This is the most dramatic podcast ever and iHeartRadio podcast. Chris Harrison and Laurence Ema coming to you from the home office in sunny Austin, Texas. It's got such a good time to be here in Austin this fall. Football weather, Yes, football weather. Oh, I was going to say, slash Harry Potter weather, booky weather, booky weather.
Well, we're still waiting for it to come. We actually admittedly had a little bit of better weather this past weekend in Santa Barbara, California, one of our favorite cities, where we went for a big bachelor surprise for one of your favorite bachelors of all time, Andrew.
Fireson, one of my favorite human beings period dot. Yeah, period dot. He's just his beautiful wife, Evonna Firestone, six months ago.
This secret in for so long. This woman, I mean, we're laughing about it now, but she's was telling me she's like Andrew was starting to think, you know, he's like getting suspicious. I was seeming too secretive. But basically, he'd been given an Honoree of the Year award by this organization Storyteller for all the incredible work he does in Santa Barbara to help them they help traumatize kids get a better start in life. And Andrew is sort of known as the MC of the Santa Barbara Areas.
Guys does every charity event.
Does more for more people and more organizations than anybody I know. And I host a lot of these things, but he is relentless, will do two three four events a weekend, sometimes two in the same night, just to give back to the community and to help as much
as he can. And se Yeah, about six months ago, Evanna, his wife, reached out to us and said, hey, guys, Andrew's been given this amazing honor, the twenty twenty four Storyteller Honoree of the Year, and I want to surprise him with you guys as the people who come on stage and announce.
Him and the award.
In the announcement anounce the award. Yeah, the award was still surprise, so.
He didn't know he was getting the award.
Here's the bizarre thing is they asked him to host, So he went under the guys that he was hosting the event and him seeing the event and hosting the the auction, all of it, which by the way, he did. That's that's part of this story. But That's how they got him there with a few of his friends and a little bit of his family. What he didn't know is that Lauren and I were there to go on
stage and actually give him this honor. And then his whole family rolled out, his sister, his dad, friends from out of Faria, friends came in from his old life in San Francisco, and it was such a beautiful, emotional He cried what he saw his dad and his sister and his family walk out. It was it was awesome.
So I know that Evana was so nervous about it. I was a little did you kind of like it? I sort of like, here's when I was having fun. I mean, at first, we were nervous because we're flying in that day, and you know, you never want to
be the person to screw a surprise. What we had told Andrew was Ivanna's birthday was the same weekend, and we said we want to come in for Havana's birthday and they're, you know, Evanna played it off, well, oh okay, that'd be great, but we have this event Friday night. And Andrew's like, you guys don't have to come to this event, and we said, any you know, as a friend, anytime with you is great. We don't care, we'll come
to the event. And so we're coming in and on the one hand, I didn't want to be the one to mess anything up. But on the other hand, when we got there, I was kind of really digging into like the acting part of it. Like I said, so, Andrew Waite, are you hosting I'm pretending like I know nothing. Are you hosting this event? Is this another one of the things you're hosting? Oh? Great, we'll get to see you in action. This is so exciting and you maybe have the best move of the night. Because Andrew was
really annoyed, like he was. He was really worried about us being he's very protective of us, and he knew he didn't want us. First of all, He's like, don't come to this charity event. You don't have to do this. And we're like, no, no, we love you guys. We're just gonna come and then we're gonna have a great weekend. And so he's like okay, okay. So we're sitting at the table, well, one of the front tables, with him, and obviously this whole thing had been set up with
the two co chairs we had FaceTime with them. We'd gone overall what we were going to do, the videos. Everything had been so choreographed, obviously behind Andrew's back, and so when they called us up to the stage, Andrew's like, what the f Like, why are they doing this to you? He was so mad, and so I leaned over. I said, don't worry. They just asked me to do a quick favor. I'm totally good with this, don't worry. And that was because he was immediately so pissed off that the co
Chairs had asked you and I'd go out. You knew how you would react. You knew that he would be afraid that if people saw you there, they'd be like, oh, Chris Harrison's here, We'll just we'll ask him to participate in some way. And so you played it off like that had happened. So he was actually furious. So we went on stage and I got to give the co Chairs and Havana a shout out. They had the brilliant idea. Yeah, take this idea, you guys, and use it as something
in your life if you need to. It was so smart. They had a fake honor recreated using the letters of Andrew's name. It was an anagram, so in the brochure even it said that the honorey of the night was doctor Stephanie Rowan. They had a fake bio made of her, fake photos of this person, and then the co chairs got up and they said, Okay, tonight we're going to be honoring doctor Stephanie Rowan, and we'd like to welcome Lauren Zema and Chris Harrison to the stage. This is
when Andrew freaks out. We get up there and what we had planned was they had made a graphic so that we said, you know, actually, uh, we got to get something's off with this graphic. We got to get this fixed. The letters then rearranged to reveal the real honery of the night is Andrew Firestone. At that moment, his family and friends who were there in secret, they'd been hidden in the back room. They walked out, Andrew was crying. His son Brooks later told me, I've never seen my dad cry before.
