But off set, Kim is focused on protecting her kids—North, Saint, Chicago, and Psalm—sharing with viewers that they are becoming increasingly aware of their father Kanye West’s recent erratic behavior—a plot point she soft-launched on Call Her Daddy with Alex Cooper (who is also producing a reality dating series for Hulu). “It’s a divorce, not a kidnapping,” she says on the season’s first episode, of coparenting with West. “We haven’t left. We’re in the same spot. What happened to the house that you bought next door?” West bought a house down the street from Kim’s Hidden Hills estate in 2021, shortly after she filed for divorce. Kim said at the time she suggested that West take the kids to school every day and that they have dinner together as a family nightly, but those plans never panned out. “Maybe that’s too much,” Kim concedes, “but that’s just what I saw from my mom and my stepdad and my dad.”
By revisiting her past with West, Kim can illuminate the challenges of her present. Back at Eldorado, Kendall and Kylie admit to smoking weed in the backyard, with the elder of the two joking that she lost her virginity in the house. “We’re children number five and six,” says Kendall. “[Kris] just—she has no more energy for us.” But for all the cynicism about the Kardashians returning to their retro rebrand, there is genuine emotion to be gleaned from their trip down memory lane. Later in the episode, Kris captures an intimate moment between Kendall and Kylie as they softly cry on the staircase of their childhood home. “Those were some of the best years,” Kylie tearfully admits.
Khloé Kardashian, Lamar Odom, Kris Jenner, Kendall Jenner, Kourtney Kardashian, Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Caitlyn Jenner, and Kylie Jenner attend a Yeezy show on February 11, 2016 in New York City.Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
Curry, 43, took to her Instagram on Friday, October 31, to detail her claim, which allegedly took place while filming season 1 of the reality TV series at the end of 2002 and early 2003.
“I wanted to discuss why I’m partially bald right here. The reason is, when I was on Top Model, Tyra Banks told them to put a weave in my hair. The black stylists that were putting it in pulled her aside, and I heard them tell her, like, ‘This white chick’s hair is too fragile for this,’ and she’s [Tyra’s], like, ‘Oh no, no, just do it,’” Curry alleged of the show’s host, 51, during her video. “I had an oozing wound from the braids. Half my hair had been ripped out here. The little bit of hair that grows here, that’s it.”
Us Weekly has reached out to a representative for Banks for comment.
As Curry, who won the modelling contest at the age of 20, shared her claim, she pointed to the left side of her head which showed a patch of short-growing strands.
“That’s all, like, it’s hardly anything,” Curry said.
She then alleged that once the series had wrapped, she visited an Illinois hair salon where she sought guidance in rectifying the alleged incident.
“When I got off the show, they didn’t even take the weave out so I had to go to a black salon in Illinois and I will never forget, because all the hair stylists came around,” Curry stated in the clip. “One chick was like, ‘Who the hell put this in your white head?’ I couldn’t say anything because I was under an NDA so it took hours and hours for them to get it out. I was left with… horrific moist scabs all over my head. They [the stylists] were so sweet … they just couldn’t believe that this was done to me.”
Curry, who later appeared in MTV’s The Surreal Life before landing several acting gigs, also spoke about the alleged lasting effects of her makeover.
“It’s never grown, this entire area. It’s permanently damaged from that weave. It was so painful,” she claimed. “I was crawling out of my skin every second. All my friends were like, ‘Are you bald there?’ I think most of those makeovers were done just to torture us, honestly.”
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Curry then spoke about how she couldn’t understand why she required additional alleged makeover direction given she undertook a dramatic hair cut on the show.
“On episode one, they cut my hair for the photo shoot and it looked really good … and then, they’re like, ‘You need a makeover.’ It was awful,” she claimed. “It felt so validating to be in that salon with all the women who were just, like, ‘Who would do this to you?’ and I’m, like, her name is Tyra.”
Curry then gave the camera a laugh before ending the recording. The post attracted mixed responses from fans in the comments section, with one person writing, “I’m so sorry! That sounds awful,” and another person writing, “It also happens with a lot of medications and menopause.”
Buckle your seatbelts 90 Day Fiancé fans — it’s officially tell-all season.
On Sunday, November 2, TLC released the official trailer for the most explosive 90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After? tell-all to date.
In the shocking preview, several couples — including Jasmine Pineda and Matt Branistareanu — appear to be struggling in the romance department as the entire cast lives under one roof while taping.
“Is there anything you want to say?” Jasmine asks Matt in one scene. “You were having sex with her — yes or no?
In a confessional interview, Matt says, “I just do some stupid ass s*** in life.”
Jasmine’s ex, Gino Palazzolo, begins to enter the picture — just one of the perks (or downfalls, depending on who you ask) of the cast all living under one unforgiving roof.
“Do you think I would have married you if I didn’t want to?” Gino emotionally asks Jasmine.
Jasmine replies, “I don’t think I will ever love someone like I love you. I have never wanted to be with Matt ever.” (Spoiler: Matt is listening nearby and can hear everything.)
Darcey Silva and Georgi RusevTLC
While viewers eagerly wait to learn where Jasmine stands in the relationship department, Yara Zaya is crying about her romance with Jovi Dufren.
“I cry and cry and fight and fight,” she says through tears. “It’s so hard for me to imagine.”
As for Brandon Gibbs and Julia Trubkina, they appear to be going through a tough patch, especially with Brandon’s parents getting involved.
Meanwhile, Darcey Silva is ready to confront Georgi Rusev’s behavior when he’s out in public.
“He does flirt when he goes out. I’ve seen it. He does it point-blank,” she says during the reunion special. “It’s not like he’s hiding it so I have suspicions.”
Georgi tries — and appears to fail — to explain himself when he accuses his wife of being “jealous.”
“I talk to beautiful women,” he explains. “It’s networking. I just talk to people.”
Darcey replies, “I’m not jealous. Just show me some respect. That is so disgusting that you’re doing this right now.”
Jasmine Pineda and Matt BranistareanuTLC
The pair have spent much of the past season struggling to get along. Darcey previously questioned why her husband won’t pay his portion of the rent on time. More recently, the pair had a tense conversation about having kids in the future.
Ultimately, it’s not just couples who are finding themselves in the drama during the tell-all. Andrei Castravet and Jovi come to blows over some social media behavior.
In addition, Elizabeth Potthast appears to no longer be friends with Loren Brovarnik. As for what led to the falling out, viewers will just have to wait and see.
And baby makes three! 90 Day Fiancé star Julia Trubkina is pregnant and expecting her first child with husband Brandon Gibbs. Julia and Brandon, both 31, announced the exciting news in a video shared via 90 Day Fiancé’s official Instagram page on Tuesday, August 26. The clip showed the mom-to-be cradling her baby bump in […]
“If this is a tell-all, we’re going to f***ing tell all,” Elizabeth proclaims.
According to TLC, the 90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After? tell-all may not be about closure. Instead, it’s about what happens when everyone finally has to face each other and the judgments of their peers.
The four-part 90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After? tell-all begins Sunday, November 9, on TLC at 8 p.m. ET.
“Happy Birthday my Rocky 13 🖤. You’re such a special soul, and you make every day brighter. I love you,” Barker, 49, wrote via Instagram on Saturday, November 1. “No one’s cooler. Guitars, drums, pirates, boom boom pow and Angus Young forever 🎸🥁🏴☠️ 🥊.”
Kourtney, 46, commented on the post with a holding-back-tears emoji while her mom, Kris Jenner, added drum emojis. Kourtney’s sister and Rocky’s aunt Khloé Kardashian also wrote: “Happy birthday to the cutest!!!!! Rocky!!!!!!! 🩵🩵🩵.”
Kourtney and Kris, 69, also shared the post via her Instagram Stories on Saturday. (Sisters Kim Kardashian, Kendall Jenner and Kylie Jenner didn’t share birthday wishes to Rocky on social media.)
Kourtney Kardashian paid tribute to sister Kim Kardashian on her 45th birthday. Taking to Instagram on Tuesday, October 21, to share a carousel of throwback photos that captured Kim through the years, Kourtney, 46, captioned the post, “Best friends forever.” The eldest Kardashian sister kicked off her carousel with a stunning black-and-white snap of the […]
Kourtney and the Blink-182 drummer got married in 2022 and welcomed Rocky the following year. They shared the first photos of their newborn son a month after his birth, writing, “ROCKY 🖤,” in their joint Instagram caption.
Kourtney also shares kids Mason, 15, Penelope, 13, and Reign, 10, with ex Scott Disick. Barker, meanwhile, is dad to son Landon, 22, daughter Alabama, 19, and stepdaughter Atiana De La Hoya, 26, with his ex-wife Shanna Moakler.
During an interview with Vanity Fair Italia in 2023, Kourtney said all the kids were so happy to be welcoming a baby sibling.
“They’ve been asking me for another baby for a while,” she said. “When they go to school in the morning, they touch my belly, kiss it, and say goodbye.”
Earlier this year, some fans thought that Kourtney might be expecting yet again, but she shot down online speculation with a cheeky comment via Instagram.
Rocky Barker.Courtesy of Travis Barker/Instagram
“Rumors have it that you’re pregnant, Kourtney,” a social media user commented on an August post of her family trip to Idaho, to which she replied, “Eating pancakes and jumping off cliffs 🤙🏼.”
Weeks earlier, she addressed further pregnancy speculation.
“Or breast-feeding, eating gelato, focaccia, pasta, not working out and living my best damn life, baby,” she retorted in the comments of a July 18 upload.
Khloé Kardashian and Kourtney Kardashian‘s most recent fight on The Kardashians left some Hulu viewers confused. During the Thursday, October 30, episode of the reality show, Kourtney, 46, revealed that she was at odds with Khloé, 41, after leaving a group chat, telling her friend Simon Huck, “I couldn’t control myself. She’s just talking s*** […]
In a sweet Mother’s Day post in May, Barker celebrated his wife and her dedication to their children.
“Happy Mother’s Day @kourtneykardash Thank you for being such a great Mom and taking such good care of our family. We love you so much ❤️,” he shared, to which she replied, “🥺❤️ It is my purpose and my pleasure.”
“I love experiencing life through their eyes and doing with them all the things I did as a child,” Kourtney told Vanity Fair Italia of motherhood. “Going to Disneyland or even just touching sand for the first time. I love creating traditions and memories and making everyday things feel special and magical. Being able to do that now with Travis is a dream come true.”
