, and it's not a situationship, you know, that you're moving towards something. So when you're moving towards something, you're going to start putting the puzzle pieces together and building the foundation. And so then if it doesn't work out and then you realize, like, hey, our dreams don't align, then it's time to move on. Versus, like, if you're just in this, like, relationship and you're just kind of dragging it along and you're not really together, you're not really, you know that it's kind of sick, this whole situationship that's going on in the world. Like, people aren't committing anymore. So for me, I was like, I would give 110% of myself. And then if it didn't work out, I could walk away knowing I gave everything I had to give. No regret.
- [121:44]
Emily D. Baker
Nice.
- [121:45]
Susie Evans
Well, we are excited to see the rest of your lady's journey as it unfolds. See what happens at the finale, see where you are after that. But it's been a fun ride so far.
- [121:57]
Vanessa
Oh, yeah.
- [121:57]
Nick
Thanks for being a part of this new journey and this new show. And we were just. It was great. We really enjoyed the whole cast. And we've said this many times already with the show, but it was just a very likable cast, you ladies included. And it was just. It was great to be a part of the show that showed, like, a lot of really interesting relationship conversations with a bunch of people that, like, we can root for and see the good in. And you all bring interesting perspectives. And, you know, it just is someone who's like, you had had a lot of meaningful relationships prior to meeting my wife. Like it. I think sometimes we feel like. Like we've tried and failed a few times early in life that we come into new relationships as damaged goods. And I just like to think it's more like we. We have an opportunity to learn and be better. So thank you both for being a part of this journey with us, and it was just a pleasure to have you on.
- [122:50]
Leah
Thank you for having us.
- [122:51]
Vanessa
It's my pleasure, too.
- [122:53]
Susie Evans
So fun.
- [123:01]
Nick
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Emily D. Baker
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Nick
That's that's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about, get real time scores, breaking news
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Emily D. Baker
and highlights all in one place.
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Nick
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