Really, yes, I know. His kids were there, his beautiful daughter Anya, the boys Brooks and Shane obviously Evanna, tons of friends of his from his old days, his family. It was really special. So we give him first of all, I laid into the Stephanie row and I, you know, I went up. I said, Stephanie Rowan is such a gift to this community. And I started in my speech on Steph, doctor Stephanie Rowan, who doesn't exist, and then
Lauren cut me off and broke down the anagram. But they went so deep with the fake that they had a picture of Steph a Stephanie Rowan, and it was an amalgamation apparently of Andrew as a woman, and they took this AI version comes through of Andrew as a woman, and so they had all these deep kind of Easter egg fakes and behind the picture.
They said that she was into birds, Andrew was a burger.
They added all these like funny little Easter eggs that obviously Andrew never would have seen but later was quite funny. And so we presented the award. They there was this beautiful video tribute that his family took part in. The kids were very much a part of. And then we were about to bring Andrew up on stage. Now, if you know Andrew Firestone, this guy gives it one hundred and forty eight percent every single time.
And Andrew, like me, is a theater nerd.
He's a theater nerd. He loves musical theater.
He and I will. You know, I think that you and Evanna connect a little more on which is interesting because I know Andrew's a former football player, But actually you and Evanna very much connect on like your sportiness and your competitiveness and tequila. Yeah, well we're all in a tequila. They don't take tequila for yourself. That's not for you. Like if we all play pickleball, you and Vonna actually are on a team, and you guys really get Andrew and I to being cheerleaders.
We're very competitive.
But then if and if I start singing a song from you know, White Christmas, Andrew jumps in. He knows all the words.
Take guys and ulstairs.
If he starts singing guys and dolls, I'm right there with him. And so it's really lovely when you have a good couple friend who loves each other, You love each other, and then you all also love each other.
In a little backstory, so at Andrew and Evanna's wedding many many years ago, their recession was to a song that they just started out of nowhere, a cappella with the choir at the church and the whole thing was Living on a Prayer by bon Jovi, and it started like really as part of the ceremony, You're like, what's happening? I know those words? Is that? And then all of a sudden the song started and we all started singing in the church and so that was the start of
something beautiful. And then Andrew has sung to me a couple of times, once at a Direct Relief Foundation event where he introduced me via a song, and then at our wedding.
You should post that video.
You need to post that. It was pretty tragic, pretty bad.
When I say he's a theater kid, I'm not like commending his vocals is they're only okay. Here's the secret. You can be a theater kid who in musicals and not actually be that great at singing because there's characters you.
To go big and just yeah, really loud, really big.
Like and Annie, I was Miss Hannigan one year, and that's more of a growl than a singing. When you're singing licktull Girls, Lick the girls, So you just andreck isn't exactly on pitch, but yeah, he sang to you at Direct Relief and then at our wedding. We asked Andrew to mc our rehearsal dinner and he did a really funny thing where my favorite song is I Want to Dance with Somebody by Whitney Houston, and he at the end of the night said I would like to
do a reading from the poetry of w. Houston. And it took everybody a minute. He's going the clock strikes upon the hour and the sun begins to fade, and you're thinking, wow, this is a beautiful love poem. Still enough time to figure out how to chase my blues away, and you're starting to get it, and then he gets the entire rehearsal dinner to sing I Want to Dance
with Somebody, and it was wonderful. So we just thought Andrew always brings a song, and my musical theater teacher always told me and On a song, so we thought, we've got to bring him up on stage to actually get the award with a song. And you had the great idea of Living on a Prayer.
Yeah, we have to call back to Live in on a Prayer, which was their wedding song. And you you woke up one morning and you just handed me some lyrics. You said, I got it. I wrote the song. Lauren Ziema created an original knockoff obviously set to Living on a Prayer by bon Jovi, all about Andrew. And here's the brilliant part, not just the lyrics, which were beautiful and poignant and worked, but it was short. What Lauren did is what everyone should do with karaoke and every
song and every joke. Make it quick where it's still funny before it gets weird and awkward.