Paul Hollywood better lock his doors, turn on the alarm, and get in the panic room because I am coming for him. I’m not going to hurt him or anything, but I am going to scratch one of his cars and eat all the sweet treats stashed in his house, and you know that, like Toby, his stash is considerable. How dare he treat my perfect Tom like that? First, at the beginning of the episode, he looks at Tom’s fingernails and says, “You’ve been hanging on by there for a while.” Seriously? Paul gave him a showstopper handshake, and now he’s like, “Eh, you kinda suck.” Please. Then the judging of the showstopper. Oh, you better clear the decks because I am about to go full Angela Bassett in Waiting to Exhale on his ass.
The signature is the only challenge during Patisserie Week that I don’t absolutely hate. The four remaining contestants, also known as Jasmine and the Gents, all have to make two batches of cream horns, which spawns about 15 “horny” puns. Only 15? The show is slipping. There is nothing wrong with this assignment, except that things are a little warm in the tent during what was England’s hottest summer on record. Pretty hard when patisserie requires the butter to be cold, which we are told more times than there are horny puns.
Toby tells us that he has never made rough puff pastry before, and the last time he made full puff, Paul yelled at him. So he tried Paul’s recipe, and it sucked, so he’s using Gordon Ramsey’s instead. This is the kind of shade that I never knew Toby was capable of, but it makes me love him even more. When Prue tries Toby’s pastry, she says it’s too hard, which Paul, of course, blames on Toby using a chef’s recipe. I’m sorry, but there will be no vindication for Paul this episode. While they love both his coffee-flavored and lemon horns, they both don’t love the actual pastry, which puts Toby at the bottom.
Down there with him is the artist formerly known as Perfect Tom. Don’t worry, Tom. I still think you’re perfect. The whole time he is baking, he keeps saying his horns are going to be more like short-crust pastry, and when the judges try them, that’s the exact critique they have. If Tom knew this was a problem, why didn’t he find a solution before the (im)perfect judges came along? However, much like Toby, they love his raspberry cream cheese and chocolate and clementine flavor combinations, but it’s the pastry that they seem to be grading.
The opposite is true of Aaron, who the bakers seem to think is the king of pastry, but I’m not sure why. Is there something that happened this season that I’m forgetting? Paul and Prue both love his dessert cornucopia, but they hate the flavor combinations. Paul says that his nectarine and cherry both taste great individually, but together they’re gross. He’s not wrong. It does sound a little like making a Slush Puppy at 7-11 and putting a pump of each flavor into the ice. The same goes for chocolate and lemon, which I don’t love either, unless it’s a See’s Candy Lemon Truffle. Mmmmmm.
Queen Jasmine, of course, gets nothing but praise. I’m sorry, but it’s no fun when there is a clear front-runner. We don’t watch to see who goes home; we watch to see who is going to win, and it’s so obviously been Jasmine for weeks now that there is no suspense at all. The judges love her pastry Bugles, which do look delicious. Paul loves their flake, Prue loves the balance of coffee and chocolate in one variety, and Paul loves the raspberry, pistachio, and white chocolate (barf) ones. However, he chides Jasmine for using too many pistachios for the rest of the episode, even though she never uses them again. Ugh. Paul. Always on my shit list.
The technical challenge is to make a Framboisier, a French dessert with layers of génoise sponge, crème mousseline, and fresh raspberries. (Anyone who has ordered gelato in Paris knows the French word for raspberry is “framboise.”) Bakers also have to make a fondant rose and a sugar dome to decorate the top. As an audience, we want these challenges to be difficult, but we ultimately want the bakers to succeed. We want to see something tricky but doable in the time so that they triumph. Here, no one finishes the cake they wanted in the allotted time, which means there is no problem with the bakers; there is a problem with the challenge. This is just too damn hard. Do they not test these before? Don’t they have something like on Survivorwhere they have non-contestants run the challenge first? Apparently not.
There is one good thing about the challenge, which allows Aaron to say that this is what he loves about baking: making a cake that looks like a cake, not one that looks like a football, Paul Hollywood’s head, or one of his many cars. Exactly! That’s what we want too. We don’t want them to be engineers, as this show so often turns them into; we just want them to make a great-looking cake. At one point in the showstopper, Jasmine says, “I’m not an engineer, I’m a medic.” Exactly! And she’s perfect the way she is. No wait. Tom is perfect. She’s adequate the way she is. (Just kidding. She’s great, too.)
I can’t think of a more disastrous bake in the history of this show than this technical. Making the glass dome is the part that befuddles most of them. What they need to do is boil sugar, pour it onto cling film (British to American translation: Saran Wrap), press down on the film so it bulges into a dome, wait for it to cool, then take it off the film. This seems like one of those things you watch a pastry chef do on TikTok and then say, “Coooooolllll!! I’m never doing that.” Tom almost completes his and then cracks it while putting it in the freezer. Aaron is the only one who manages to do it successfully, and his dome looks like a pint glass that has been sitting in a gutter for three days. When it comes down to judging, it’s between Jasmine and Tom for the top spot, and the judges like both of their cakes, but it ultimately goes to Jasmine. What if Tom had finished his dome? Would that have nudged him to the winner’s circle? Is it about the cake and its taste, or is it about this foolhardy technique that even Martha Stewart was like, “Why would you bother?”
The clear loser is Toby, who serves up something that looks like a protein shake and a green juice tried to have sex and both of their bottles fell over and they just spilled all over the floor. His problem is not only with the dome but also with the mousseline. It’s a custard that is combined with butter, but the custard has to be cool and the butter has to be soft or else it won’t set and, as Toby learns, spill all over the floor like a leprechaun’s milkshake. What he serves the judges looks less like a cake and more like a puddle, and Prue also says there should be two layers of sponge, but there’s only one. That’s like showing up at a burned-down house and asking why there isn’t WiFi. We have bigger problems here!
The showstopper is a macaron-based challenge where the bakers have to make a centerpiece at least 45 centimeters (about a foot and a half) that is “bold, impactful” and showcases 30 macaroons. I have no problem with this challenge; this is the kind of thing that the modern Baking Show has been doing for years. It’s difficult but seems attainable.
Most of the bakers (bar Jasmine) struggle with their macaroons, especially Aaron and Tom, who both have to make theirs again. At least Tom was perfect enough to know that the first batch might not turn out perfect, so he made enough for two batches so he could throw the second one right in the oven. Perfect. What makes the baking even harder is Alison and Noel harassing our poor bakers as they work. Noel comes around with his friend Mr. Spoon, who, much like the Magic Rhubarb from two episodes back, can get the bakers to the finals if they give it a big wet kiss. Damn it. If only I could have dressed up as Mr. Spoon, because I’d love kisses from all the remaining bakers and also Alison, if she ever gets herself unstuck from straddling that fence. (Literal, not metaphorical, because our Alison is wonderfully opinionated.)
While I don’t have a problem with the challenge, I do have a problem with the judging, particularly when Tom gets up there. He created a giant chocolate beehive (with Iain inside, according to Noel) hanging from an actual tree and covered it with yellow macarons painted to look like bees. When he brings it up, with much assistance, Prue says that it looks “astonishing.” Paul, however. Not so much. He says, “If it were chocolate week, I would accept it, but I can’t accept that when it’s a macaron challenge. The macarons look fairly flat. The painting is rudimentary, but the main thing I’m looking at is that [pointing to the hive]. It’s very Tom. I understand that. You should have made that smaller and covered all of it.”
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. This goes against not only the challenge brief but everything that has been going on at Baking Showfor the past decade. They said they wanted “bold and impactful,” and they specified a height. It’s always rewarding more ornate, huger, crazier. Now suddenly this is too big, too ornate, too crazy? They asked for big, and then Perfect Tom gave them big, and they were like, “Never mind.”
How many times have we talked about how the bakers have to pay more attention to the structure of what they’re building, so that they don’t have time to make things taste good? How many times have they limited the types of biscuits or cakes they can make because they need to construct something that stands? I’m sorry, but that comes at the expense of the thing they’re actually baking. If you really wanted to taste delicious macarons with great painting, the challenge would have been to just make some macarons and put them on a plate. But it’s not. The challenge is to put a bunch of macarons on a sculpture, and the judges are mad because the sculpture is bigger than the macarons? Fuck right off.
Meanwhile, look at Jasmine’s. It’s dinky! It looks great, yes, but hanging a bunch of macarons from a Christmas tree is not inventive or creative. Jasmine’s bakes never are. She does the bare minimum, and they never tell her to step it up or tell her that she needs to be more inventive. She’s just skating by, and no one is challenging her. Yes, I know it comes down to flavor, and she nails it every time. But when you’re doing less than everyone, there is more time to focus on the baking and the flavors and everything else. The other bakers are showing some ambition, whether that’s making something huge, something with three different flavors, or even a giant macaron sign that says “Lemons,” because that is what the show has been rewarding for ages. Now, suddenly, they are rewarding flavors but not creativity? They’re rewarding meeting the brief and nothing else. Again, fuck right off.
But it’s Jasmine’s fifth Star Baker and third in a row, tying her for the most Star Bakers in one season. (Note, Richard Burr, the co-record holder, came in third in the finale, so it’s not all hers yet.) Paul and Prue gush over her tree, even though it looks like something you could construct out of a kit. Aaron’s is a bit messier because he had to remake his macaroons, but it has a certain charm. Okay, maybe that’s too generous. Aaron’s is both a mess, and the judges say the cookies are too chewy, and Paul doesn’t think they’re up to the standard. Tom, we already talked about how his looks, but both judges say that the macarons are underbaked.
Toby’s lemon crates look wonderful, but again, they’re like, “That’s a lot of gingerbread.” Dude! That’s what you asked for! While it looks cool, they don’t like the lemon macarons, saying they’re a little underflavored. The chocolate ones on the crates, however, they absolutely love, which seems to put Toby in good standing, like he could have saved himself, especially after the negativity heaped on Tom and Aaron. But it’s him who goes, with Paul saying that his disastrous technical was the decider. Here I am saying the technical doesn’t matter, but apparently, it doesn’t matter until it does. The end of the episode is especially weepy for Toby, like they all can’t believe they’re sending someone home. I thought for a minute Paul was going to put a Ru in front of his name because you know Drag Race loves to pull the “You’re all going to the final!” trick. But it didn’t come. Instead, we just get a lovely Polaroid of the group, Toby clutching everyone in his arms as all the bakers wonder just when and how the whole game changed.
