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

by Courtney Robertson

  After seeing the psychologist, I shot my very first “scene” on-camera. Now, while most girls may have agonized over their outfit for this monumental occasion, I simply wore jeans and a white T-shirt, a little eyeliner, and threw in my weave. I knew it was going to be a long day so comfort was king. After getting miked up, I was led into a hotel room filled with candles, blue lighting, knickknacks, and a chintzy Chinese wall divider.

  I was asked two questions by a lone producer:

  1.Will you tell us a little bit about yourself?

  2.Who do you want to be the next Bachelor?

  I gave a spiel about how I hoped it was Ben because he was a nice, normal guy and I liked his hair because I’d dated some bald eagles (Chris and Cavan). I said he likes wine and I like wine so I think we’d be good together.

  “Okay, you’re done!” the producer announced. I was shocked it was over so quickly, until he led me through a door into the next room, where—surprise!—the producers were crammed around a big, U-shaped conference table and had just watched my Academy Award—winning performance on closed circuit. Up until this point, I hadn’t really been taking it all that seriously. But now I was in it. And I was terrified.

  It would have been understandable for anyone in that intimidating situation to start shaking or sweating profusely, or maybe even faint, but my modeling auditions had prepared me for this exact moment. I did my signature double-handed wave and scanned the room, making eye contact with as many people as possible without looking like a phony politician. I sat in a chair in front of the table and was promptly drilled with questions.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Who have you modeled for?”

  “Who do you want to be the Bachelor?”

  I told them I was only interested in Ben and if it was going to be any of the other guys from Ashley’s season, like Ryan Park or Ames Brown, I wasn’t interested.

  “What’s your personality like?”

  After I answered that I thought I was funny and liked making people laugh, I looked to a handsome producer sitting against the wall for a scintilla of support. But he went in for the kill.

  “Oh, really? You’re funny?” he mocked. “Tell us a joke.” I didn’t flinch.

  “How do you make a handkerchief dance? Put a little boogie in it!” I said, shimmying.

  The room totally cracked up and I looked back to the handsome producer. He gave me a private little smile. During the rest of the Q&A, I tried to charm as many producers as possible, asking them questions about themselves and making jokes like “Know any single guys?” before I was ushered out, again doing my signature double-handed wave.

  I thought I killed, but back in my lonely hotel room I was only rewarded with a soggy Subway sandwich. I ate it because I was starving. And I had nothing else to do for another two hours.

  Next up, I met with a lady private investigator who bombarded me with the most personal questions yet:

  “Have you ever gotten a DUI?”

  No.

  “Have you ever been arrested?”

  I took a deep breath and decided to come clean. In sixth grade, Sara and I had stolen Coca-Cola shirts with polar bears on them from Robinsons-May and we got busted. I was banned for life from the department store chain. I thought my mom was going to smack me when she picked me up, but she was surprisingly cool about the whole thing and only grounded me for three months.

  The lady PI looked bored.

  “Do you have any nude photos?”

  Um, yes, I thought, panicking. I had taken hundreds of them. But I didn’t tell her the eye-popping number. I just blushed and said my ex had some.

  “What’s the raciest picture he has?”

  “Oh, he would never sell those.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, definitely,” I said, not totally convinced.

  “Do you have a sex tape?”

  “Yes.” I had at least three. In fact, one was with an ex, who told me after I broke up with him that he couldn’t stop watching it. I said that was really creepy and to delete it immediately. He promised he would. (Foreshadow alert #1!)

  “Do you have any enemies?”

  “Not that I know of.” (Foreshadow alert #2!)

  After the inquisition was finished, I had to get my blood drawn to make sure I didn’t have any STDs.

  She wanted to know if I was on the pill. I’d been on the pill since I was sixteen years old. My mom actually took me to get them, if you can believe it, but it was to help cure my pepperoni pimple face, definitely not an endorsement to engage in sexual activity.

  After the blood test, the day was finally over. Many of the women had flown in from faraway places like LaFollette, Tennessee, or Kissimmee, Florida, so they stayed overnight in the hotel. But since I only lived a few miles away, I drove home, exhausted and in shock. Wow, what was that? I thought.

  As soon as I made it through my front door, I walked to my toilet and puked. I wasn’t sure what it was. After I threw up, I sat on my bathroom floor stressed out and confused. My body was literally having an adverse reaction to all of this.

  I must have done okay because two days later I got a call from a casting producer and was told I passed Finals Weekend and officially chosen to be on The Bachelor. I was sent a gigantic, inch-thick contract and told to sign it and drop it off at the production offices as soon as possible. Instead of being thrilled, I felt a sense of dread. I just couldn’t commit. For the next two weeks, I blew off their frantic calls and e-mails as I agonized whether or not to be on the show. I talked to my sister, who, of course, as a huge fan of The Bachelor said to go for it. I talked to my dad, who was really excited and thought it was a great idea. Even my agent, Steve, wasn’t worried about the temporary hiatus from the modeling world. “I don’t think it will help your career, but it won’t hurt it,” he told me. (Foreshadow alert #3!) I scoured Ben’s Twitter looking for signs that he was “the one” and still I couldn’t decide. I made a pro and con list, which included:

  • PROS •

  • CONS •

  Falling in love

  Heart smashed into pieces

  Making new friends

  Catfights

  Travel

  Isolation, lack of privacy

  Fairy-tale ending

  Humiliated on national television

  Only two people were totally negative about the show. My best guy friend, Matt, didn’t think I should do it. And, not surprisingly, my mom was vehemently against me going on the show. My sister had shown her the Hometown Date episode from Ashley’s season and my mom thought Ben wasn’t my type, and she was leery of his mom, Barbara.