And on a high note. I always say that karaoke it gets bad because you sing the whole song. If everybody got and then you're waiting for your turn, if everybody got up at karaoke and it was like a minute long version of that song, it would just be such a bigger.
High Yeah, ninety seconds tops.
We just did the first verse through a chorus, right, brought Andrew up on stage.
I did.
I rewrote the lyrics a little bit, you know. Instead of, uh, we're living on a Prayer, it was we love Andrew.
The whole thing started. I had to start it that. I was nervous because you're a much better singer than I am and a better performer.
Oh my gosh, let me take this moment in hold on pau Sure, babe, you have always always chastised my voice. I really need to take this woman in. No no, did I prove myself to you with the living on a prayer performance?
Okay, I'm going to post a video of what happened this weekend. It's the Voldemort impersonation that's different than singing, because that's the voice that can send me over.
Sometimes sing in the home and you're like, babe, it's not sounding that great.
Okay, you have a beautiful voice, a much better voice than I do. You do you have a great singing voice. And she killed it. I started it off, and I was a little nervous, and but I said, you know, it's what would Andrew do? You go big? And I started off with Andrew was on my TV show. It didn't go that well. He didn't find love. Oh no bad, So you could tell whether that that wash. But I went for it. And then you jumped in this batch.
But this bachelor was handsome, mankind, and we knew he'd find an amazing life and love, real love with Havana, and.
We jumped in together for our guy.
Andrew a great family man.
And a good friend too.
This pa or no this time, I already forgot my own called Firestone. He's a lot too love. We'll give it a shot. And it was great. So Andrew comes up and I got to give him credit because after a very emotional couple of moments, and here's something that
we did work with storyteller on. And it's one thing you're always so good at from your production background, is like, here's the thing when you're doing an event, a local charity event, a wedding, a sixtieth birthday party, you have to produce the event, and that means you have to think about, okay, like how is this timeline going? You know, how much do people need in cocktail hour? And how
long should a toast be? And you're very good at that down to I always think of it our wedding when you thought where's the sun going to be hitting, how's the lighting going to be at the ceremony? And we kind of worked with a storyteller on Andrew and the people in the audience have to like process all this. You know, we're surprising them with this honoree. Andrew's going to be surprised, He's going to be emotional, he's going to see his family there, and that was part of
us doing the song. We wanted to just do something silly so that he could like have a second to gather himself before coming on stage and giving this and accepting the award, because he was going to have to speak without knowing it. And he just absolutely crushed his speech. I was so impressed. I know, he comes back down at The really funny part was he comes back down after the speech. He gave a beautiful short speech about
how events like this really are. He's the one who benefits because their therapy for him, He loves doing it. The community is so important to him. And then he and you know, he said, okay, I've taken up enough of your time. Everybody. The bar is open, and he comes back down. He turns to me and goes, I blacked out up there, Did I think Havanna? I said, you didn't. I said, it's okay, you're about to go do the live auction. You'll have a chance to do it.
Then it was like an Oscars moment where it's like, oh wait, I forgot to thank my family.
That just happened. By the way, was it the Emmy's when the guy got back, Yeah, he won another award. He's like, thank god I forgot to you know, thank my family. Yeah, but it was a great night and then we ended up. You know, the night kind of continued into the week hours of the morning, but we had to like rally because the next day was actually Vanna's birthday, and we all got back together.
And then celebrated, celebrated our girl of Honna.
We packed a lot into it, and then before we left town, we caught Shane's soccer game in the morning, so we did it all. We did it all.
Listen. It makes me think, you know, just the importance of community. Andrew and Ivanna have such a great community. They're close with their neighbors. They're very invested in their community, and all the studies show, right, I'm sounding like I'm saying something obvious, but I don't think a lot of people do it today. You get the most joy in
life from your community. And I will admit and not to like make things a bummer, but I did think to myself at one point this weekend, I don't know that the Bachelor world has this anymore, you know, the Bachelor Nation thing and the community of it. I don't know.
I think you were so good, and I tip my hat to you on how you created the Bachelor community because sometimes you'll say things to me, and you know, we've been together six years, but obviously you haven't told me your whole life story, which is great.
Let's slowly, yeah, yeah, we have time.
You know, we got time. We keep learning about each other. But like you mentioned to me this weekend, because Andrew's sister was at the event, and I never met her really and you seem to know her really well, I'm like, how do you know Haley And you're like, oh, well, I hosted direct relief events for her, And I just think about that, and I think you went so above and beyond in a way that I don't even think got covered by the media because it's not that, you know,
because headlines love drama and it's not that drama. But behind the scenes, you did things like you hosted events for charity events for mishell money. You hosted charity events not just for Andrew Firestone, but for his family and
what they were doing. You took all this time to invest with the people on the show and build relationships with them behind the scenes in a way that like I don't even know that the fans knew because social media didn't exist at the time, so you weren't like, oh, here I am at Haley Firestones event and I offered to host it for her, you know, for free, just giving your time, and that created the family and Bachelor Nation.