In the final moments of season 19, Shannon Storms Beador, Jennifer Pedranti and Gina Kirschenheiter spoke to an unnamed individual who claimed Tamra Judge was leaking top-secret information about the Bravo show to bloggers.
Although Emily, 49, wasn’t present for the call, she believes Tamra, 58, did in fact share story lines.
“I’m sure she did, because the amount of information that this person knew — it was detailed,” Emily exclusively shared with Us Weekly while supporting Wife Swap: The Real Housewives Edition on Thursday, October 30. “It was dates. It was who was there. It was where we were filming. It was content.”
What really grabbed Emily’s attention was the fact that this mysterious source knew about screenshots that allegedly showed Gretchen Rossi “liking” anti-LGBTQIA+ posts. (Gretchen, 47, denied “liking” the post when Gina, 41, and Tamra brought up screenshots in Amsterdam.)
Getty Images (2)
“That’s detailed information that only cast and production would know about,” Emily claimed. “So, clearly, someone leaked it, and the fact that they said it was Tamra? I mean, I believe them. I’m sure that she does or has done it for years. I think it just caught up with her. There’s no reason for me not to believe that it was her. It seemed very black and white.”
While Tamra will have the opportunity to respond during the three-part reunion show, many cast members seem to have made up their minds that the “Two T’s in a Pod” podcast cohost could do something like this.
During Thursday’s season finale, Shannon, 61, and Jennifer, 48, slammed their costar after speaking with the anonymous source.
“Tamra will do anything for maximum impact,” Jennifer claimed in a confessional interview. “I think she will hurt anybody. I think she will leak information, and I think she’s probably one of the most calculative, scary, dangerous people within this friend group.”
Shannon added, “How dare you try to destroy so much for your own benefit? I really can’t come up with another word other than evil.”
Speaking of the reunion, the trailer showcased Tamra and Emily butting heads. The tense conversations caught one person by complete surprise.
“I feel like Tamra came into the reunion with a chip on her shoulder towards me, and I don’t even understand where that came from,” Emily said. “There’s this surprise ending — I’m not even in that end and I’m not even part of that — and after that, she comes at me. I’m thinking, ‘There are three other people that were just sitting here just destroying you, and you’re yelling at me.’ I don’t know. I don’t understand it.”
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As an added plot twist, Emily agreed to film Wife Swap: The Real Housewives Edition shortly after filmingthe RHOC cast trip to Amsterdam.
“I think I was only home from Amsterdam a couple days before we started Wife Swap, so I really was questioning my life choices at that point,” Emily joked. “I really wanted to connect with the kids, and I just felt they welcomed me so easily and were so loving and so endearing and so kind. It was a great experience.”
The Real Housewives of Orange County airs on Bravo Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET. Wife Swap: The Real Housewives Edition airs on Bravo Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET. Stream old episodes anytime on Peacock.
This season’s competition sees 13 Big Brother alums join forces with their loved ones to race through Europe, complete various challenges and overcome travel obstacles for the chance to win $1 million.
The cast includesBig Brother 26’s Angela Murray and daughter Lexi Murray, Big Brother 23’s Hannah Chaddha and sister Simone Chaddha, Big Brother 25’s Izzy Gleicher and fiancée Paige Seber, Big Brother 26’s Chelsie Baham and dad Jack Baham, and Big Brother 12 and 22’s Enzo Palumbo and brother Jack Palumbo.
Other stars this season include Big Brother 25’s Jag Bains and brother Jas Bains, Big Brother 24’s Joseph Abdin and brother Adam Abdin, Big Brother 21’s Kat Dunn and boyfriend Alex Romo, Big Brother 26’s Rubina Bernabe and sister Kristine Bernabe, Big Brother 24 winner Taylor Hale and boyfriend/Big Brother 23’s Kyland Young, Big Brother 24’s Matt Turner and wife Megan Turner, Big Brother 18’s Natalie Negrotti and sister Stephanie Negrotti and Big Brother 26’s Tucker Des Lauriers and brother Eric Des Lauriers.
Expect the unexpected on The Amazing Race season 38, because Big Brother stars are taking over the competition. CBS confirmed in March 2025 that the beloved reality TV competition would be returning for another season. Two months later, the network revealed that season 38 would air in its usual Wednesday night time slot in the […]
One team will be eliminated in each leg until the Final 3, who will race to the finish line in the finale.
Keep scrolling to see each week’s eliminations:
Jack and Enzo Palumbo
Jack Palumbo and Enzo PalumboSonja Flemming/CBS
The September 25, 2025, premiere — which appropriately aired right after Big Brother 27’s penultimate episode — began with the teams finding a clue that directed them to an ice rink. The duos had to push each other on sleds down the rink and knock down a set of bowling pins. The first team to complete the challenge and make it to host Phil Keoghan received an Express Pass and the ability to give a second pass to another team. Meanwhile, the last team to complete the challenge received a Hazard.
Taylor and Kyland won the Express Pass and gave the second one to Jag and Jas. Jack and Enzo got stuck with the Hazard — eating some herring while other teams continued the race — and it ultimately led to their demise. After chowing down on the fish, the pair struggled to ride a clog bike, got lost on the way to the Roadblock and struggled with the flower arrangement matching challenge. Jack and Enzo arrived at the Pit Stop last and were eliminated from the race.
“I’m super proud. There are just so many things I’ve done in this country that I would be terrified to do and I wasn’t scared at all. It was just, ‘Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,’” Jack said in his exit interview.
Angela and Lexi Murray
Angela Murray, Lexi MurraySonja Flemming/CBS
Episode 2 saw the teams travel from Amsterdam to Prague, but their journey was nothing short of stressful. Multiple teams accidentally got off on the wrong stop and had to take a detour to reach their destination. On top of that, some teams, including Angela and Lexi, tried to take another train and learned that it was canceled while they were waiting for its arrival.
After finally arriving in Prague, Angela and Lexi found themselves stuck in the back of the pack. Like many other racers, Lexi struggled to shake off her fear of heights for the Roadblock, which saw the teams walk out onto a plank in the air and grab a clue.
After successfully completing the challenge, she and Angela moved on to their Detour: memorizing and reciting the names of village crests in a restaurant. This proved to be much harder than it seemed and resulted in Lexi getting frustrated that they weren’t getting it right.
Angela and Lexi completed the Detour shortly after Megan and Matt, and they ended up in a footrace to the Pit Stop. Megan and Matt beat Angela and Lexi by only a minute or two.
Matt Turner and Megan Turner
Sonja Flemming/CBS
Megan and Matt fell behind after getting a late start in the third leg of the race. After being one of the final teams to complete the Road Block, the married couple got lost while on their way to the next destination. Then, they struggled to find their clue during the plowing challenge. The remaining teams arrived at the Pit Stop before Megan and Matt managed to find the clue. Phil met them at the field to tell them that they were unable to complete the leg and were eliminated from the race.
Kat Dunn and Alex Romo
Kat Dunn and Alex RomoSonja Flemming/CBS
During the October 15, 2025, episode, the teams traveled to Budapest, Hungary, where the challenges included solving a Rubik’s cube, finding a clue in The House of Houdini, steering a horse-drawn coach, juggling and performing a Hungarian folk dance. Kat and Alex chose to do the dancing challenge as their detour, but Kat struggled to get the moves right and was overcome by emotion. She and Alex were the last to arrive at the Pit Stop and were eliminated from the race.
Hannah Chaddha and Simone Chaddha
Hannah Chaddah and Simone ChaddahRobert Voets/CBS
The October 22, 2025, episode saw the teams head to Dubrovnik, Croatia. Though Izzy and Paige and Kristine and Rubina were the victims of U-Turns from their fellow competitors, both teams found themselves safe from elimination. Instead, it was Hannah and Simone who packed their bags and headed home after Simone struggled to complete a street luge race in under 36 seconds. The emotional final moments of the night saw Hannah cheering her sister on from the finish line, knowing they were in last place, as Simone finished the challenge so that they could make it to the mat one last time.
From its debut in 2001, The Amazing Race has been a huge hit for CBS. When the Primetime Emmys added the Outstanding Reality-Competition Program category 2003, it became a staple, winning 10 out of its 15 nominations and averaging nearly 10 million viewers per season. The show hit its own bump in the road amid […]
Rubina and Kristine Bernabe
Kristine and Rubina BernabeSonja Flemming/CBS via Getty Images
As the last group to start their journey through Croatia, Rubina and Kristine lagged behind the entire way, despite handling the detour and roadblock with less trouble than they had in their disastrous fifth leg. They were last to arrive at the Pit Stop on the October 29, 2025 episode, coming in after Izzy and Paige. Even with their elimination, Kristine said “we feel good” about the experience. The two spoke at length in the episode about how they have bonded in recent years after the loss of their mother in 2019, who was an avid Amazing Race fan.
“This is something that we feel like would be a dream for her and now we get to do it vicariously for her,” Rubina said.
Interestingly, Phil asked Rubina who she was rooting for after being eliminated, and Rubina said Izzy and Paige — not Tucker, who she was dating at the time.
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“Sorry, not sorry, love you,” Rubina yelled as the episode cut to the final credits.
Where Was ‘The Amazing Race’ Season 38 Filmed?
Filming for The Amazing Race season 38 took place from March to April 2025, with the race kicking off in Hoorn, Netherlands. Subsequent legs were filmed in the Czech Republic, Croatia, Romania, Greece, Italy and New York City, according to multiple reports.
How to Watch ‘The Amazing Race’ Season 38
Fans can tune into The Amazing Race on CBS on Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. ET, after Survivor. New episodes are also available to stream the following day on Paramount+.
The Love Is Blindseason 9 reunion saw ex-fiancés Joe Ferrucci and Madison Maidenberg pointing fingers regarding their broken engagement.
“At this point, I’ve accepted that I’m not going to get a full sentence from Joe as far as what actually happened,” Madison, 28, said during the Wednesday, October 29, special. “So, that’s OK.”
Joe, 29, had called off his engagement to Madison after running out of his wedding tux fitting. Less than one month later, he went on a few dates with Kacie McIntosh. (Kacie, 34, was briefly engaged to Patrick Suzuki, though their engagement never left the pods.)
“[It was] a month and a half,” Joe said. “I think it just, kind of, fizzled out. “It just ultimately didn’t work out.”
Love Is Blind season 9 star Joe Ferrucci is speaking out following his shocking split from ex-fiancée Madison Maidenberg, filling in what you didn’t see on TV during an exclusive interview with Us Weekly. “My connection with Madison in the pods was great. There were a lot of butterflies. It was a very deep connection. […]
According to Kacie, she and Joe hadn’t been “ready” to date so soon after their respective broken engagements.
“It got too intense too quick,” she said, noting they did have a connection in the pods during the 10-day experiment.
Madison, meanwhile, chimed in and noted that she was aware of Joe and Kacie’s connection and claimed it “affected [her] engagement.”
“The night of wedding dress and tux fittings, we had all gone out. I’m standing there with a wedding ring on, telling your groomsman how much I love you,” she recalled, claiming, “I look over, Kacie has two paws on Joe’s chest. In your words that night, you said, ‘Kacie was giving me googly eyes.’ Then, the next night, we break up.”
Kacie.Courtesy of Netflix
Madison added, “Let’s just tell the truth here. It seems like there was overlap.”
Joe and Kacie subsequently denied Kacie put her hands on Joe’s chest or any relationship overlap whatsoever.
“I don’t think that’s the case at all,” Joe said. “If that’s why you think you broke up, that is not the case. That has nothing to do with our story. That was after, and that was never in my mind when I broke it off.”
Kacie further pointed out that she didn’t start speaking with Joe “until the end of May” weeks after the breakup.
“I found out right before Mike [Brockway’s] pool party,” Madison said of the bash held the next month. “At the pool party, I saw Kacie, and she had the audacity to tell me that we are Eskimo sisters. Class act, and then you continued to bitch to me about how he treated you, completely disregarding the fact that this was my ex-fiancé.”
The Love Is Blind season 9 cast has reconvened once more to share what’s gone down in Denver since none of the couples ended up getting married. “Turns out the season 9 reunion means it’ll be full of surprises, jaw-dropping revelations and, maybe if you’re lucky, a chicken smoothie,” cohost Nick Lachey began, referring to […]
While Kacie stressed that her “Eskimo sister” comment was meant in jest, she also revealed that she had “real feelings” for Joe.
“I really liked him,” the hairstylist added.
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Joe had also brought his new girlfriend, Averee Madison, to the party that sparked even more conversations about dating timelines.
“We were not dating at the time,” Joe said of his connection with Averee. “Don’t get me in trouble at home. No, [and] my relationship now was rocky for the first three months, and she didn’t want to date me. There was a lot of breaking up, coming back together, breaking up, and we were off [in] October as well, then we got back together and started dating in November.”
Emma Hernan‘s off-and-on romance with Blake Davis was a major story line on season 9 of Selling Sunset — but who is her boyfriend?
Selling Sunset, which premiered in 2019, follows employees at high-end Los Angeles real estate brokerage the Oppenheim Group. Emma joined the cast in season 4 when her connection with Peter Cornell was brought up on the show. Emma was also previously linked to Gregory Kelleherbefore finding love with Blake.
“He went and filmed and put himself out there as well, and they cut everything,” Emma exclusively told Us Weekly in December 2024. “There’s a few scenes where I have a bite mark on my arm, and they try to play it like they don’t know who it is. But we all know who it is. There’s a few scenes that if you go back in the season and kind of pay attention to what they did now, it’s super messed-up.”
Selling Sunset is struggling under the weight of two divisive feuds — but which sides have the show’s stars taken? Selling Sunset, which debuted in 2019, follows employees at high-end Los Angeles real estate brokerage the Oppenheim Group. The Netflix series boasts expensive homes, but it is the drama between the cast that keeps viewers […]
“As it is, I’m not super comfortable showing my personal life and relationship. Then I go ahead, I do it, and regardless, your relationship is going to be judged,” she noted. “I want people to connect with me and I want people to see my real life and know what I’m doing. Then they cut my real life and go to this life that has zero truth to it and then I don’t even know about it!”
Season 8 showed Nicole Young bring up rumors that she was allegedly sleeping with a married man. Emma denied the claims, and Nicole has apologized. The offscreen drama shocked Emma since she filmed numerous scenes with her unnamed boyfriend at the time.
By the time season 9 went into production, Emma was looking forward to showing her personal life — including her romance with Blake. Their relationship sparked controversy, however, when Emma’s now-former friend Chrishell Stause slammed Blake on social media.
Emma called it quits with Blake after filming season 9 but has since reconciled with him. Keep scrolling for everything to know about Blake:
What Is Blake’s Job?
Courtesy of Blake Davis/Instagram
According to his firm’s official website, Blake is a real estate agent and developer who owns Blake Davis Properties. He was born in Georgia before making the move to Florida, where he currently resides.
Emma’s costar Chelsea Lazkani weighed in on Blake’s success when she referred to him as “very, very rich” in season 9.
Has Blake Appeared on ‘Selling Sunset’?
Season 9 featured the first glimpse at Blake when he joined Chrishell, Emma and Chelsea for lunch. Chrishell was not thrilled by an interaction where Blake claimed he never tried a vegetable or fruit in his life — warning Emma she would have to “mother” him.
As the season continued, Chrishell expressed more of her concerns as Emma considered getting engaged to Blake.
What Has Emma Shared About Her Romance With Blake?
Courtesy of Blake Davis/Instagram
“I have been super private about my relationships my entire life. Even before the show, I’ve always been a private person when it comes to relationships,” she told Us before season 9 aired in October. “But producers came to me and they said that they really wanted to see my love life and who I’m dating. I opened up my life, and what happened was the complete opposite from what we filmed.”
“[My boyfriend is] definitely more reserved. But he was very supportive of whatever I wanted. He did film, and we looked at a couple properties together on screen. But ultimately, he was pretty disappointed with what they did to me, which my family was as well,” she added about footage from season 8 that was cut. “He had messaged me prior to the show, so we had been friends for quite some time, and then we met last December. He’s very close with my family, so that was something that was lacking in my prior relationship and something that I’m fortunate about and grateful for in this one.”
What Have Emma’s Costars Said About Blake?
Courtesy of Blake Davis/Instagram
Months before the season 9 premiere, Chrishell addressed rumors of a falling out between her and Emma.
“Ask her about her MAGA bf who told me pronouns are dumb,” Chrishell wrote via Instagram in May before accusing Emma’s partner of using a racial slur. “I just can’t with that. Too old to allow that in. But love her from afar.”
Blake, for his part, later shared his DMs with Chrishell from Instagram that showed him sending several messages to her this year.
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“Hope you know that I do love you very much and support you and very proud of you and all of your success and your wonderful relationship and support to my GF,” he allegedly wrote in November 2024. “I knew we disagree on things and that’s ok but I do think very highly of you. I really do pray that one day we can have a great friendship. Happy holidays and I hope many blessings [come] to you and your family/friends!!!”
Where Does Blake Stand With Emma Now?
Emma previously teased her romance with Blake, who she chose not to name, after they got back together in 2024. Season 9, which filmed in January and February of this year, showed Blake and Emma considering a future together before calling it quits. Reports later claimed that Emma and Blake got back together but were done again by the summer.
Based on Blake’s social media, he has since reconciled with Emma and they are currently dating.
In a backstage TikTok interview with Brandon Armstrong and Arnold, 20, during Tuesday, October 28’s Halloween Night episode, Ravnik, 30, was asked about his “unhinged” and candid TikTok Live videos.
“Your Lives have become iconic,” Armstrong, 31, said, before Arnold added, “They’re very funny, I find enjoyment in them,” and Ravnik pointed out, “There’s no hate in my TikToks. I’m not like some other people.”
The dig seemingly referred to Chmerkovskiy, 45, being unimpressed by Ravnik’s inaugural season on the ABC dance series, which the former DWTS pro voiced during the Friday, October 24, episode of the “Penthouse With Peta” podcast.
Ravnik’s comment led Arnold to place a hand on Ravnik’s shoulder and assure him that, “It’s OK, we can do this together.” (Arnold was also the target of criticism from Chmerkovskiy during the podcast recording as he said it was her unfulfilled job to create “spectacular” performances with partner Scott Hoying.)
Ravnik and Arnold then threw their heads back and laughed together at her comment as Arnold kept a hand on Ravnik in a gesture of emotional support.
Jan RavnikChristopher Willard/Disney via Getty Images
Despite the backstage antics, Ravnik and his partner Jen Affleck were sent home on Tuesday night after their contemporary dance to Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do” scored just 32 out of 40.
Following the elimination, Affleck, 26, positively reflected on her DWTS journey. “This experience has meant everything to me, I cannot wait to talk about this in the future with my kids,” the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star said into the mic. “I did this for my kids and I’m so grateful for the experience.” (Affleck shares three children with husband Zac Affleck: Nora, 4, Lucas, 2, and Penelope, 3 months.)
Rylee ArnoldFrank Micelotta/Disney via Getty Images
Ravnik’s cheeky backstage reference comes after Chmerkovskiy said on his wife Peta Murgatroyd’s podcast that “Jan has absolutely no business” as a DWTS pro. “There’s zero foundation technique, quality, understanding of the partnership. Bro, I’m getting emotional,” he said. “It is absurd, and this is unreal how blind we have to be and God forbid say what’s obviously there.”
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Chmerkovskiy then spoke directly to Ravnik and Affleck’s foxtrot during the previous week’s Wicked Night, claiming that Ravnik had “no idea” what the foxtrot entitled. (Ravnik and Affleck earned 32 out of 40 from the judges that week.)
Maks ChmerkovskiyMaya Dehlin Spach/WireImage
“How are you going to expect him to teach it and deliver that message in a format that is completely different from even ballroom dancing?” Chmerkovskiy said. “We had this criticism weeks ago, and I’m like, ‘Bro, is anybody going to explain it to him?”
As for his remarks about Arnold, Chmerkovskiy claimed he was not having a dig at her while discussing her and Hoying’s elimination at the end of Wicked Night. “He was completely undertaught,” Chmerkovskiy said. “I believe that this is a matter of experience for Rylee to understand that, in this case, he needed her to be facing him, looking at him and making him learn and making him repeat and place his hands. Rylee, where she comes from, knows what cleaning means. So, they didn’t have time to clean, then you spend too much time over choreographing the situation.”
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star, 32, and pro dancer, 39, shared in a Friday, October 24, TikTok video that they were informed by ABC and BBC that they could not give away tickets to the live show.
“So, we have some bad news,” Leavitt said in the clip. “We just got out of rehearsal, and we were both informed that we actually can’t do a giveaway for the Dancing with the Stars live show.”
Ballas explained that the decision “has come directly from ABC and BBC and is completely out of our hands.”
“It just really sucks because Mark and I just want to do something really special for you guys that have shown us so much support and love, for us and the show,” Leavitt shared. “We’re gonna get creative.”
Ballas echoed Leavitt, noting that the pair are “gonna think of something else to give away.”
Users quickly took to the comments section to weigh in on the video. “No kidding… ‘vote for us and I’ll give you a gift’ that’s rigging the whole thing,” one user wrote, while another added, “It would be like bribing the audience. Of course they aren’t allowed to do that. It’s a competition. 😂.”
Some users, however, defended Leavitt and Ballas — who have already received backlash from fans primarily due to the reality star’s dance background.
Dancing With the Stars season 34 couple Mark Ballas and Whitney Leavitt are still confused about what mishap judge Carrie Ann Inaba was referring to after their performance. “I will watch [the dance] back tonight,” Mark, 39, exclusively told Us Weekly after the Tuesday, September 23, show. “Because honestly, it starts, you blink and then […]
“If it was anyone else, these comments would not be half as hateful,” one user added. “I have NEVER seen ‘fans’ be this cruel to contestants and PROS and I’ve been watching since I was a child. Such gross behavior tbh… thank you for trying to do something nice for the people sending love your way!”
Another added, “I genuinely don’t understand why everyone always acts like she has bad intentions? Just wanting to do something nice… we love you Whitney!”
“I’m very grateful, but [it] also feels like a big reward,” Leavitt exclusively told Us Weekly after the live show. “Mark and I worked really hard on that dance. That’s the most intimidating dance I’ve done so far. It’s just, like, when we finished that last pose, I felt like I could breathe.”
Ballas, who choreographed the number, gushed that he was “very proud.”
“This one was a hustle,” Ballas told Us. “It’s a lot of work [and] a lot of detail went into this. I just always say, like, ‘As long as you finish and you feel like you did the best and it felt good, that’s the goal.’ It’s nothing worse than finishing and being like, ‘Dang it, I could have done better.’”
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The pair are set to perform a jazz to Green Day’s “Brain Stew” for DWTS’ Halloween Night on Tuesday, October 28, while also competing in a “Monster Night Monster-thon” dance relay.
Dancing With the Stars premieres on ABC and Disney+ Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET, with new episodes streaming the next day on Hulu.
Prove your DWTS fandom with Us Weekly and Bracketology.tv! Compete against other fans and Us editors in the Bracketology DWTS fantasy league this season to predict which pairs will make it to the finale for season 34. Get access to exclusive content, stats and a chance to win prizes. Join the league for free today!
Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Whitney Leavitt had disappointing news to share with her followers on Friday after her rehearsal for Dancing With the Stars, when she had to cancel a giveaway.
The Context
Leavitt, who is a favorite to win the current season of the competition show, told her followers on Thursday that she was giving away two tickets to Tuesday’s live show, including flights and hotels. All people had to do was comment on their favorite Mark Ballas meme. Ballas is Leavitt’s professional dance partner.
However, Leavitt updated fans on Friday that the giveaway would no longer happen.
What To Know
In a TikTok post after Friday’s rehearsal, Leavitt told her followers that she had some “bad news.” She went on to say that she and Ballas were told they couldn’t do the giveaway and that the decision was “completely out of our hands.”
“This has come directly from ABC and BBC,” Balas said.
Leavitt added that it “sucks” because they wanted to do something special for their supporters, and that they would “get creative” and find another way to show how grateful they are for the support they’ve received.
Some users commented on Leavitt’s post that she should have asked the “higher-ups” at the networks if they could do a giveaway before announcing it. Some other users commented that it made sense the giveaway was canceled because it could come across as a bribe for votes. Others wanted to know which meme won the contest, even if the prize wouldn’t be given out.
Newsweek reached out to Leavitt and the BBC via email for comment.
On Tuesday, during Wicked night, Leavitt and Balas got the first 10s of the season. She performed a quickstep to the song “Popular,” and judge Derek Hough said he felt like they were “discovering a star before our eyes.”
Leavitt has had extensive dance training, studying it in college. Judge Carrie Ann Arbor said on Tuesday that even though Leavitt was a “great dancer” when she started out on the show, thereality TV star is “getting better with each performance.”
Leavitt’s Secret Lives of Mormon Wives castmate, Jen Affleck, also had a positive night on Tuesday. She earned her highest score yet with a 32 out of 40, and Hough said it seemed like she was “connected” to the dance. Affleck noted that she related to Elphaba from Wicked because she felt like an outcast when she moved to a mostly white school in Utah and didn’t make the dance company or cheer team.
Along with Leavitt, Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles also got her first 10s of the season, scoring 39 out of 40 points, the same score as Leavitt.
What People Are Saying
A TikTok user commented on Whitney Leavitt’s post: “Maybe do a giveaway to the SLOMW premiere or something! Would be so fun still.”
Whitney Leavitt, commenting back on the user’s suggestion: “ooooo wait this is a great idea!!!!”
What Happens Next
Dancing With the Starswill continue on Tuesday night and has a few weeks left until the finale, which airs on November 25.
During the history-making finale of Love Is Blind season nine, Sparkle Megan broke up with single dad Jordan and questioned whether she was ready to be a mom. Paparazzi have since photographed a man holding a newborn and going in and out of her home. But is that her baby? Netflix’s trailer for the season-nine reunion keeps us in suspense. “I actually have a little bit of a surprise,” Megan says in the preview. This episode will double as an ex convention, since the season resulted in zero marriages. And a lot of former couples are confronting each other — Patrick asks if Kacie thinks she should give the ring back, Kait appears to suggest that Nick needs ChatGPT’s help to hit on girls, and Kalybriah is pulling receipts out of her dress. Also, someone apparently used an offensive term to speak about a sisterhood with Madison? We’ll have to until the reunion arrives on Netflix on October 29 at 9 p.m. ET to find out why host Vanessa Lachey’s jaw is on the floor.
The Love Is Blindseason 9 reunion is sure to be explosive if the trailer is any indication.
“She had the audacity to tell me that we are eskimo sisters,” Madison Maidenberg, 28, told ex-fiancé Joe Ferrucci in a Friday, October 24, clip, referring to the slang term about two women who share a mutual ex and without naming her apparent source.
Joe, 29, quickly laughed before the trailer highlighted the other former pod couples — no one got married in season 9 in a franchise first — sharing glimpses of their post-breakup updates.
Joe called off his engagement to Madison ahead of their planned wedding day, citing that they simply weren’t a match after abruptly running out of his tux fitting. In the months since Love Is Blind wrapped, Madison claimed that Joe had flirted with costar Kacie McIntosh after the breakup.
During an appearance on the “Love to See It” podcast earlier this month, Madison claimed that she was told that friends saw Kacie, 34, out at a bar with Joe. (Kacie was engaged to Patrick Suzuki for only a few hours earlier this season, which didn’t make it out of the pod reveal tunnel.)
During the reunion teaser, Kacie was even asked whether she dated another member of the pod squad.
Madison and JoeCourtesy of Netflix (2)
“After meeting everyone, was there anyone else in the pod squad that you started dating?” cohost Vanessa Lachey asked Kacie, who attempted to dodge the question with a filler “um.”
While Kacie played coy about whether she dated Joe, his current girlfriend has confirmed their alleged past association.
Love Is Blind season 9 star Joe Ferrucci is speaking out following his shocking split from ex-fiancée Madison Maidenberg, filling in what you didn’t see on TV during an exclusive interview with Us Weekly. “My connection with Madison in the pods was great. There were a lot of butterflies. It was a very deep connection. […]
“When Joe and I started talking — I think it was our first date — we were at a bar and ran into this girl, and he’s like, ‘Oh you know I’ve gone on a couple dates with that girl,” Averee Madisonclaimed on the “Reality Receipts” podcast earlier this week, denying any relationship overlap. “I was like, ‘Who?’ and I look over and, of course, it’s Kacie. I was like, ‘Oh, OK.’”
According to Averee, Joe had been “fully transparent” about his brief post-pod romance with Kacie.
“I mean, I personally choose to surround myself with women that lift each other up and, like, follow girl code and that will never be Kacie,” Averee claimed, denying she’s on amicable terms with the hairstylist. “That’s not what I want in a room with me and I guess all I’ll say is, like, Joe getting a girlfriend did not stop her from continuously trying. It was just one of those [things] where she just wanted to know, I think, that she could have him or, like, get him still.”
Kacie also came face-to-face with ex-fiancé Patrick, 31, during the reunion, who asked in the clip (once again) whether she would return her show-provided engagement ring.
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“I have the ring with me,” Kacie said, referring to Patrick’s onscreen allegations that she wanted to keep the diamond despite ending her engagement.
The tell-all reunion also features former couples Anton Yarosh and Ali Lima, Edmond L. Harvey and Kalybriah Haskin, Nick Amato and Annie Lancaster, as well as Jordan Keltner and “Sparkle Megan” Walerius rehashing their own messy breakups. Megan, 35, will even share a “surprise” after viral fan photos of herself with a mystery man and a baby.
The Love Is Blind season 9 reunion airs Wednesday, October 29, at 9 p.m. ET.
Dessert Week is the stupidest week, at least conceptually. Cake Week, Biscuit Week, and Bread Week all make sense, but any of those other weeks could contain things for dessert week. What makes this different from any of the other weeks? What specific things do any of these bakes have in common? Why do all of these bakes have to be on Dessert Week rather than at any other time in the competition? The category is just too broad and too vague. It’s like the village talent show. That talent could be little Suzie tap dancing, your neighbor Marty, who can do 512 different bird calls even though they all sound the same, or Pam, the preacher’s wife, singing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” (Every talent show has at least one person singing “Hallelujah,” a song that should be banned from public performance by the U.S. Constitution, the Paris Agreement, and the Geneva Convention.)
But this competition does not have Suzie, Marty, or Pam, the preacher’s wife. Instead, there is golden boy Aaron, WWII pilot Toby, short king Iain, lanky Disney Prince Tom, and Jasmine, for whom there are no words. Well, at least that’s Noel’s estimation. The first challenge is to make a Basque cheesecake, which, yes, meets the very vague brief that it could be eaten for dessert. I don’t know about you, but I could also probably eat this for breakfast, a main course, a midnight snack, or a post-workout protein. If you think cheesecake must be a dessert, then you really just aren’t creative enough or have never watched a full episode of The Golden Girls.