  “You don’t need a television show to get dates, Courtney,” she scolded. I think she was still holding out hope for Jesse and me to make it work. “Do you even want to get married? You’re not ready to settle down. It’s not a good idea.”

  My mom had a point. I was confused.

  On August 21, I called a producer and asked her to scratch me off the list. “Listen,” she said. “You owe it to yourself to at least meet the guy.” When I was still unsure, she told me to take two more days to think about it. But I’d made up my mind. After I officially pulled out, my dad sent me an e-mail with the subject line “A Well-Made Decision.”

  “Bug,” he wrote, addressing me by my nickname, “I would like to compliment you for how you reached your decision on the Bachelor program. You thought about it from every angle and bounced it off your trusted friends. You came to a very sensible decision, one that is right for you. Time to move forward with new projects … try to nail down the Fruit of the Loom job. Why should a girl who made $32,000 for one photo shoot last August take two months out of her career and lose all control on how her image is used on national television?”

  I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders, but at the same time, over the next week I felt lonelier than ever before. Unattached for the first time in forever, I
fell back into my old habits. I called Chris, even though we hadn’t spoken in two years. He’d opened his own raw food restaurant in Florida and was doing really well. He immediately booked me a ticket to visit Labor Day weekend.

  I decided to go, even though I knew if my mom found out she would disown me. I was still unsure that I’d made the right decision about The Bachelor. I wanted to see if there was anything left with Chris and if a weekend with him would settle my mind once and for all.

  But it was the same old story. Though he told me he loved me and we still had amazing physical chemistry, there was something important missing. In a last-ditch effort, I tested Chris one more time: I told him I was considering going on The Bachelor. Instead of begging me not to, he was supportive and said it would be fun for me. After, we went swimming in the ocean, and even though his perfectly lean, raw-food-sculpted body glistened in the sun, I had a sinking feeling. I knew this would be the last time I ever saw him.

  As soon as I got back to L.A., I e-mailed the producer again and said I’d made the wrong decision. I told her that I wanted to be on the show and was ready for an amazing love story, if they’d still have me. This was something I had to do for myself and I couldn’t turn it down for Chris, my mom and dad, or anyone.

  “We were so disappointed, we took your pictures off the wall,” the producer said. “We’ve already picked all the girls.”

  After a long pause, she told me to bring in my contract right away.

  The next morning, over a cup of coffee, I flew through the monster document, initialing every lower right-hand corner, without even opening the pages all the way. I dropped off the contract and gave the producer a hug. She gave me a packing list that said to be prepared for all seasons.

  It was official. I was going on The Bachelor, one of the most iconic shows in the history of television. I was going to meet Ben Flajnik. I only had a little over a week until I had to report to a hotel in Westlake Village, the holding pen until the infamous limo ride to the mansion in Malibu. Holy crap, I had a lot to do.

  First, I found a model friend who agreed to rent my spare bedroom while I was away (I’d started being smarter about my money). It would be the first time I’d had a female roommate since I moved to L.A. ten years prior. I gave my sister Rachel all my account information and my modeling contacts so she could manage my bills and my career while I was away. Ironically, one of the last shoots I did before I left was for Kay Jewelers’ Neil Lane engagement ring collection. I was a fake bride with a fake husband for the day.

  Second, I got my wardrobe ready. I counted out the possible rose ceremonies and borrowed five dresses from Rachel, even though we’re not the same size, and two from another model friend named Carrie. I didn’t buy anything new. Here’s why: When I was dating Jesse I nearly went broke buying new designer stuff. I felt so much pressure to always look good when we went out, just in case he was photographed by paparazzi, but I never got my own style right. I’d try to match his look, but it was just plain bad. Jesse was in an Affliction phase and I was wearing cringe-worthy outfits like denim skirts, Jack Daniel’s T-shirts, and cowboy boots. Perez Hilton was all over my ass, no matter how hard I tried to look good. Once, when I made the unfortunate decision to wear a leopard-print tube dress with purple heels, Perez scribbled on my face with his poisonous white pen, “Butt ugly!” I refused to spend my life savings on clothes ever again. The other reason I didn’t go on a big shopping spree was that I was superstitious. I thought if I bought all new dresses I’d be sent home the first night. The only new thing I bought for the show was a journal.