And it came you know that people always asked if so, I'm just commending you, and people were I took that serious. People asked, you know, are you close to people on the show? And I said, you know, not really. When they were on the show, I knew the bats or the bats arette, but you know, the major the twenty
five or thirty contestants or however many they use. Now I didn't really get to know till sometimes later, like Michelle Money when she called and asked me to come do that event for her dad, for her late father, and that's when we became friends and I got to know other people in that way after the show. But you said yes and no, Yeah, I said yes because it meant a lot to me, and you know, these
people had given their time. And by the way, speaking of a shout out to Michelle Money, her husband Mike Weir, he was the captain for the President's Cup golf event this weekend. It's a huge, huge event where the PGA Tour guys, kind of the guys from the United States take on the rest of the world, Asia and Australia and all that. Our friend Jason Day was a part of this on Mike Weir's team, so it was a big deal that Mike was the captain. The captain's wives
are a big deal in this as well. It's this really cool family team event. And it was Michelle Money's birthday actually Sat Day as well, so happy Birthday Money. The international team lost, but they were outmatched. I mean, they were out gone. Our team was really good, but it was just fun to see. It's fun to see her life take off and so happy. And I love Mike we Air now and it was fun to watch them on TV all weekend.
Well see, And that's the thing you take the time to support. And I'm sorry I'm just tooting your horn here, but it's something I love about you and something I've really taken from you. And I think it was in your upbringing, you know, in your community in Dallas and how your parents and your grandparents raised you and your family. You do the right thing and you help people and you show up for people and all that stuff happened behind the scenes, and yeah, that really created Bachelor Nation.
Like a lot of people would come off the show and say, well, I went through all this stuff and then the show wasn't really there for me when I needed them.
But like, I think there was some guilt there, right, I think there was some guilt, like, well, like.
What you going through?
But well when Ben Higgins was like you know, when these people would come on the show and they would just be jettisoned off, and it took me a while to catch on what was happening where these people were just kind of thrown because look, we'll get into this later in the week with the Dancing with the Stars thing and people being you know, off the show and having issues with it or I get that. I get it from both sides. It's like, you have this massive network.
They don't wake up in the morning and go, how can we take care of Wells Adams or Ben Higgins or well because it's a business, right, it's a business, and so they kind of just throw you back into the ocean and you're like, oh, but you know what, and so I just I felt a little guilt and emboldened to try and help as much as I could because these people. But that's still being used by the machine.
But that's doing the right thing, and I think we've lost that a lot. I'm not just talking about the Bachelor and I'm like soapboxy, but I've never I don't like the phrase it's business. It's not personal like on the one hand, sure to a certain extent, but to me, that line is drawn when it's then about but are you doing the right thing like business?
It doesn't absolve you.
Yeah, I mean, business isn't personal. You can't make every business decision emotionally and you have to prioritize fits and things like that. But I do think you can ask yourself, wait, but am I doing the wrong thing here? And like I think about as silly as it is, but it's not silly, but it's sticking with me. When we were in Ireland over the summer, we did a tour of the of Dublin and we were learning about the Guinness family and everywhere we went, our guide was like, well,
the Guinness family redid this park. The Guinness family and he was talking about how they invested so much back into Ireland. And he's told us that when someone used to work at the Guinness Company, right, one, that man's son was guaranteed a job at the Guinness Company in the future. And two if that man died while he was working at Guinness for whatever reason, yep, they paid his salary to the family forever, like they just took care of the family. And I thought, Wow, that's just
a company doing the right thing. And I think, like the last few years, I don't know, there's been a lot of performative companies doing the right thing, like on social media, but I don't know that they're really doing the right thing.
No, A lot of it's bullsh it. Brings me. Well, let me bitch in one more Bachelor thing and then I want to.
Ask I have even more Bachelor things to mention, So go.
Okay, because I want to get to it. It will lead us into the political thing we're in talk.
I have got one more Andrew things, So can I go get that?
Yeah, you do that.
And then so one thing I wanted to ask you about was when we were writing the speech to give Andrew the award, you kind of worked in some stuff about Andrew season that I didn't know, because I haven't seen. The first seasons of the show I watched were around like the Ben Higgins, Chris Soul's, Caitlin Bristow years. So I have never seen Andrew season.
