Twice Fired From ‘The Bachelorette’ Reinvents Himself As A Love Counselor

The New York Times

In 2014, during “After the Final Rose”, a live television special broadcast after the season finale episode of “The Bachelorette”, the runner-up in that edition of the show, Nick Viall, faced Andi Dorfman, the single woman sought after by the suitors. from the reality show, and declared, “If you weren’t in love with me, I’m not sure why you decided to make love to me”.

Negative reactions were immediate. “I sure wish I hadn’t said that,” Viall said in a June interview. “I learned to accept that I said what I said, and I also learned something from saying it.”

“It was definitely a case of the butterfly effect,” he said. Viall isn’t proud of that moment of candor, but if that hadn’t happened, he might not have appeared in three additional seasons of the “Bachelor” franchises: the Kaitlyn Bristowe-led “Bachelorette” season, “Bachelor in Paradise” and, finally, as the up-and-coming bachelor in “The Bachelor.”

Would he have become the star of a redemption story, and a respected commentator on the shows, first within the series and later on his podcast, “The Viall Files”? “He’s very honest, which is something you don’t see a lot,” said his friend Rachel Lindsay, contrasting Viall to other participants in the world of “The Bachelor.” “People often try to become main characters.”

Viall said that “not being a clueless guy” was a source of pride for him, adding that “I don’t want to be the butt of jokes. The good news for me, from a reality TV standpoint, is that I can’t be any other something other than myself”. If it weren’t for this inability to not be himself, would Viall be publishing “Don’t Text Your Ex Happy Birthday,” a book of dating advice that comes out October 4th?

When we spoke at his modern Los Angeles home, Viall, 41, expressed no major regrets, except for his confrontation with Dorfman. One of them is that, in his podcast headlines, the name Viall is pronounced as if it rhymes with “file”, when in fact the correct pronunciation is vai-ÁL.

Viall’s house is full of art, and there are pieces he knows far more than others. He personally chose many of the modern works, but when I asked about an etching reproduced from a painting by Gustav Klimt, Viall responded with a “huh?” Then came the revelation that the most classic works were selected by his girlfriend, Natalie Joy, 24, a model and surgical technician, who works with a surgeon specializing in eye plastic surgery.

Viall lives in the Valley Village neighborhood, where many reality television alumni have settled, including several cast members of the Bravo network’s “Vanderpump Rules” reality show.

Another of her neighbors is Lindsay, who was part of the cast of “The Bachelor” in Viall’s season, before becoming the first black “Bachelorette” and later a reporter for the show “Extra”. Lindsay was one of Viall’s season finalists because of the friendship between the two, he said, and because he was trying to make sure the final four were a compelling cast. “Back when I was single,” Viall said, “I wanted to meet someone, and I also wanted to do a good TV show.”

Lindsay said her friend supported her when she was criticized by fans after, among other things, an interview she did with Chris Harrison, the host of “The Bachelor”, in which Harrison defended racist posts by a contestant on the show on Instagram.

Harrison subsequently left “The Bachelor”. Viall offered Lindsay his podcast so she could talk about “something that was really important to me,” she said, adding that “a lot of other people weren’t giving me a space like that in the world of ‘Bachelor’.” Others, Lindsay said, expressed understanding in private but were unwilling to do so publicly for fear of jeopardizing their relationship with ABC television network, which runs “The Bachelor,” or Warner Bros., which produces The Bachelor. program.

But Viall’s persona is not entirely benevolent. He is endowed with both an almost self-destructive candor and the ability to know how to use it to his advantage.

“He’s an opportunist,” said Ben Higgins, who appeared on Bristowe’s season of “Bachelorette” before appearing on “The Bachelor.” “Makes sure people know what he wants and what he’s thinking. It’s not a bad thing. He’s willing to do things that other people might not, to secure his space.”

For a year, after debuting on the show in 2014, Viall kept his job at Salesforce in Chicago, even as he became recognized in the city’s bars. “I wasn’t the same person anymore,” Viall said. “You try to manage two worlds in your brain, in a way.”

It was around that time that social media made it possible for alumni of the show to earn money based on their appearances on “The Bachelor”, and Viall decided to take advantage of it.

But he says he realized that it was not possible to make a living with Instagram posts. Viall said he calculated that “I definitely have a window to make something of my own, and I just need to figure out what.”

That window was the opportunity for his podcast, “The Viall Files,” which he started in 2019. “I had the courage to say what I really felt without editing myself too much, which would be kind of boring,” he said.

