This Man Knows All the Secrets to the 'Bachelor'-verse

By the time any given season of The Bachelor premieres on ABC, one man will already know how it all plays out. His name is Steve Carbone, AKA "Reality Steve"—and he's the mastermind behind the largest reality television spoiler network in the country. Sifting through thousands of emails and Instagram photos every week from his Texas home, the 48-year-old has spent years turning the popular reality dating competition series into a new kind of mystery for audiences at home. Carbone will tell you that everything he finds is either vetted from trusted sources or hidden in plain sight. But to his loyal Bachelor spoiler-seekers, he's the closest thing they have to Sherlock Holmes.

Before he was Reality Steve, Carbone worked in sports radio as a play-by-play announcer for collegiate basketball. He found his calling after starting up a humorous email list for his friends, wherein he would mock reality television shows like Joe Millionaire and The Bachelor. "I thought it was maybe just going to lead to some freelance writing," Carbone told me over Zoom. "I was just doing it for fun, and I did it for free for seven to eight years. Someone came to me in 2009 and said, 'You should be making some money off this.' I had my first spoiler that same year, my first ad in 2010, and then it became my full-time job."

Now, Carbone does much of his spoiling through a daily podcast. He's even interviewed contestants from other reality franchises, including Dancing with the Stars, Temptation Island, and Love Is Blind. Carbone says that current Bachelor contestants are told by ABC to stay away from his podcast. But with all the information they readily post on social media, nothing can truly threaten Carbone's pursuit for information. Reality Steve always finds a way.

"For the longest time, every time someone was eliminated, the show would allow the contestants to go public again on social media," Carbone explains. "They were just giving away who was obviously back from the show. Now, everyone is private until the last day of filming, but some of them can’t help themselves. If there’s any change in follower counts to a private account, then you clearly accepted those people. You must have your phone back. So, we’re now looking at that. It’s crazy the lengths that people will go."

As we gear up for the upcoming 28th season of The Bachelor—alongside spinoffs such as Bachelor in Paradise and The Golden Bachelor—Reality Steve explains exactly why people love spoilers so damn much.

ESQUIRE: Do you still enjoy The Bachelor even though it’s become your job?

STEVE CARBONE: I love it. But this is the only thing in my life that I care to be spoiled. I don’t want to know what happens in a movie I haven’t seen. This is it. I also love The Challenge, Survivor, and Big Brother. I know there are sites out there that spoil [those series], but I don’t want to know. I enjoy reality TV because I don’t have to think much while watching it. But this show is the only one. It’s usually just spoiling what will be a broken engagement in six months.

Why do you think people love to read spoilers? Is it really more exciting than waiting to experience it live?

It’s just the adrenaline rush of knowing something that other people don't. Sharing a secret with your friends. It's a community of we know something you don't know. For this show, it allows them to watch differently. I've had people tell me that that they can't even watch anymore without knowing the spoilers. To watch and know how edits work when this person is winning or finishing in the final two. You aren't losing any experience. It’s a fun puzzle to put together as the season is going on.

What do you think of the current state of The Bachelor franchise?

The popularity is obviously dwindling, because there’s so many options right now and they’re very old-school. There’s more of a titillating experience with Too Hot to Handle and Love Is Blind. I thought Charity’s season was a little better, but they’re very stuck in their ways. They don’t seem to be going anywhere unless they’re going to move to streaming, but they also added a fourth show this year with Golden Bachelor. Overall viewership is down, if you compare to past seasons. But the women-aged-18-to-54 market for the two-hour block on Monday nights is still dominant.

As a longtime fan of the series, are there any improvements that you would like to see?

I’d like them to incorporate social media more. That’s something they need to address. Not that the contestants should have their phones, but the leads should have more information about them. FBOY Island did it, which I thought was a brilliant episode. The leads got a day where they could just search their guys’ Instagram pages. Because then you can have questions and you’re not so blind going into this thing.

Would you like to see a celebrity Bachelor? I always thought it would be a good idea if they took just one season and made someone like Blake Griffin the Bachelor.

In the vein of this franchise, I don’t think it works. This show is trying to sell you a love story, as corny as that may be, and celebrities don’t need a casting department to find a date. It’s just not believable. You’re not going to get Joe—the bartender from New Jersey—to date a celebrity. I don’t think they’re even going to pick someone from outside the franchise again. Fans are not invested in that person. They want to see Joey, the guy they remember from his heartbreaking breakup when Charity dumped him. Now they want to see him find love. It’s been 16 seasons since they chose someone from outside the franchise.

Is there anything about your website that you handle differently now? Reaching out to Serene about her breakup with Brandon—before posting the news yourself—felt like new territory for you.

Yeah, I’m handling breakups a little bit differently than I did before. If I heard about a breakup before, I was just putting it out there, like "they’re done." Now, if I put it out there first, every comment on their Instagram photos is going to be: "Reality Steve said you broke up." I wish I could control that, but I can’t. Serene never got back to me, but the evidence I had was of Brandon with another woman on Saturday, and on Monday they announced the breakup. It was pretty obvious what was going on, but reaching out to confirm was definitely new territory for me. That’s going to be the way I handle it going forward.

A lot of Bachelor Nation drama has been swept up in allegations and controversies following #MeToo and the debacle that led to Chris Harrison’s departure. Do you receive a lot of emails now from people warning you about certain contestants?

Yeah, that’s my biggest thing now. For the longest time, I would run with anything. Now, I’ve realized that being the middle person doesn’t do me any good. If someone wants some negative content to come out about a contestant, it’s got to be vetted and they’ve got to be willing to put their name behind it. For the longest time, I was suffering the consequences from it just for reporting the news. I’ve never considered my blog a gossip site, and I’m not out to soil anyone’s name for no reason.

There is a pecking order when it comes to these contestants, and it's just not news if a guy eliminated on night one is sleeping with a girl the night before he left for filming. We've come to find out that most of the contestants are actually with somebody the night before, or their "ex" is driving them to the airport. That’s not even a story for me anymore. Now, I’m only running with it if it's emotional, physical, or mental abuse. And that's tough, too. I have no access to the show. I can't do anything. I tried to one time and they did nothing.

Do you often butt heads with ABC?

I don’t really deal with them. I do my thing and they do theirs. The biggest thing that’s hurt me is that, a few years ago, they decided to have their own Bachelor-affiliated podcast. Now, so many cast members from the show have their own podcasts and contestants just feel more comfortable going on podcasts from people in the franchise. They’re also basically told not to go on my podcast.

Has there ever been a moment—like ABC’s current plan to release Golden Bachelor and Bachelor in Paradise at the same time—where you’ve thought, This is too much content. I don’t know if I have the bandwidth to keep going.

This upcoming schedule is really going to test me. I don’t know how much attention I’m going to pay to it. I’ll watch it and comment on it. But this is the first time in probably 15 years that this show has moved off Monday nights. I want to watch Thursday Night Football and Big Brother’s live eviction show. Now, I’ve got three hours of Bachelor programming on Thursday nights. Honestly, I haven’t decided. There is a possibility that I don’t watch Golden Bachelor or Bachelor in Paradise until the weekend. But even then, more football. I’ll cover it on Friday’s podcast after it premieres on Thursday. But right now, I really don’t know.

What’s next for Reality Steve?

I’ve got my daily podcast and my weekly interview podcast, but I’d really love to start having a better rolodex of guests. It doesn’t just have to be reality TV people—it could be athletes, actors, and actresses. I just like interviewing people, and when you interview reality TV people there’s only so much you can really talk about. There’s not a whole lot of depth there. Some people have great backstories, and that’s what I try to get out of all my interviews. Everyone’s got a story. Some people’s stories are just better than others.

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