Bachelor Creator Mike Fleiss Sounds Off on “Goofballs”

Bachelor creator Mike Fleiss explains the show’s success today in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. Shorter version: The Bachelor owns the romance field, everyone else can just step aside. He’s right about that.

He also has a favorite word. “Goofball.” As in Reality Steve:

EW: Reality Steve spent most of the season predicting that Chantal will be the winner. Once he owned up to being wrong, fans crowed that he had been `Fleiss’d.’ Did you or anyone involved in the show feed him misinformation?

FLEISS: I wish I could take credit but he duped himself. He’s nuts, a goofball. He says these things with 100 percent conviction but he’s right only half of the time. It doesn’t matter that much to us, it’s just that he acts like he knows everything. He’s the Michele Bachmann of reality TV facts. But the leaks are not really coming from production. They’re coming from former cast members. That’s a hard thing to police. The best way to combat him is to let himself shoot himself in the foot.

The Michele Bachmann of reality tv facts? Ouch! But it’s nice to know Mr. Fleiss has his politics right. Makes me like him more. Continue reading

Bachelorette: Who Got Fleissed?

Did Reality Steve, who released the first spoilers at the beginning of the season that Ali ends up alone get Fleissed? Or did Fleiss himself get Fleissed by Reality Steve? Today, Reality Steve admits he got Fleissed. He says his sources were wrong, Ali ends up engaged to Roberto and Chris leaves early.

Chris leaving early is nothing new. The show practically spoon-fed it to us in previews. That Ali chooses Roberto is also nothing new — or at least it’s something that has been predicted here and at FORT for weeks as the most likely ending (if for no other reason than Roberto has been MIA since filming ended while Chris has been out and about.) Roberto as F1 has been evident as well, except to those who had a different favored outcome (like wanting the F1 to be Chris.) I wrote last week, it is likely to end with “A final rose ceremony with only one guy. The suspense might be in “Will Roberto Accept?” rather than “Who did Ali Choose?” (My tweak on it, which probably won’t happen, was to further speculate she proposes to Roberto rather than the other way around.)

This weekend, the ending became even more obvious. The New York Post had an article with new comments by Bachelorette producer Mike Fleiss and Bachelorette Ali Fedotowsky. The money quotes:

Fleiss: “The audience is going to be very satisfied with the outcome.”… “I think it ends up pretty well for her. I think she’s happy.”

Ali: “The finale is really good. Sometimes they can seem very orchestrated. This one is very real,…I feel like I made the best decision that I could.” Continue reading