The baking itself goes smoothly enough, except that Toby keeps curdling the white chocolate (vom) cream for the top of his cheesecake. “This is stressful,” says our stressed-out king, who has uttered that same sentence while grocery shopping, watching Celebrity Traitors, and taking a sound bath. Iain also has a stressful moment when he tries to transfer his wobbly cheesecake from the paper to its stand, asking for Toby’s help. Of all the people to ask, you’re going to ask Toby “Squeaky Bum Time” [Insert Surname Here]?
Iain’s cardamom and orange cheesecake turns out to be quite nice-looking, but Prue says he included too much zest, and it had turned bitter. It seems like he has “taken the pith,” a pun that everyone in the tent is so proud of that they go on to use it more than Toby could use some of Parker Posey’s The White Lotusdiazepam. In short (sorry, Iain), the judges didn’t love it.
Jasmine’s is really the only one they like, and it looks absolutely gorgeous, with a giant mango rose in the center and lots of passion fruit curd underneath. Prue says it’s “proper burnt” as a cheesecake should be. Aaron gets decent marks as well for his orange cheesecake with plum and sake gel on top, which leads him and Noel into a long pun-off around “succulent plums,” which I think they are using to mean balls, but I don’t know — I was blinded by the desserts.
The losers in this round are Toby and our not-so-perfect Tom, who struggles the entire episode, which is strange for a man who is that good-looking. The only thing he must struggle to do is beat them off with a stick and a plum pun. Toby is using passionfruit and white chocolate (barf) and marbling them together, an effect which doesn’t fully come out when it’s finished baking. While the judges love the bake, they think that the flavors are underwhelming, with Paul saying there is not enough citrus and Prue saying it’s far too rich, which is something I wish I could say about myself. They both love the fake passion fruits Toby uses to decorate the top, which have passion fruit curd inside white chocolate (retch) shells.
Tom’s cheesecake looks absolutely brilliant. It is all black with black sesame flavoring, blackberries on top, and a chocolate-lemon dyed black, filled with bright yellow lemon curd, which would be the only hint of color when it’s cracked open. Noel says it is a goth boy’s dream and wants to give Tom the first-ever Noel Fielding handshake, but as he reaches out, Paul Hollywood swats his hand away, strops off to his Ferrari waiting in the parking lot, and revs the engine for 25 minutes just to assert his authority. While it does look amazing, both judges think that the sesame flavor isn’t really coming through and that it is much cooler to look at than to eat.
The technical is technically a dessert, I guess, but I don’t understand these gluten-free orange upside-down puddings. First of all, why are they gluten-free? Did someone in the tent suddenly develop a wheat allergy? Is Henry, the cameraman, always like, “Ugh, I never get to try anything because I’m celiac,” and so they threw Henry an orange and cardamom-flavored bone? Also, what sort of idiot chef came up with this recipe in the first place? Who thought that cake wasn’t good enough just baked in the oven? What dessert really needs is to be put in a tin, covered with foil, tied with the littlest string outside of Cardi B’s thong, and then placed in the oven in a pan that is half submerged in water? Who thought that would make this better? Why all the steps? Why all the fuss?
While we’re asking questions, why do they call it “Crème Anglaise” in French? That means “English cream,” and we’re in England speaking English? You know what they call English muffins in England? Muffins! Just muffins! (My grandmother was a muffin.) Why don’t they just call it cream? It’s like if you went to Paris and they called them French Fries in English. Make it make “sense de l’anglais.”
What were we talking about? Oh, the technical. The rankings go Aaron, Jasmine, Toby, Iain, and perfect Tom, reclaiming the perfection that is his birthright. It’s like the judges just went left to right because that is the order the dishes were placed on the table. It’s also inverting how things went in the Signature, with Tom and Iain on top, Aaron and Jasmine on the bottom, and Toby sleeping in Baby Bear’s bed, which is … juuuussssst riiiiiggggght.
The showstopper challenge is to make a free-standing trifle. I was going to complain that this is one of those challenges where the bakers need to worry more about structure than they do about how things taste, but is that even true? Most of them make something that doesn’t need a container and tastes horrible. Is that the fault of the challenge or is that the fault of the bakers? I don’t even know at this point. I am still thinking about “Crème Anglais.”
Once again, Jasmine’s is the best. Let’s be honest, Tom might be perfect, but Jasmine has it all wrapped up. Her trifle is made with lemoncello sponge, strawberry jelly, and vanilla bavarois, which is also Aaron’s drag name. It’s a gorgeous-looking dessert (this is Dessert Week), but kind of ordinary. Yes, it looks like the example out of the textbook, but it’s not nearly as inventive as all of the boys’ creations. But the judges love it, and that is enough for Jasmine’s fourth win. The record belongs to season five’s Richard Burr with five Star Baker wins in one season, so our girl Jazzy J is within striking distance of a tie. (There is no Star Baker in the finale.)
Aaron, who has the correct opinion of hating trifles, makes one with a striped chocolate collar around it to prop it up and covers the top with succulent plums, intricate chocolate circles, and champagne jelly. It looks delicious, but the jelly is the only thing the judges like, and that’s probably because it’s boozier than Paul Hollywood on Greek Easter. (The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City fans know.)
Toby’s is Christmas-themed because, like the Hallmark Channel, he is always in the holiday spirit. It’s a sherry trifle with elderflower based on his grandmother’s holiday favorite. The crowning glory is a jelly dome with a pointsetta inside, but it sticks to the bowl as he’s making it and ends up looking more like what the alien leaves behind after it pops out of someone’s guts in Alien. The sponge collar around it, decorated with Santa Clauses and ornaments, looks amazing, if not like something you’d buy in Poundland (British to American translation: Dollar General). Paul says the sponge inside is both rock hard and dry, and Prue only likes his elderflower jelly.
Perfect Tom strikes out once again, not on the look but on the flavors. His towering creation, inspired by a trip to Greece and flavored with honey, yogurt, and figs, looks like it would be on the homepage of the New York Times cooking section, complete with his own jelly dome topped with an olive branch. Once again, the judges say all you can taste is the almond extract he put in his sponge and nothing else. I hope that our perfect Tom isn’t like the desserts he keeps making: gorgeous on the outside but no fun in your mouth.
I thought it was Tom’s time, sending him just shy of the semi-finals. Instead, the judges decided it was Iain’s time to be sent packing. His trifle looks fantastic with a sponge collar, which gives it the air of wallpaper in an Italian boutique hotel. There is another jelly dome on top, this one with a sun inside, but Paul and Prue say it tastes like absolutely nothing — like water. That is true of everything, including his sponge, which Prue says is firmer than her conservative beliefs. So, of all of our archetypes, it is the short king who is going home rather than the WWII pilot or the lanky Disney Prince. But the way the competition looks now, everyone in that tent with a Y chromosome is just battling it out for second place.
“Take a breath and go ahead,” Robert Galinsky says, eyeing his student from across a Zoom screen. Dylan, a 45-year-old from Phoenix, Arizona, dressed in a light blue button-down, exhales and begins to explain for the third time why he wants to search for true love on the Netflix reality-dating series Love Is Blind.
Dylan says he has prioritized his real estate career over romance, and dating apps have failed to produce lasting love. But when he talks about building a connection sight unseen, or “from the inside out,” as he puts it, Galinsky stops him. “That’s killer—we want to save that phrase,” he says, advising Dylan to shave his three-minute explanation down to a sound-bite-worthy chunk. After all, reality TV narratives are built by producers and editors (he cleverly refers to them as “preditors”) who favor pithy catchphrases.
Dylan has only made it past the first round of Love Is Blind casting so far, but is already in his third session of 10 with Galinsky, a self-described “presentation coach” who has guided hopeful clients to spots on shows, ranging from Project Runway to Survivor, since 2007. That was when Argentinian dog groomer Jorge Bendersky became the first reality TV hopeful to contact Galinsky, who also coaches TEDx presenters, corporate executives, and students at The Juilliard School (he’s currently advising jazz musicians on how to introduce the historical context of their music before a performance). With Galinsky’s guidance, Bendersky became a top-three finalist on the short-lived Animal Planet series Groomer Has It, and the New York Reality TV School was born.
Like many of those who have sought Galinsky’s services, ranging from Millionaire Matchmaker and Bad Girls Club alum to Chelsea Clinton and 50 Cent, Dylan wants to put his best foot forward onscreen. Think of it as hiring a private tutor before the SAT—with the knowledge that millions of eyeballs will be watching your exam. (The cost of Galinsky’s one-on-one services for reality TV coaching begins at roughly $300 per session, with rates increasing for more specific training once a client is cast on their desired show.) Galinsky, who has a background in acting, treats reality TV as improvisational theater. During the session that Dylan has allowed me to observe (provided I omit his last name), Galinsky quizzes his client on dating deal-breakers, urging him to use the stating of any potential red flags as an opportunity to accentuate his own strengths. What if, as Galinsky posits, a suitor is turned off by someone who is rude to waitstaff, for instance? Dylan immediately discusses his time as a bartender in college. Galinsky smiles approvingly; in one answer, Dylan has both reassured his future wife and revealed a personal detail that will bolster his overall storyline.
“Fakes are the first ones kicked out of the house and voted off the island,” Galinsky says. “So if you know thyself, you’re going to be that much more powerful….You have to have an immense amount of self-awareness to be on these shows, to understand how you’re not going to let someone bulldoze you…so that you become the funniest, most pathetic meme that’s out there.” To get a better sense of how he can best orient a client toward reality TV stardom, Galinsky asks them to provide their origin, scar, and aspiration: where they’re from, what shaped them, and their postshow hopes. “A girl [once] walked in and said, ‘I want to be able to live in the Real World house and drink everybody under the table,’” he recalls. “After two sessions she said, ‘I’m quitting the class because I realize now all I really wanted to do was say “fuck you” to my dad by getting drunk in front of everyone.’”
Fans finally caught a glimpse of Rob Kardashian four years after his last onscreen appearance on his family’s reality show.
In the season 7 premiere, which aired on Thursday, October 23, Rob, 38, was seen at a celebration in their past family home, with Khloé Kardashian, Kim Kardashian and Kourtney Kardashian praising their younger brother’s cameo.
“I know everyone is hoping that Rob comes back to the show. Trust me, we are too,” Khloé, 41, explained. “Rob is doing well. He is alive.”
“The conspiracies run wild and one of them is that he lives with me and he’s in our shadows and we don’t want him around,” she noted. “He isn’t some miserable person that lives under a bridge. We are totally fine.”
In her own confessional, Kourtney, 46, said she loved “having him around” while Kim, 45, expressed hope for more onscreen appearances.
