The Bachelor’s Vienna Used to Date a Drug Lord. Anyone Surprised?
Let’s face it. Normal people do not go on reality TV shows. Normal people do not look for love in front of millions of viewers. Normal people do not allow intimate moments to be captured on film—to be run in syndication ad infinitum—with the hope of finding a soul mate. They do it for the fame. Or the money. Or both. Let’s just ponder the idea of 25 women vying for the love of Flavor Flav.
Are you thinking about it?
So beautiful, it could be scripted...oh, wait...
So was it really a surprise to find out the latest winner of The Bachelor has a tainted past? No one liked her or wanted her to win, but Vienna ended up getting the gigantic 2.02 carat Neil Lane diamond engagement ring (2.72 if you count the setting) from Jake Pavelka. We already knew that she had “former Hooters waitress” on her resume. When reports surfaced this week that she had been in a relationship with Central Florida’s most successful weed dealer, there was little shock. But we all eat up a scandal, don’t we? Evidently, Vienna dated Chase Alley, called a “drug kingpin” in some of the more melodramatic articles, and was with him until she left for the taping of The Bachelor. The same articles claim that she was in contact with him throughout the process.
When your boyfriend is arrested and charged with 50 counts of buying, selling, and possessing an outrageous amount of MaryJane, not to mention trafficking, money laundering, and racketeering, and could be in prison for up to 20 years, what’s a girl to do?
Reality TV is always the answer. Now she’s got a big ol’ rock on her finger, courtesy of whatever network plays the show. And she’s engaged and “madly in love”. Jake has even said that they are “more in love than ever”, even as he takes his next step in the reality TV cycle: Dancing with the Stars. But while he claims to be happy with Vienna (and her little dog, too!), he seems to be getting more than chummy with his partner on DWTS, Chelsie Hightower. They act like teenagers together. The giggling, the flirting, the taking-this-tango-really-seriously. Jake says that they are just friends.
Yeah, just like the “friendly” $10,000 diamond ring former NFL player Chad Ochocinco gave to his DWTS partner, Cheryl Burke. With friends like that, who needs a wife?
Something about reality television just breeds drama, drama, drama. And, while it’s all trash, it is the trashiest of the trash that we love the most. Flavor of Love set the bar pretty high, but then came I Love New York (in which one of Flav’s reject trannies has 20 or so men compete for her love), RuPaul’s Drag Race, and whatever Tool Academy is. Not to let basic cable take away viewers, networks had to pick up the slack, and we are now at a point in the devolution of our society that people actually want to compete on something called The Biggest Loser.
So maybe Vienna is a pot-smoking, two-timing, “can-I-bring-you-an-order-of-buffalo-wings-honey”, not very nice person. She’s smart enough to know that if her boyfriend went to prison, and even if she didn’t find love on The Bachelor, there’s always the next season of The Bachelorette. And Jake went onto a show with a long history of relationship failures to find Mrs. Right? Now that he’s already onto his second reality show, we can pretty much count down to the time he appears on The Surreal Life. It isn’t about looking for love. It’s a career move.
We’ll be watching.