Because he's two thousand and three, two thousand and four.
Yeah, I was like a sophomore in high school, I know, and I could have watched it. I was in high school at the time, but like, honestly, my mom was a Housewives babe, so I watched house I was with my mom some people their family or Bachelor people and they watched Bachelor. So you had had us work in some stuff about like what a disaster Andrew season was for him. I don't think it was ratings wise, and it was a huge success. And I was like, babe, are you sure, and you go no, no, no. The crowd's
going to get this, and they did. They laughed at the jokes he wrote. He wrote a joke about the girl who said that the Olive Garden was her favorite Italian restaurant. I'm not getting these references, but I'm saying them, and I'm trusting you because I know you're good at what you do. But what was well and then I was kind of talking to Andrew's friends later, and his
friend said something that was profound. He said, the Bachelor actually really the experience really kind of like humbled Andrew and made him a better person, Not that he was a bad guy, but what was the like, what was the horror that Andrew went through and how did it make him a good person?
I think it was.
What do you think worked that season?
If I was going to therapize this, as I always do, I think there were a lot of things at play. First of all personal. You know, Andrew's very much the youngest of his family, a very esteemed well.
Known, like he's the youngest sibling by like, his siblings are ten years.
Ago by fall, and so I think it was kind of the first time Andrew was wearing the Firestone name on the back of his jersey, more so than anybody else in his family. He was putting it on this really grand scale. And I think for the first time Andrew felt the responsibility of that weight, and it took him a minute to realize that and to rationalize it and deal with it in a profound way. I think it I think it hit him harder. I think at first he's like, oh, yea, I'm gonna do this show
and there's women fun. You know. He was kind of footloose and fancy for he was young, and his family was very established. His dad obviously the winery, was cooking, his brother, I think had just started eight h five brewery, and Adam was doing his thing, and his daughter, his daughter, his older sister, Hayley, you know, was very involved in the community. And so I think Andrew was just really
coming into his own as a firestone. And I think when that name was put on the back of his jersey and he really had to carry it for the first time so publicly on network TV, he I think I think he got it. He's like, oh, this is important. I can't I can't ruin this or soil this. And then on top of that, you have the other side of the coin, which is I have to be the Bachelor and this very new show that we were still
figuring out things. The show was not evolved completely. It was I wouldn't say half baked, but at that point he was still three quarters baked.
What was Andrew? Was he the second or third?
No, he was Gosh, it would have been Alex Michelle and then Aaron Bergee, and then Trista, and then we had Bob Guinney. I think he was five, he was five incarnations.
In and he was still in that time when it was truly this aspirational guy.
You right, diamond in the rough, you have a chance to find love with a firestone.
I don't even know if i'd call Andrew diamond in the rough. I think Diamond in the roff was later. I mean, Andrew was a firestone, a firestone tires.
He was the like, right, But I guess the point is it was this fairy tale. He was the fairy Yes, yes, yes.
So he you're you're kind of I still figuring the show out. What do you remember most about that season?
The thing I remember most because back then I really leaned into getting to know everybody before the show.
And you and Andrew are very close in age only a few yes.
Yeah. At the time, he was probably I don't know, twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine maybe, and I was like thirty one thirty two, so we were only a few years apart, still are. And then I remember we went to lunch, just Andrew and I and Joshua was just born, I mean two thousand and one. So Joshua was only like three years old. So I remember taking
Joshua to this lunch. We were down in Santa Monica, and I put Joshua in his high chair and we ordered our food and we're sitting there eating, you know, hamburgers and French fries whatever, and I just remember all of a sudden, I'm talking to Andrew and I see this French fry just hit him in the face. And I'm like, Joshua had just picked up a handful of
French fries and threw it at Andrew. And Andrew as we know him now, quickly picks up a handful of French fries and throws him in Joshua's face, and a food fight ensues at this table, and I'm like, what the hell is that? But that just like sums up Andrew of like, he didn't get mad, he didn't get he just like, yeah, I'm in on this, and that's how we kind of that's how our relationship started. We became dear friends ever since. And I remember Andrew two
things about him. Number One, uh, the wine. Obviously, he has a winery at his disposal. We were I think serving the women Kendall Jackson, no offense, kJ, but it's not the greatest stuff. And Andrew after night one, was like, can I bring in my own wine and beer? And that's when Andrew's like, I'm going to start serving firestone in eight o five and this palette that took up
the entire doorway shows up. The next day of he brought his own wine in and he was the first one because he actually got engaged to this girl named jen Chef. Jeff. Yeah, he bought his own. She became the bacherette later after they broke up. He's the first person who said, no, I'm buying my own ring. We were using to Corey rings back there. This is before what's his name, Neil Lane. We used Paul to Corey, which honestly, you are nicer rings, but they changed over
to Neil Lane. But yeah, to Corey He's like, no, no, I'm buying this. If I'm getting engaged, this is incumbent upon me to do this. So that's the kind of guy Andrew was.