“I do miss him being on the show because he is just so funny,” Kim shared. “It would be great if he would regularly be back on the show. That is the goal.”
A past scene from The Kardashians showed Khloé asking Rob about his plans to come back and start filming, to which he replied, “I mean, I’m down.”
Rob originally played a large role in his family’s reality TV empire when Keeping Up With the Kardashians premiered in 2007. The E! series later started to document his emotional struggles and weight gain until Rob chose to make less appearances. He made a brief reality return during his tumultuous relationship with Blac Chyna in 2016 but their series, Rob & Chyna, was canceled following their split.
Eagle-eyed fans have caught glimpses of Rob out of the frame on The Kardashians. Rob has yet to mark an official return as he continues to focus on raising his and Blac Chyna‘s 8-year-old daughter, Dream.
Working on himself! Rob Kardashian first became a household name upon appearing on his family’s E! reality series Keeping Up With the Kardashians. From there, fans have seen how the sock designer has adjusted to life in Hollywood and how his body has changed over the years. Kris Jenner’s only son has experienced fluctuating weight […]
“He’s still very private and isn’t active on social media. [He] doesn’t share a lot about his personal life,” a source exclusively told Us Weekly in May 2022. “He’s dating but is also private about that. He’s been on this amazing health and wellness journey and continues to make that his focus. He’s in good shape and is happy with how far he’s come. He’s never going to stop caring about his mental health and overall health — it’s important to him so he can be the best father to Dream.”
Rob previously made a small but very memorable cameo on The Kardashians. During an October 2023 episode, Kris Jenner enlisted her son in helping find the right woman for Scott Disick.
“They have to have a sense of humor. He is one of the funniest guys I know. He reminds me so much of my son, Rob,” she told the cameras before giving Rob a call. “Rob! What do you think is the perfect girl for Scott?”
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Rob responded with a phrase that got censored out. Kris, 67, appeared stunned by his answer, saying, “Oh, never mind. OK. I will talk to you later.”
Viewers got a hint at Rob’s phrase of choice when a producer noted Disney wouldn’t let them include “**** whore” — as the subtitle read — on screen. “We will just bleep it,” Kris quipped.
Hulu releases new episodes of The Kardashians every Thursday.
Kim Kardashian is setting the record straight after ex-husband Kanye Westpreviously accused her of keeping him from seeing their kids.
During the Thursday, October 23, episode of The Kardashians, Kim, 45, addressed the misconceptions about her coparenting relationship with Kanye, 48, with whom she shares North, 11, Saint, 8, Chicago, 6, and Psalm, 5.
“I feel more stressed probably just because I have to protect my kids. Everyone around can handle [the drama], but I want to protect my babies. They are going to know things. They’re going to grow up and see,” she noted. “So my job as a mom is to just make sure that at a time when that behavior is happening, is just to make sure that they are protected.”
Kim acknowledged that her children are getting to an age where they can see their father’s controversial behavior online and possible negative comments toward her, adding, “One of my kids knew what was happening. I’ve been able to hide it for so long.”
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have spoken candidly about coparenting since their February 2021 split — but it hasn’t always gone smoothly. The reality star and the rapper, who tied the knot in 2014, share four children: North (born in June 2013), Saint (born in December 2015), Chicago (born in January 2018) and Psalm (born […]
“I always felt really bad and always wanted to help. This was the first time I didn’t feel that responsibility personally,” she explained. “[People think] I should have stuck it out and I could have helped. As much as people think that I have the luxury of walking away and not dealing ever again, that’s not my reality. This person — we have four kids together.”
The former couple tied the knot in 2014 and were married for seven years before Kim filed for divorce in February 2021. The proceedings were finalized in November 2022.
“There will be all this talk on the internet about how I’m keeping the kids [from him]. He’s never once called and asked [to see them],” Kim claimed on Thursday. “But then I’ll wake up and it’s on Twitter that I’m keeping the kids. So when it’s not true and not rational, I can’t engage all the time.”
“It’s a divorce, not a kidnapping. We haven’t left. We’re in the same spot and we have the same address, so he knows where his kids are at,” she noted. “What happened to the house that you bought next door and we were going to coparent and do a back and forth where you take them to school every day?”
Another angle. Kim Kardashian and Kanye West had already split when filming for The Kardashians began, but the rapper is still a big presence on the show. “Kanye and I are still going through a divorce now,” the Skims founder, 41, said during the debut episode of the Hulu series, which premieres on Thursday, April […]
She continued: “He [was going to have] dinner with us every night. Obviously, that just wasn’t what he wanted, and I get that. Maybe that’s too much. But that’s just what I saw from my mom, [Kris Jenner], and my stepdad, [Caitlyn Jenner], and my dad, [Robert Kardashian]. I just saw the best and healthiest coparenting relationships. So it is what it is.”
Kim said she wasn’t concerned with dwelling on the past, adding, “It’s over for now. So it’s like you breathe, and then you get antsy, because it’s been a little too quiet, so it’s gearing up. No, [he never apologized]. I’m not looking for it. I don’t care. It is so sad, but I can’t stress too much about that. I still have to worry about so many other things and I can’t be a mess and then have my kids see that. If they think I’m OK, then they’ll be strong too.”
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The rapper previously weighed in on raising his kids with Kim shortly before finalizing their divorce.
“Even to this day, I’ll still give Kim advice on things that could help because that’s going to go to the kids,” he said on the “Alo Mind Full” podcast in September 2022. “She’s still got them 80 percent of the time, [to] raise those children. So what people saw when I was going back and forth is that I still have to be able to throw my version of what people would throw into the curriculum.”
Hulu releases new episodes of The Kardashians every Thursday.
Of all the inflammatory isms out there, the most shocking one for a Golden Bachelor to be accused of is ageism. That’s what happened to Mel Owens, 66, in a preseason controversy, so you might expect him to be a little defensive on the subject. But when the former NFL player sat down with Us, he was remarkably relaxed, maintaining the off-the-cuff energy that may have gotten him in hot water in the first place.
For context: Over the summer, the divorced Owens guested on a University of Michigan (his alma mater) football podcast called “In the Trenches” and mentioned some of the specifics he’d requested from producers of The Golden Bachelor: He wanted the women of his senior season to be between 45 and 60 and “fit,” with no “artificial hips” or “wigs.” And he added that anyone 60 and up would be cut.
The comments — a far cry from the “it’s never too late for a second chance at love” vibe of OG Golden Bachelor Gerry Turner’s season — spread quickly, with some members of Bachelor Nation calling for Owens to be fired immediately over his disrespectful remarks. Longtime Bachelor spoiler guru Reality Steve even falsely reported that Owens had been replaced.
“I’m not really on social media, so I didn’t even know. People were sending me screenshots and saying, ‘Oh, my God, are you still there?’ And I go, ‘I am,’ because I didn’t hear anything to the contrary,” Owens tells Us of the replacement chatter. “But I really didn’t give it too much thought, because that’s noise in the background. ABC and Warner Bros. believed in me, and I’m glad they did.”
In some ways, it’s not hard to see why the show stuck with Owens: In person, he’s charming, good-looking and has a Midwest background that fits the mold of the audience. In his late 30s, he traded in his football cleats to start law school, and in his 40s, a family. (He has two sons: Lucas, 20, and Andre, 18.) But even without the controversy, he’s making it plain that he didn’t sign on to follow the typical Bachelor trajectory.
DISNEY/BRIAN BOWEN SMITH
Will he end up in love with more than one person? He almost scoffs at the idea despite its frequent occurrence on the long-running franchise. “No, I’m not gonna fall in love twice,” he tells Us. “Conflict is good for the show but not good for the heart.” Will he get engaged? Certainly not just because the format seems to dictate it! “I told the producers, ‘I’m here with an open heart and open mind,’” he says. “But it’s a two-way street. Just because I want to get engaged doesn’t mean they want to get engaged. They might want to date, like, ‘You’re cool. Let’s just hang out.’”
Will he say “I love you” at all? Hard to tell. “It’s gotta be a true feeling,” he says. “You just can’t say the words because then they’d be hollow. I can say, ‘I really like you,’ and that’s meaningful. To fall in love, it takes some time.”
All those breaking-the-mold intentions just make Us even more intrigued. As season 2 of The Golden Bachelor nears the finish (ABC, Wednesdays, 9 p.m.), Owens opens up about what viewers haven’t seen — and previews the final weeks of his journey.
Mel’s Backstory
Brian Bowen Smith/Disney
Owens was a unique pick to lead the season from the get-go. Unusually for the franchise, he came from outside Bachelor Nation. And he was divorced. (Turner and Golden Bachelorette Joan Vassos had both been widowed.) In fact, Owens didn’t tie the knot until he was 43. “I wasn’t going to get married when I was playing [football],” he explains, and after he retired from the NFL, all his energy shifted to law school. “I met a lot of great women and girlfriends along the way that ended up being great wives [to someone else].”
Prior to settling down, Owens got to live the perks of being a pro football player for nine seasons as a linebacker on the Los Angeles Rams, crossing paths with the likes of Nicolas Cage, Brad Pitt, Tori Spelling, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Robin Thicke, the Brat Pack and more at parties at the Playboy Mansion. “You got invitations, and then you’d go and all the celebrity guys would be there, with everybody ooh and aahing,” he recalls.
In 2002, he married Fabiana Owens. She filed for divorce in 2020 and, as he put it on the show, fell in love with somebody else. “I’m never going to get in the way of someone’s happiness. If you want to find somebody else in a different phase in your life, it hurts, but I can’t get in the way of your happiness,” he says of his ex moving on. How did he cope? “You live in the moment,” he continues. “Plus, I had kids, so I had to think about them before me. I let things work themselves out. I have patience and understanding.”
Was Owens always this rational? Ever since he set foot on the gridiron, apparently. “In football, they’re always trying to trick you. There’s a lot of commotion going on, a lot of noise,” he says. “When things are crazy, I get really calm, and you can make decisions better.” Owens might just be the most reasonable man to hand out roses, which makes his heart-off-his-sleeve journey harder to predict.
Disney/Michael Kirchoff
Moving Past the Controversy
The Bachelor franchise has shied away from addressing offscreen scandals on the show — and taken heat for it. That was not the case on Golden’s October premiere: Several women ribbed Owens about those podcast remarks in their limo entrances, and Owens straight-up acknowledged the situation in his opening night toast.
