So, How *Unreal* Is UnREAL Versus The Bachelor?
Star Shiri Appleby breaks down the similarities on #WWHL.
On Lifetime's UnREAL, viewers are taken behind the scenes of what it's like to produce a show like The Bachelor. Turns out that when the cameras aren't rolling, there's in-fighting among the cast members vying for the suitor's love and power plays being made by the crew trying to create a blockbuster show. So when star Shiri Appleby stopped by Watch What Happens Live on Wednesday, she revealed that what you see on the series, which fictionalizes all that drama, is pretty accurate to what really happens on set. And it should be since the series was co-created by Sarah Gertrude Shapiro, who actually worked on The Bachelor, along with Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce creator Marti Noxon.
"Oh man, well they definitely lock people in closets, pound them with alcohol, don't let them speak to anybody at home," she dished. "Like all the kinds of things we do on the show, I think, are pretty true to what happens on those shows. They starve them from any connection from the outside world, and they make the environment so you are forced to fall in love with this guy. You want to win the game, you want to win the guy, you kind of want to take the other girls down. It becomes this real world where you're isolated."
And, yes, that means that the ladies picked to appear on the series are not only being wooed by that season's hunky bachelor but also by the crew. "I think this year we have like a hit list of the girls that the guys can hook up [with] once they’ve gotten off the show, and that I hear is a real thing," she said, referring to the real-life list. "Yeah, that, like, once the contestants are kicked off, that the crew sort of has dibs on who they can sleep with. They’re sort of angling on them and give them close-ups to let them know they’re interested in them and once they get kicked off, or even sometimes I think while they’re still on the show, crew guys hook up with them."
And if you're wondering if the folks that work on The Bachelor are angry about their account of their show, well, they kind of are, which is fine with Shiri. Why? "We knew we were telling the truth." Check out the full explanation, below.