Andrew doing the right thing.
Yeah, and then they broke up and Jen Chef became the bacheorette. And Andrew went on to find love with Evana.
Can we tell his sister's Oprah story.
Oh that's a great story.
Tell it.
Yeah, so his older sister Haley. So back in the day, Oprah was a huge fan of the show, and all the producers were and.
And you have to think about how big the Oprah Show was at that time.
Yeah, the Oprah Show is still massive. And Oprah and Bob Guiney became really good friends for a while, and he was on Oprah Show a while, I being really unlikely unlikely bed partners. But they had The Firestones on and this is after Jen Cheff and they're engaged. So they all go out to dinner, the chefs, the Firestones, and they have this big dinner, and Andrew pulls his
sister Haley aside and says, we have broken up. This is a disaster, right dinner, he told he told her the night before they started shooting, because Haley had to fake it on Oprah.
Oh okay, yeah that's what she told me. Was before. Sorry, sorry, yeah I thought it was at the at the studio.
Oh no, no, this is the day before. So he tells the family like, this is a disaster. We are completely broken up. I can't stand or she can't stand me. This thing's off. The whole thing's off. Flash forward to you know, eight hours later, they're at the Oprah Show and everybody has to plaster on this smiling face of how great the show is, how in love everybody is. Now these two families are coming together, and Hayley is like, you know, freaking out because she's on the Oprah Show.
Oprah is the biggest thing in the universe and the show is the biggest thing in the world and she has to go on in her jewel tone dress and go, we love this show and the Bachelor it's so we're so happy.
This is a question, why did he tell them?
I don't know, let them get through Oprah? I know exactly.
This poor woman is on Oprah watching and she's having to act and protect like Andrew, why did That's on him? He shouldn't have told her. Just let her get through and tell her after her.
It's hard to quantify how big the show was back then. I mean the ratings were were the number one show in the country at the time, because American Idol was just about to start or had just started, so, you know, Trista to the next couple of seasons and Bob Guiney Andrew Firestone. Those were huge seasons for the franchise. So I mean Oprah Ellen, I mean every talk show in the world, the late night shows. He was so big.
We were doing jay Leno, so that was on NBC, and I remember Trista and a couple of them were doing the you know Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Everybody wanted a piece of this franchise because it was so massive, and so yeah, Oprah was a big fan and loved Bob Guiney and was doing stuff with him for a while. But those were fun, crazy days wow, because it was just it's hard to explain too, because there were just no rules and regulations. It was just we're figuring it out.
So one thing I did love hearing was that the batch or made him like a better person. I don't know, I have to admit it's not something you hear all the time. But like usually people go on a reality show and they kind of become worse because there you have to have a certain look. It really depends on
the person. I think you get a mixed bag with the Bachelor because there are the people who literally watch the show and like had a crush on the person who then went on to become the lead, like a Catherine Judici and then she was like I literally crushed on Sean and went on the show and married him. But then there are the people, especially once the social media years happened, who were going on the show to
try to make a career out of it. And so if you have a person who's already sort of looking to become famous, which requires a certain amount of ego, I think there's a difference between I want to become successful, Like, if you love acting, you become successful in fame's a side effect. But if you're just trying to be famous, that's a certain ego. So those people, you know, maybe reality TV just digs in even worse to their kind of worse qualities.
But yeah, I think the show does one of two things. It does what you're talking about, uh, or it humbles you.
And that's what I mean. I love that that happened for Andrew. I think some people like like, I think Ben Higgins was already a great guy, but I think this show made him an even better Seann Lowe.
Yeah, as another example, you see these people Jojo and Jordan, you see some of the people that they respect what happened, and they'll even take advantage of the show and the popularity. I'm not saying they just go away, but the show humbles them to a degree that they do some self reflection of who am I and what do I stand
for it, what do I want to do. It's like for Andrew, I want to be a part of the community, and Seawan Low, I want to be deeper a part of the community in Dallas and the church and how can I use this platform for good? And so it's beautiful to see. It doesn't always affect people that that way, unfortunately, but that's human nature.
Well, what were your other bachelor things? To say?