  Third, I sowed my oats. To be honest, I had a premonition that I would be engaged to Ben and he might be the last man I’d ever make the sex with. So for the first time in my life, I was a tiny bit promiscuous the week before I left. I had one more rendezvous with Adrian, who was living in the penthouse of the W Hotel on Sunset. After we hooked up, he showed me an eco-friendly website he was working on and we had a long conversation about an article in the New York Times discussing Dan Savage’s “monogamish” philosophy. Adrian actually had a girlfriend at the time, but it was okay, he said, because they were in an open relationship. I tried not to judge. Then I told him about going on The Bachelor, the most monogamous thing on the planet and, to his credit, he didn’t judge.

  I also had a hot hookup with a gorgeous model/actor friend of mine, who I’d met on a Lucky jeans shoot a couple years before. The photographer wanted us to kiss, but he refused because he had a girlfriend. I never forgot that. I was so impressed with his devotion. Now that we were both single, he took me on what started out as an innocent day date, a walk on the beach and lunch at the Library Alehouse in Santa Monica. Then he came over to my house to watch TV. He left around 5:00 P.M., but texted me ten minutes after he left that traffic was a nightmare and he was coming back to wait it out (which if intentional was a brilliant scheme, especially in L.A.). I’d taken a shower—I always think it’s sexy to have long, wet hair—and, pretty much as soon as he walked in, we jumped into bed. I let him leave without telling him about The Bachelor. I just told him I might be gone for a little while.

  I didn’t tell Cavan either. Our breakup was still pretty fresh and I thought it would crush him. I also decided not to tell Dylan, even though we were on pretty good terms and he’d recently fixed my screen door. Not being up-front with him would come back to bite me in the ass.

  I did tell Chris, who I could tell was disappointed, but he didn’t or couldn’t tell me not to go. I decided to text Jesse, since he was a celebrity and could be linked to me in the tabloids. His career was heating up again; he’d been offered a starring role on the revived TV show Dallas. He immediately called and warned me that it was a bad idea because the girls on the show were “dorks.” When I told him it was too late and that I was committed, he moaned, “Fuuuck this guy is going to pick you.” Jesse asked to come over, but I said no. He wanted to meet up before I left but we never did.

  I was ready to be Ben’s girl.

  ON SEPTEMBER 14, producers came to my house and shot my “package” for the show, a short video about my life. They filmed me sipping coffee at Urth Caffe, riding my bike to my favorite farmer’s market to pick out flowers, and making a salad in my kitchen, after they spruced up the background. I talked for hours about heartbreak and wanting to find true love and what I liked about Ben. It would have gone a lot faster if I didn’t live next to the Santa Monica airport. The planes kept messing up the sound.

  The night before I left, I lay in bed thinking about Ben. It suddenly hit me that if he did propose, I may have to move to San Francisco. I’d be willing to do that. I also thought about the twenty-four other women and how I hoped to make at least one or two new lifelong friends. But I also made two promises to myself:

  1.Don’t let my temper get the best of me.

  I’m a Cancer and my mood can flare up quickly if I’m not careful.

  2.No fights on-camera.

  I was nervous about being snookered into a lot of deep group conversations with the other women. As I mentioned earlier, I’m not big on sitting around talking about my feelings. That part of the show would definitely be a challenge.

  I’m not going to lie. I did have a strategy going in. I can be effectively manipulative. My goal was to win the girls over, even if I didn’t like them, and make friends with everyone. I admit I can be picky with what type of girls I get close with. I always say it’s like dating. You have to play a little hard to get with girlfriends, just like with a guy. You can’t get jealous and you can’t be too readily available all the time. It’s almost exactly like Paul Rudd and Jason Segel in I Love You, Man.

  And if I liked Ben, my plan was to win him over with my emotional and nurturing nature, another big Cancer quality. You can stop laughing now.

  Finally, the big day arrived. On Saturday, September 17, at 1:00 P.M., a town car arrived at my house and I began my Bachelor journey. I brought the two suitcases I was told I was allowed to bring, and
only later I found out that some of the girls brought five. One bag was full of summer stuff, and one covered fall. I brought plenty of bikinis for hot tubbin’ and a lot of accessories, like beanies and scarves, which could add a pop of color to the basics I’d packed. I had one small makeup bag—eyeliner, concealer, and bronzer were my staples—because I was told we’d get help from a makeup artist. And last but not least, I threw in my favorite lingerie, just in case. I packed perfectly. Though if I had to do it over again, I would’ve taken my vibrator.

  * * *

  KEEPING IT REAL

  The Perfect Packing List

  by Jaclyn Swartz

  When I first got the call that I would be on The Bachelor, my first question was, “What the hell do I pack?” (Well, after “who is going to dye my hair and paint my nails?”—so, really the third question.) I was so excited to show off my killer wardrobe that I knew would be juxtaposed with at least seventeen Hooters waitresses and NBA dancers. The rules are very clear in that you are only allowed to bring two checked bags, but since I was sure I was getting to hometown dates (ha!), I brought seven.

  About $550 dollars in baggage fees later, I am giving you a list of the crucial things to pack: