I Didn't Come Here to Make Friends: Confessions of a Reality Show Villain

by Courtney Robertson

  Case in point: One day we decided to get burgers at the In-N-Out on Sunset. I needed cash, so I pulled my car over to get money from an ATM. As Chris watched me from the passenger seat, a black Escalade drove by, slammed on the brakes, and then backed up. A guy jumped out and started running over to me frantically.

  “CAN I GET YOUR NUMBER?” he screamed. “DO YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND?”

  When he got up to me, he was so beautiful he took my breath away. He had jet-black hair, thick dark eyebrows, and gorgeous green eyes. He looked sort of familiar, but I couldn’t figure out who he was.

  “Yeah, he’s in the car,” I said, pointing to Chris, who was staring back at us unhappily.

  “Oh,” the guy said, dejected.

  “Maybe we’ll run into each other again,” I offered.

  “Doubt it,” he said with major attitude. Then he swaggered back to his SUV like a brat and peeled out.

  When I got back to the car, Chris was very grumpy. “What was that about? What did you say to him?”

  “I told him I had a boyfriend, silly!” I said sweetly, though inside I couldn’t shake off what had just happened. Chris knew me better than anyone. He could tell I was a little giddy from the encounter.

  About four months later, my mom called me during one of her afternoon TV marathons. “Turn on Oprah. She has the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen on.”

  I turned on the TV and there was the gorgeous, green-eyed guy from the Escalade. It was Jesse Metcalfe, the hunky gardener on the new hit show Desperate Housewives.

  “Oh my God, I met him! He hit on me at an ATM!”

  “That’s the kind of guy you should be with,” my mom declared. Even though she hated men, she was an avid reader of Danielle Steel novels and shallowly appreciated good-looking guys, especially if they were tall, dark, and handsome. Her favorite was Antonio Banderas.

  Mom’s least favorite man was still Chris. Her wish for us to split up finally came true one week before the Academy Awards in 2004. Increasingly insecure about my success and unable to deal with the distance and lack of regular sex, Chris broke up with me before I could break up with him. I was really upset, but also finally ready to move on. He hated when I went out so, of course, I decided to go out on Oscar night, the biggest event of the year in Hollywood.

  Even though I personally didn’t know anybody important, my friend Michelle and I got into one of the most exclusive A-list parties at a multi-million-dollar mansion transformed into a club in the Hollywood Hills. The party promoter asked my agency to round up a bunch of models—no plus ones and no guys allowed, no exceptions—and they shuttled us up to the house in a party bus with blacked-out windows so we couldn’t see the top secret location. Once inside the gates, we were released into the party like chum.

  As soon as I walked in, I immediately spotted Leonardo DiCaprio and Vince Vaughn. A gourmet chef flipped pancakes, and made fried chicken and waffles for anyone who didn’t have to starve themselves to fit into their tuxes and skintight dresses anymore. Feeling overwhelmed, I decided to go outside for a smoke by myself. It was chilly so I was shivering in my little black dress and hugging my arms close to my body.

  Suddenly, a tuxedo jacket was draped over my shoulders.

  “Looks like you need this.”

  I turned around and stared directly into the gorgeous green eyes of Adrian Grenier. Entourage hadn’t aired yet but I recognized him from the teen movie Drive Me Crazy with Melissa Joan Hart.

  After thanking him, we got into a good conversation about our mutual loneliness in L.A. He’d moved here from Queens and was struggling because he felt like he had no real friends. Adrian was really genuine and warm, and in old-school gentlemanly fashion asked, “Can I take you to dinner?”

  We exchanged numbers, he left the party, and I went back inside, looking for Michelle. I found her standing at the bar with, drum roll please, Jesse Metcalfe. Desperate Housewives was now a huge hit and he was a huge star.

  “Hi. Do you still have a boyfriend?” he asked me aggressively as soon as I walked up.

  I couldn’t believe that he remembered me from our encounter at the ATM, but I remained calm. “No,” I answered. “We broke up a week ago. Are you single?” I needed to know; it’s the first thing I always asked a guy. I don’t care who he is.

  “Yeah. I want to take you out sometime.”

  I wrote my number on a napkin and gave it to him. As he walked away smirking, I thought, He’s definitely going to lose that.

  The next day I got a text from Adrian, who made good on that dinner invite. I said yes, but truthfully I wasn’t excited about it. I really wished it’d been Jesse. I called my mom to tell her I’d run into her celebrity crush at the party and she went bananas. She was more excited than I’d ever heard her in my life. I told her to calm down because I hadn’t heard from him and probably never would.

  Adrian picked me up that night in the new eco-green car that was all the rage, his “Pry-ous,” as he called it, and we went to a hole-in-the-wall sushi place on Highland and Franklin. He knew everybody in there and introduced me to the sushi chefs. He performed a napkin trick where he folded it and dropped it in front of his face and made different funny faces. I’m sure I wasn’t the first woman to see this particular trick, but it still charmed me.

  As charming as Adrian was, I didn’t feel a spark with him. After dinner, we sat in his Pry-ous as it rained. I could tell he wanted to make a move, but to make it less enticing I complained that I was sore from a workout. “Let’s go get massages!” he said. “Right now!”

  I politely declined. I thought it was a little too intimate for a first date, and he drove me home. He tried to kiss me when he dropped me off but I turned and gave him the cheek. I knew this guy could get ass all day long. I wasn’t going to be just another notch. No way. As expected, because I wasn’t interested, Adrian pursued me on and off for the next six years! I blew him off a lot, and he sexted me a lot. We did hook up twice but we never had actual sex. I wouldn’t let him, which drove him even crazier. “I can make you feel like a queen if you let me,” he would say. He had the biggest penis I’d ever seen—and the biggest bush! Even though we had that in common, it just was never meant to be. “You’re the one girl I can’t get,” he’d say to me.

  One of the reasons Adrian couldn’t get me was because Jesse called two days after he did and asked me out. I was so excited. I put on what I considered my sexiest outfit—a Trina Turk dress, which I got at her outlet after modeling for her, and nude heels. I was so attracted to Jesse, but it didn’t go well. He wined and dined me at Italian restaurant Ago, but he was really rude, talking on his phone almost the entire night. It was awkward and we didn’t have much to talk about. The conversations we did have were really generic. Plus, he’s not the easiest guy to talk to. He’s actually quite aggressive and challenging. I felt like he had a giant chip on his shoulder the whole night.

  I was pretty sure there wouldn’t be a second date, but not long after our disastrous night out he called me up and invited me to a dinner at Katana with his friends. This setting, one where he could drink a lot and let his huge personality shine at the head of a table, was more in his wheelhouse. We got pretty handsy that night. We went on a third date, sushi again. I was shocked to see his mom there along with his group of friends. I sat next to her and she was so nice. I thought it was sweet that he brought her along.

  Two weeks after we met, we still hadn’t had sex. Jesse was being a good boy. He wanted to wait, but I couldn’t anymore. I invited him back to my place one afternoon after we went to a movie. He picked me up, carried me inside, and threw me on the bed. I wish I could say that we were the greatest lovers since Christian Grey and Ana Steele. But I can’t lie. The sex was pretty average. Jesse needed a lot of reassurance.

  Regardless, the sex was good enough that I wanted more. For the next month, Jesse and I spent every night together at his house. He was working long hours on Desperate Housewives, but we were having a lot of fun and he se
emed to be letting his guard down with me. I felt like Kate Bosworth in Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! But the fairy-tale romance hit a snag when I got an overnight modeling assignment in Arizona. Jesse drove me to the airport, said he would miss me and to send photos of myself (camera phones were just starting to be a thing).

  “Don’t have sex with your ex,” he joked about Chris.

  Chris who? I didn’t even call him when I went home. That’s how cuckoo I was for Jesse, who, as requested, received several sexy pics of me on that trip. The next night, dutifully back in Jesse’s bed, I waited for him to finish brushing his teeth. I pulled the comforter back so he could climb into bed, but when the corner flipped up, a pair of pink lace panties flung out onto the mattress.

  They weren’t mine. They were way too ugly and trashy.

  “What the fuck?” I cried.

  Jesse came into the doorway and I flung the stanky-ass undies at him. They slid across the hardwood floor and landed right in front of his feet.

  “I’m leaving,” I said as calmly as I could.

  “Let me explain!” he said in a panic.

  It was the first time in my life I had been cheated on (that I knew of). I felt like I was going to throw up. I started to call a cab because he had picked me up from the airport and I didn’t have my car.

  “I was gone one night, Jesse.”

  To my surprise, instead of denying it, he came right out and admitted his betrayal and apologized.

  “I messed up,” he pleaded. “I went out and my ex came home with me.” I didn’t even know he had an ex.

  Jesse wouldn’t let me take a cab home so he drove me to my apartment and I gave him the silent treatment. After I slammed the car door and ran inside, the first thing I did was call Chris and tell him I missed him.

  Four nights later, he flew to L.A. and we were back together.

  When I was a kid, I’d gone years without even so much as touching a boy. But once I started dating guys, I became one of those girls who couldn’t be alone. It was like I was petrified of having another dry spell. My motto from that point on: “The best way to get over a guy is to get under another one.” It wasn’t healthy, but it’s what I did. I was a serial rebounder.

  So while Chris and I tried to make it work long distance again, Jesse refused to let me go. He drove by my apartment, sometimes when I was walking hand-in-hand with Chris. He showed up at my gym at times he knew I’d be there. One time, I called him out on it. “I like to drive by hoping to get to see you,” he admitted shamelessly.

  His persistence paid off and by the summer I’d ditched Chris again and Jesse and I were as hot and heavy as Elaine Benes and the saxophone player. At first, it was a dream again. Jesse bought me expensive diamond necklaces and spoiled me with lobster dinners. We drove down to a resort in La Jolla, where the valets called me Mrs. Metcalfe, and he showed me off at paparazzi hotspot the Ivy. He even met my family in Newport Beach and played Ping-Pong with my dad and drank beers with my mesmerized mom. She actually refused to get a new cell phone for almost ten years because she didn’t want to lose her prized pictures of Jesse. Jesse even invited me to be his date at the Emmys. I got dolled up in a Mark Zunino gown and had my hair done by Frankie Payne, stylist for Kim Kardashian and Eva Longoria, and Jesse and I walked the red carpet holding hands.

  I often felt like Cinderella when I was with Jesse, but over the next four years, the pumpkin slowly rotted. I’d bounce back and forth between Jesse and Chris like a pinball machine. Chris was a little lost, but my soul mate and my rock. Jesse was exciting and passionate, but a total mess. He liked that I grounded him, but deep down we both knew I wasn’t wild enough for him. He was stubborn and really possessive. If he thought I was even slightly flirting with a guy in public, he’d put his arms around me and squeeze just a little too tight.

  Jesse was also, by his own admission, an alcoholic and an addict. He never did drugs in front of me but he was always disappearing into bathrooms when we were out. He would also disappear for days at a time. When he was coming down, he’d feel like an ass and be super depressed. Jesse’s addictions spiraled out of control after he left Desperate Housewives at the peak of his fame. He went into rehab—and in and out of my life. It pained me to see him struggling to stay sober, so I tried not to drink in front of him and to be a positive influence. But he kept falling off the wagon, going MIA, and dating other women. One was a serious relationship with Nadine Coyle, from the Brit band Girls Aloud. After they broke up, for some reason he appeared on the show LA Ink to get a tattoo of her naked, holding his bloody heart, on his arm. I could tell that he was in a really bad place.

  As much as I liked Jesse, I never felt like I could trust him. Our relationship made me totally paranoid and I turned into that awful girl who resorts to snooping. One night we were going to a Jason Mraz concert and he forgot to print out the tickets. I overheard him tell a friend his password so he could print the tickets and made a mental note. The next day, I broke into his e-mail and discovered he was having a full-on, intimate relationship with a girl in London. He called her “baby,” which really bothered me because he never called me that. I also broke into one of his social media accounts and found evidence that he was flirting with random, extremely trashy girls.

  I called to ream him out and, as usual, he owned up to everything. I broke up with him again. And again. And again. Over the course of our six-year fling, we were really never together for more than two months at a time.

  After bouncing back and forth between two polar opposite guys for years, Chris finally moved out to L.A. in 2007 and into my new apartment by the beach in Marina del Rey. For the first time in our long, rocky relationship, we were a real couple trying to do the whole domestic bliss thing. I was jetting off to modeling assignments, like Nautica and Hearts on Fire, and he got a job at the Ralph Lauren store on Rodeo Drive. We flew to Maui and had sex on the beach. We were always love machines, doing it up to four times a day. Our chemistry was off the charts.

  Our physical connection could only go so far though. Emotionally, we were growing away from each other. After so many years apart, living totally different lives, we didn’t have much in common anymore. I was living a busy, urban lifestyle and Chris wasn’t into it. I also wanted a boob job and he wasn’t into that either. I’d always been self-conscious about being a brick wall and truly believe I lost out on some sexier modeling assignments because of my flat chest. I’d done the water bra and used chicken cutlets to enhance my chest, but for me it wasn’t enough. Chris was adamant: he did not want me to get breast implants.

  He’d also started a strict new raw food diet. I’d been a meat-and-potatoes kind of girl up until then, so the new diet turned me off. But for him I gave it a go. For the next three years I was a strict vegan, and only ate raw foods.

  As it turns out, Chris wasn’t that into me anymore either. He flat-out told me he wasn’t sure if he believed in marriage. And making matters worse, I found a “cons list”—that’s right, there were no pros, just cons—he’d made about me and actually carried around in his wallet. It included character flaws such as:

  Watches too much TV at night

  This was true. I enjoy my downtime and being a lazy-ass couch potato is one of the ways I’ve unwound since my days ditching school to hang with my mom. It was during this time with Chris that I first started watching one of my guilty pleasures, The Bachelor. I forced him to watch with me so I could see which girls he found attractive. I would also talk about The Bachelor on the phone with my sister Rachel, who was such a big fan she held regular viewing parties for her friends. Also on the con list:

  Smokes

  Guilty.

  Eats meat

  Because of Chris, I became vegan/vegetarian as much as I could. But I never liked taking meat and fish out of my diet completely. He wanted his kids to be 100 percent raw. He didn’t even want them to drink milk.

  My mom

  It’s true she could be unsupportive and not very nice. Chris may
have disliked my mom, but she turned out to be spot-on about him. He was kind of shady. One day, after I came back from a modeling assignment, I found flirty e-mails from a former coworker he accidentally left up on my computer and a long black hair in our shower.

  AFTER A YEAR and a half of living together, I kicked Chris out and moved to Santa Monica. He ended up moving to Idaho to work in a raw food restaurant. With Chris’s objections out of the way, I bought myself an $8,000 boob job. I got the smallest upgrade possible, from a full B to a small C, so they’d look completely natural. I absolutely love them and would highly recommend implants to any woman who doesn’t like being flat chested and wants to feel sexier. So there.

  I wish I could say at this point that I decided to be alone to work on myself and figure out why I was attracted to guys with questionable character and/or addiction issues. But old habits die hard.

  Within a week after the breakup, I was back at the Chateau Marmont carousing with my model friend Matt. One night at dinner, Matt sat me across from his friend Gerry, a.k.a. Scottish actor Gerard Butler, whose abs had starred in 300, but was better known to a lass like me for his cheesy romantic comedy P.S. I Love You. In fact, Gerry wasn’t eating that night. He was on a liquid diet, because he had to film a love scene with Katherine Heigl for his next rom-com, The Ugly Truth. I didn’t need to read Us Weekly to know that Gerry’s bad-boy reputation preceded him. He flirted mercilessly with me, looking deep into my soul like a champion snake oil salesman. He was impossibly handsome and completely hypnotizing, but I forced myself not to jump his bones right then and there.

  The next day, Gerry texted me in the middle of the day. He was at the Viceroy hotel in Santa Monica and wanted me to come over. I was torn. I had a callback for another commercial for Old Navy. I desperately wanted to blow it off but after an internal argument with myself, realized I’d possibly be giving up about $20,000 just to spend a few hours with a horny movie star who would try to bone me then instantly avoid me like the plague. So, like a good girl, I went to the callback.