“It was my doing to get out of it or explain myself and ask the women, ‘Hey, give me another chance, I’m sorry,’ and let me earn it,” he says. “People are forgiving, and everybody makes mistakes. Everybody wants a second chance. That was my thought and my hope, and it happened.”
When asked what he would say now when it comes to his dating preferences, he responds, “I’d be open to anything.” It seems the casting department may have taught Owens a thing or two. “These women are all accomplished, witty and smart, and we have shared experiences because we’re the same age, which I found very refreshing,” he says. (Go figure!)
Bachelor Nation hasn’t seen Mel Owens on TV just yet (unless you were a big fan of the Los Angeles Rams in the 80s), but Jesse Palmer assures Us that he was the right pick for the new senior lead. “Mel is obviously super handsome. He’s very charming, he’s very intelligent, he’s very successful,” the […]
Jokes aside, the women were also quick to forgive. Us was on set for the season’s second group date, and while several contestants said they’d been worried about meeting this Golden Bachelor after his viral remarks, they felt at ease after spending time with him. “He immediately addressed it. He said, ‘I apologize, I misspoke. I’m remorseful. It’s not how I felt. I was in the moment,’” Robin Rocha, a 63-year-old wealth advisor, said. “And we all realized, ‘Well, that’s what you have to do if you misspeak,’ which we all do. We all make mistakes.” Diane Firmani, a 71-year-old librarian, added: “He was just sincere and [apologized], and I was kind of like, ‘Whoa.’”
The Emotional Tests
While it’s been established that Owens prefers to keep things calm, cool and collected, he can only control himself — and part of being the Bachelor is listening to the love-seekers tell their stories. “I wasn’t really expecting that,” he confesses. “But there’s that empathy you can share, and you understand how [their trauma or loss] shaped them. It matters. You get an understanding of who they are. They’re tough women. I mean, to go through some of the things they went through and come out on the other side is truly amazing.”
For his part, Owens “tried to open up as much as I could,” but he notes, “I’ve been very blessed and lucky in my life.” One turning point, though, was the loss of his father around the same time as his divorce. “I got a lot of his qualities; he was a really calm guy, too. Fiery, but calm,” he says. “And I told my boys, and this is the truth, ‘Whatever my dad said, I did.’” But would he have approved of The Golden Bachelor? “He would love it,” Owens declares.
Another unexpected development occurred in the October 15 episode, when Carol Freeman-Branstine, the 63-year-old aunt and manager of MLB player Freddie Freeman, took herself out of the running. “I didn’t see it coming,” Owens says. “Everybody is there for their own reasons, and when they feel they have to leave, they can do that. Maybe there wasn’t a deep connection, maybe she could see into her future and say, ‘I don’t want the guy.’”
Owens believes the early exit changed the journey. “She was really nice and a lovely person, funny, just wonderful. So it may have affected the dynamics of the women. And also, maybe, she would have got a rose and somebody else would have left. … We’ll never know!” he teases.
That leaves Owens with his final three: Debbie Siebers, the 65-year-old Denver fitness professional who has never been married; Cindy Cullers, the 60-year-old retired biomedical engineer from Austin and divorced mother of three; and Peg Munson, the 62-year-old retired firefighter and bomb tech from Las Vegas and divorced mom of one.
Disney/Ricky Middlesworth (3)
Owens was touched that the “down-to-earth” Siebers made an effort to open up about her family. “She’s gentle, smart, beautiful,” he says, calling her single status “a plus” because “she wasn’t tainted by the whole breakup, heartache, kids. That stuff is tough on the psyche, man.”
Cullers, meanwhile, was “always outgoing and forward,” per Owens, and got the last one-on-one before hometowns. “She’s passionate, compassionate and brilliant,” he says. Upon her limo exit, he joked the show could “call it a wrap,” telling Us, “I’m thinking, ‘Wow. She’s obviously beautiful.’”
Complimenting her “high energy,” Owens was intrigued by the challenge to “crack” Munson. She opened up to him about experiencing infidelity, but he quipped, “I had to figure out if she really liked me or not!” He also wanted her to be more affectionate and noted: “I [had] to bring it out.”
Still to come, of course, are the fantasy suites. When asked for three words to describe the infamous overnight dates, Owens offered up some unusually tame descriptors. “Contemplative, conversation, information,” he says. “I went in there really wanting to know more, because the cameras are off, no mic, and now I can ask questions you might not want to say while you’re miked and on camera.”
It took 63 iterations of The Bachelor — including The Bachelorette, Bachelor Pad, Bachelor in Paradise and a few less fruitful spinoffs (just for The Bachelor Presents: Listen to Your Heart) — to get the franchise to its Golden era. Skepticism greeted the idea of a senior edition, but in fall 2023, The Golden Bachelor […]
Did any giant red flags appear? “For me, there aren’t any deal-breakers. I’m looking for deal-makers,” he says of his flip-the-script dating philosophy. “My best fit would be someone who is fun and high-energy. Someone who is witty, a lifelong learner I can be curious with and learn from.”
At the time, he says, he was still “contemplating” whether he was ready for an engagement. “I like being married. I like the companionship, having a partner and shared experiences, but it has to be someone special,” he explains. (Another justification for his unofficial title of Most Reasonable Bachelor.)
The Unconventional Happily Ever After
As the season winded down, Owens tried an unusual strategy — a pros and cons list. “I usually don’t make those types of lists. I can do it in my head, but when you write stuff down, it’s meaningful. I wanted to write down my first impressions, the goods, the bads, the neutrals. It really didn’t sway me, but I could still look at it,” he says.
“It was tough,” he continues, “and I’m just trying to figure out who is going to be the best fit for me, who I would enjoy. The hometowns are all great. But there’s that magnetism that pulls you in that direction no matter what, and it’s a little bit more toward one person than the other, so I went with my gut.”
We should tell you that Owens lights up when asked about his ending. (Up until this point, we weren’t convinced he had found a partner — but his glow made us question whether his nonchalant nature might be throwing off our normal spoiler game.)
“ABC can put on a production. We go to Antigua. I’ve never been there. I’ve been to islands, but I’ve never been there. But whoever scouted it out and set it up and got things prepared, just the little details, it’s just so good,” Owens begins, once again throwing Us off that he’s breaking the fourth wall with behind-the-scenes details before launching into the usually inevitable “it’s the most dramatic” ending tease.
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“I’m leading up to it!” he says when we express a need for more. “You have the setting, and I know who it is. It’s really emotional. And you’re a little nervous, but it’s so brilliant. … It’s so good, you won’t believe it.”
What does that mean? Our second Golden Bachelor continues to perplex Us. “You won’t believe how we get there, not mechanically, but how we get there emotionally,” he clarifies. “There’s some movement and twists and turns.”
Hmmm, we’ve seen the lead change his mind, call off his engagement to pursue his runner-up (twice!) and even choose no one (we haven’t forgotten, Brad Womack!). With Owens at the helm, this truly could be something we’ve never seen before.
It may have been two years since Kathy Swarts and Susan Noles appeared on Gerry Turner’s season 1 of The Golden Bachelor, but they can’t help throwing shade at their ex — and comparing him to season 2 lead Mel Owens.
During a September episode of the “Almost Famous” podcast, Susan, 67, noted that Gerry, 74, and Mel, 66, are “night and day” different. Kathy, for her part, quipped that she wants to meet Mel and “sweep him away” from his “suitors.”
“It’s not too late to break them up,” Kathy, 72, continued, to which cohost Ashley Iaconetti asked, “Are you talking about Mel?”
“I’m certainly not talking about Gerry,” Kathy replied.
After Kathy’s candid remark, Ashley pointed out that she appreciated the twosome admitting that the season 1 lead, who hailed from Indiana, was “not the hottest commodity.”
“Let me just break this down Ashley really quick,” Kathy continued. “You can have a lawyer, a football player, a guy who can string together sentences, or you can go pick cotton in a corn maze in Indiana. I don’t know. What do you want to do?”
When Susan and Kathy were cast on the show, the pair claimed that they were not informed of Gerry being the lead until the “last minute.” After news broke that he was the Golden Bachelor, Susan shared that her phone was “blowing up” from loved ones.
“My friends were [asking], ‘Are you still going?’ I go, ‘That’s mean. Yes, I’m going,’” Susan recalled, while Kathy added, “You know what my daughter said? My daughter said, ‘Mom, I’ve known you my whole life. You really think you’re moving to Indiana? It’s never happening.’”
“I’ll eat corn on the cob,” Kathy continued. “That’s as close as I want to get to a cornfield. Thank you very much.”
Kathy and Susan also recalled their fellow contestants’ alleged reactions when learning that Gerry lived on a lake in Indiana, which they believed to be an embellishment.
“And then the girls in our room saying, ‘He called that a lake? It’s a pond,’” Susan said, while Kathy added, “He said he lives on a lake. It’s like a swan boat, paddle wheel thing.”
Despite the playful jabs, the duo noted that they are still on good terms with Gerry.
Golden Bachelor star Susan Noles put in her two cents about Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist’s shocking divorce announcement, saying ‘they have their reasons, I’m sure’ During a joint Instagram video on Friday, April 12, with fellow cast member Kathy Swarts, Noles, 67, told fans “don’t give up on the idea of meeting somebody on […]
“We love him. We’re good friends, but hey, it is what it is,’ Susan said, to which Kathy added, “I don’t love him anymore. No, he’s perfectly fine. He’s got a new girlfriend. Actually, I wish him all the best.”
While Kathy and Susan ultimately did not find The One in Gerry, he ended up engaged to Theresa Nist. The couple tied the knot in 2024 before calling it quits months later.
Gerry, who recently announced his engagement to Lana Sutton, is set to chronicle his time on The Golden Bachelor in new memoir The Golden Years(out November 4). In the book, Gerry claimed he told second runner-up Faith Martin that he felt “trapped” ahead of exchanging vows with Theresa — later telling Us Weekly that he “felt like [he] was doing the right thing” by continuing to go through with the marriage.
“I just didn’t feel overjoyed about it,” Turner explained in his Us digital cover story. “So much of the book is about how I felt at certain moments, and that’s only a momentary truth… I had second thoughts, but I don’t think [they] were exaggerated from anyone’s normal second thoughts.”
“It makes me very sad to think that he felt empty and trapped,” Theresa told Us in an exclusive statement. “I wish he had said something and just ended it. But at least now I understand why he was so hurtful to me so many times. And I will say this. Those in glass houses should not throw stones. I do wish him all the best.”
The Golden Bachelor airs on ABC Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET.