Viall’s confidence eventually led him to offer to replace Harrison at the helm of “The Bachelor”. Viall said that while he had no hope of getting the job, he positioned himself as a comprehensive host and mentor combination, able to forge relationships with competitors: “I would love to be the go-between between the cast and the audience and create conversations that will be happening anyway, and that you don’t want to be a part of,” Viall told a show executive.

Viall’s paradox – the fact that what made him famous prevents him from leaving the show’s world completely, but also from reaching the top of it – is present in his book. He was introduced to her editor, Samantha Weiner, by Elon Gale, a former “The Bachelor” producer who now produces “FBoy Island,” a far less chaste dating series, for the HBO Max streaming service.

Weiner said Viall’s initial idea was a collection of questions his followers sent him as part of the “Ask Nick” section, accompanied by their answers. With the help of consultant Rachel Wharton, they decided to try an updated version of “He’s Just Not That Into You”, with a format roughly based on the steps of a relationship: finding the person, deciding if you like them, setting and enforcing boundaries, being honest about whether the relationship is working, and getting out of the situation if it isn’t.

Viall is dyslexic and was preoccupied with writing a manuscript from scratch, so he developed a work process that allowed him to feel more comfortable. In addition to questions from his followers, the editorial staff at Abrams Books began asking Viall made-up romantic questions, some of which he was not entirely comfortable with.

There are chapters in the book that he was reluctant about, he said. “I’m talking about a feeling like snooping through someone’s personal messages,” he said.

That’s why, he added, “in the book I don’t talk about things like techniques for being a surefire seducer. That’s not what I’m talking about.”

While Viall is more comfortable passing on insights gleaned from personal experience—the best chapter in the book is an account of his first two relationships and his personal guilt over them failing—he also addresses what he calls “the basics.”

“When I give advice on how to approach someone in public,” he said, “I imagine some readers react with a pout. But I can say — after talking to a lot of people about dating — that I’m still shocked by the way people approach the others”.

For much of his New York Times interview, Viall deftly assembled a complicated pizza, which he’s been making since college but now includes a tomato sauce recipe he learned from his ex-fiancée Vanessa Grimaldi.

When Viall’s press agent expressed hesitation at my proposal to interview Viall at his home, I mentioned other celebrity homes I had visited to prepare articles, including Ryan Reynolds’s.

Incidentally, right before my date with Viall, Reynolds guest-starred on Netflix’s “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and made a pizza for David Letterman. I asked if the choice to prepare the same thing for me had been a coincidence. “I watched the show,” Viall said, noting that he had already been compared to Reynolds. “I don’t know if that makes me a narcissist, but I think he’s really funny and talented.”

According to a screenshot of data from Kast, Viall’s podcast recorded around 5.1 million downloads in March. His stated goal is to create a common understanding, “because it feels like the genres are getting farther and farther apart. I think it’s a product of technology and the world we live in now.” Viall said he believes that all the Internet “does is reinforce ideas.”

As the number of episodes per week of the podcast increases (he started with one per week and said he had just held a meeting to expand it from three to four episodes per week), Viall will be forced to broaden his vision and leave behind the TV show world you know so well, and the love lives of the people who call for advice.

He recently covered the trial in the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp lawsuit and found himself dealing with material that resonates but he’s no expert.

The testimonies of the professionals he brought had to be toned down in post-production. “We got a therapist who said she didn’t feel empathy for people who don’t go to therapy,” Viall said. “And I thought at the time that I would have to cut that.” He also decided to cut provocative statements from a body language expert strongly hostile to Heard.

“I sometimes worry about what this material will look like five years from now,” Viall said. He mentioned Joe Rogan, who welcomes guests, and says “I just welcome people and let them talk.” According to Viall, “That’s OK, up to a point I think, but you’re responsible for whoever participates in your show.”

We had the pizza, which was excellent, and Viall talked about his “Don’t Text Your Ex Happy Birthday” tour. His team wants him to do an interview on the show “Live With Ryan and Kelly”, but he is reluctant. “I don’t think Kelly Ripa is going to respond well to a guy from ‘The Bachelor’ who wrote a book of advice that women read,” he said. “So I don’t know if we should do the show.”

He explained his reasoning with typical candor: “Last time I was there, she was very tough,” Viall said. “She wasn’t, like, horrible. But she was certainly less warm than she would have been with, say, Ryan Reynolds.”