One other bachelor thing? And it's kind of to say it now we've buried the lead. But congratulations to Colton Underwood and Jordan Brown welcoming their baby boy into the family. I had to write it down because there's a lot of names. Bishop Colton Brown Underwood born September twenty sixth. He's a keeper seven pounds twenty inches. All of our love, all of our prayers, all of our blessings we were at their wedding. I feel like we've kind of walked
through this process with them. I mean, not intensely with them, but it's just we followed them just.
Posted, which just made me like they texted us over the weekend before they posted about it.
And I get this is all public now, so we're not spoiling the Yeah, but it.
Was cool to be at an event with It really was a cool moment to be at an event with like Andrew, you know, former bachelor, celebrating him, and then get a text about good news with former bachelor Colton.
He sent us acute picture.
There was a lot of good bachelor joy.
By the way, great name, I know, Bishop Colton Brown Underwood.
He sounds like a successful law firm.
You already said he is his own law firm. But he also just sounds like strong, solid, Yes, just politician. Maybe maybe he's a CEO the International spy because you have so many names and so many aliases.
I'm so happy for them. I know this is something they really wanted and I'm just glad that it's happened for them. And I know they're like so ready for it, so.
They will be beautiful parents.
Yeah, and congratulations, guys.
Look, I want to talk quickly one more thing before we wrap this one up. And it kind of goes with what you were saying earlier, And you said this before about community. So we're kind of going full circle here about what's going on politically in this world right now and social media and all that. And it's like, I don't know if we were meant and you and I talk about we're very tribal animals. Everybody is. We settle in cities or town.
There's still small village creatures. Our brains have not advanced to go with the technology that we've created.
And you said this before where people do very big performative things on social media that mean nothing, and you want to say, you know what, if you really want to do something, dive into your community, host, donate, volunteer,
get involved in your community. That's if we learned anything during COVID and being mandatorily shut down and prisoned in our own homes and our communities are the most important thing to us, and the people that run these communities get involved and try to make your community, your neighborhood better. And that, to me is what you were talking about with The Bachelor and all that was like I just wanted to make that community better. It's something I could touch yeah.
I think when if you're wanting to do and you're kind of talking about like everything Andrew does, and I think that was just our reminder for the weekend. And I mean, look, you've really brought that into my life, not just with The Bachelor, but with all the events you host and now we're doing that here in Austin. But I think we see there's all this pressure like if there's a cause or something like post about it
on social media. But the truth is if you want to effect change, and affecting change does make you feel good. If you're doing good, you feel good. But I think you get a lot more from that on a local level where you can really see it. And like doing experience camps has really helped me with that because it's been such an action item, real tangible.
You're getting your hands to you.
Yeah, was that just the point you want to Yeah.
Well, because we're leading into because we usually don't timestamp these things, but it is Monday, the last day of the month, last day of the quarter. Good luck everybody, But the big vice presidential debate is tomorrow night, Tuesday, the first between obviously jd Vance, Ohio senator running mate for Donald Trump, Tim Waltz, the governor of Minnesota, running mate of Kamala Harris. It is nine o'clock Eastern time. Man, I tell you what, East Coast, you just get hammered.
I'm so sorry. Everything's sports Monday night football. Everything's so late there. But it's kind of the same setup, even though that they've kind of broken away from the face on CBS is the moderator. It is Nora O'Donnell who does their evening CBS evening news, and Margaret Brennan, who is their kind of chief foreign affairs correspondent, does a good job there. There are two, you know, down the middle,
good very good journalists should be good ninety minutes. They are not saying definitively if they're going to cut the microphones, they do reserve the right to mute them, is what they're saying. The big question is will they fact check anybody tonight? Obviously the ABC disaster with what's his face already forgot his name? Who does a David Muir, the late great David Muir who used to be a newsman at ABC before the ratings plummeted and he shot himself
in the foot. But I think with that disaster, there has been a pendulum swing to better journalism. It'll be interesting to see.
I don't know if I think there's been a pendulum swing, but I think.
That we'll see. We'll see. It's gonna be interesting.
I think if you just look at it isolated through the lenses of through the lens of debates. My hope and guess is that CBS will register that when CNN had the Biden Trump debate earlier this year and they did not fact check, that that was overall a better brand call for CNN than ABC trying to fact check. Well, ABC fact quote unquote fact checking live only for one candidate, five times for Kamala Harris, zero times for Donald Trump. Just either do it for both or do it for none.
And I think I would recommend the safest way to go is to do it for none, because it's very hard live in the moment, and your fact checks are going to get fact checked, lack.
The point of a debate. If you and I are debating, my job is to fact check you like that's the job of a debate, is that you and I go back and forth.
Yeah, I think I was watching an interview with Dana Bash from CNN, and she was saying that that was kind of she brought up which I mean, I don't remember this. I guess maybe it was before my time of watching debates, but that the debates used to be hosted by the Presidential Debate Commission.
Yes, there was a commission, and then the commission started farming it out to the networks probably, And this is the first one, I think since nineteen eighty eight, if my memory is correct, that they're not using that commission anymore because they felt like the Republican felt like it was too biased. And so this is an independent CBS independently ran this to both campaigns, so this is kind of the first independent debate in quite some time.
Oh Okay, I didn't know that. Okay, well, I'm uninformed. But she was just talking about how, you know, she was sort of talking about like the way debates have been done over the years and how CNN like looked historically looked at how they'd been done to do theirs, and she said, you know, it's like, how do you view what a debate should be. We felt that it was on the candidates to fact check each other as part of the debate, and I do think that's the
better way to go. Literally, from a brand perspective, you're just risking your own brand if you're going to Like I think it's safer for CBS, my former employer, I would say, let Waltz and Dvance fact check each other and just be the pure moderator of the conversation.
Because look, I can assure you their lips will be moving. Therefore they will be telling tall tales, both of them. I can just tell you now, both Vance and Waltz are going to say things that are not true. That's what politicians do. Then later it is incumbent upon the media and everybody else can break it down and talk about it. But in the moment, it's Vance's job, in Waltz's job to stick up for each other's campaigns and for their running mates and to do their jobs. That's
on them. It's not for you know, David Muir, May he rest in peace and all these others. So that's their job. And so I agree, That's what I was taught when I learned debate in high school and then and later that's how you do it. And so I agree, I think you just got to stay out of it because you only have ninety minutes. If you're going to stop in fact check NonStop, you can't do a debate in ninety minutes. It just it would be impossible. You'd be mired down in each and every subject.
What if you had done debates through the Bachelor?
We did one. We did one and did it. We did one on the steps of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth. We did it at the capitol, and I think the it was kind of controversial because the governor who went and joined us, I think he was impeached or something right after. It was really bad. Yeah, he went down in a scandal.
And I was like, yeah, that's so funny. Okay, well you know what what didn't the Bachelor?
Well, we've tried it all, but we'll be watching it. It's gonna be interesting because jad Vance, Uh, you know, I'd say he's probably a more polished politician. Then you have Waltz, who's kind of the folksye Minnesota. You know, I go to home Depot and you know, as they kind of joked about on Saturday Night Live this weekend, I haven't been this excited since I saved, you know, ten percent on a leaf blower at Maynard's he's I know he's been locked in with Pete Budagicic has been
playing uh jd vance uh in their debate prep. And look if the if the Democrats, if they use the same prep and kind of routine going in that Kamma used to beat Trump in that first debate, then he should be ready to go. I mean she was ready wired, had all her talking points, she baited Trump perfectly. He fell for it. I don't think Jade Vanma.
For it is a calmer person than a.
He's a better debater. You know, he's a better politician.
I've never seen him not reserved, like he just keeps an even tones. So we'll be watching. It's a different version of theater.
And you know, look, do you think the Vice President's debate? This is how I feel about it. I feel like it's it's an unenviable position for both of them because all you can do is screw it up for your running mate. Like if you do an okay job or a good job, great, you're advice this one.
Well, first of all, I saw today someone said like, if you think the VP debate doesn't matter, actually more people watched the VP debate last round than the presidential debate.
That's because the vice the presidents were I just think people were so tired.
Of the he look like. I think that Kamala Harris has very much made Tim Waltz like really an equal with her in this From the start, her first interview as a candidate she did with Tim Waltz. She didn't do it solo. Her first one, it was with him, and you know, she's just coming off of being the VP herself. So I think this one may matter more than even some in recent history. And for me, when I'm looking at who I'm going to vote for, I'm
looking at also what team they're putting into place. So I'm looking at, you know, not just who they are, but who they're surrounding themselves with. So it matters to me, and I'm going to be watching it.
Well. Look, seventy million, huge, huge ratings for the presidential debate, seventy million plus, So it'll be interesting to see what the ratings are on Tuesday night when the vps step into the ring. We'll be watching because we love that stuff. It's great theater. Thank you guys so much for listening. It was a great weekend. We have another big one coming up. We'll talk about so much more this week, but until then, we'll do it in next time because
we have a lot more to talk about. Thanks for listening. Follow us on Instagram at the most Dramatic pod Ever, and make sure to write us a review and leave us five stars. I'll talk to you next time.