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Yapping about movies, tv shows, reality tv, pop culture moments, and anything else that I can't get off my mind.
Check out my socials @ihavetosaypod on Instagram, Tik Tok, and Threads or @lyssa_posts_ on Instagram and Threads :)
Newest Release, "Stassi Schroeder + Harry Jowsey, wtf was that?!" will be out 9/16/26!
Hello and welcome to the I Have to Say Podcast.
Today, I have to say…House of Stassi and Let’s Marry Harry were complete shitshows.
I’ve finished watching both of these shows and I’m just….Stunned. Confused. Appalled. A little disappointed, yet, not surprised at all that both of these shows went in the direction that they did.
The parallels of both shows and the similarities between the leads are not lost on me and I just have to get all of my thoughts out about it.
I’m gonna start by ranting about each of the shows on their own, but I promise, I will bridge the gap in the end.
So, thank you for joining me. Thank you for being here. And let’s get started.
About Stassi Schroeder
So, if you don’t know what House of Stassi is, it’s a reality tv show following Stassi Schroeder from Vanderpump Rules.
You can say what you want about Stassi, but she was a key member of the Vanderpump Rules cast and to me, when you think of reality tv, especially people considered to be villains, she is at the top of the list.
Stassi has all the qualities that make a great reality tv star in my eyes: she’s selfish, a little delusional, quick witted, mean, speaks her mind, and sometimes she doesn’t think before she speaks.
Now, I’m late to Vanderpump Rules. I binged it all for the first time a couple years ago, though it came out in 2013. I intentionally stayed away from it for years because I didn’t really know what it was about. All I knew was the show was a bunch of problematic white people so I skipped it.
It wasn’t until I was hospitalized for a few weeks, post Scandavol, that I watched my first episode and realized that I’d been missing out.
Once I got out of the hospital, I binged it all the way from the beginning twice. Vanderpump Rules is peak reality tv to me. Like, don’t quote me on it yet, I might have to make an episode about it, but if I had a Mount Rushmore of reality tv shows, I’m pretty certain I’d put Vanderpump Rules on it.
That being said, when I first watched Stassi, I hated her. I thought she was obnoxious and mean and self-interested and annoying and while all of that is true, her absence on the show was felt when she wasn’t on it anymore to the point where I realized as ridiculous as she was, she really was the show.
I looked up why she wasn’t on, and found that she was fired due to racist behavior in 2020.
This will come up again later.
In 2022, she revived her podcast and wrote two books.
In 2024, The Valley, which starred some of her former castmates, who had also been fired at the same time for the same or similar reasons, aired. Stassi was clear she didn’t want to be on that show and explained why, citing in a respectful way that she’d outgrown it, saying those weren’t her friends and it wasn’t reflective of her life, though I’m pretty certain in this interview with Jeff Lewis, to me, it was clear she was leaving the door open to return back on reality tv in some capacity, just not on that show.
So it wasn’t a shock when Stassi joined the cast of Vanderpump Villa with Lisa Vanderpump, from Vanderpump Rules and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. From there, Stassi got gigs hosting reunions and that led to her getting her own show with Disney/Hulu, called House of Stassi.
Before I get into the contents of the show, there are people who are understandably firmly against Stassi and opted out of watching the show because of Stassi’s actions.
I posted on threads, but if Stassi is where people want to draw a line and they don’t want to watch her show, that is well within their right.
I’ve talked about it on a previous podcast episode, The Reality TV Has a Problem one, but I think everyone should have their own lines of what they’re willing to support and what they’re not, especially when it comes to problematic reality tv stars.
For me, I didn’t need Stassi doing something racist to confirm to me that she was or is racist or at least has implicit biases. The entire reason I didn't watch the show for years, is because I figured the majority, if not all the cast, including their boss, were problematic and had their own implicit biases.
But also, I find it a little hypocritical to demand or plead for people to not watch Stassi’s show if you also watch The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which airs on Disney/Hulu as well, when Mormonism is famously allegedly racist and misogynistic and when there’s been conversations of some of those ladies being supporters of THAT man, or if they watch The Valley, which Kristen Doute, who was fired alongside Stassi for the same reason, is on. Or even if you still talk want to talk about old school RHONY with heart eyes. Like there’s so many problematic people on these shows, so you either kind of have to not watch at all or pick and choose what you’re willing to deal with.
House of Stassi Overview
So yes, I watched House of Stassi and I have thoughts, as usual, about the show, though I won’t get into every situation or point of conflict that came up.
I am usually a big fan of breaking the 4th wall, especially in reality tv, because so much of it is more staged than the average person might think it is. Like the scenes and feelings in a scene may be authentic, but then they have to be reshot because of bad audio or because microphones missed something or whatever.
Also, if I remember correctly, a lot of scenes are predetermined. Like some members, if not all members, of the cast know what the topic of discussions for each scene are going to be, it just escalates when the conversation is actually had.
I think that’s why some people refuse not to film with others, because they know the discussions production is wanting from them to have and they’re just setting boundaries because they don’t want to be forced to have a certain conversation or to make amends with someone.
This show starts with Stassi in a confessional basically narrating things, starting with how the show came to be, and she continues to give her thoughts about certain choices she made and scenes that aired. I like getting the background information and like the idea of seeing what it takes to film a reality tv show. I thought that part was really interesting.
Stassi is a producer on the show, so she’s probably involved in editing in some way, so I’m not tryna say that the show is completely transparent in that way, but I think you see her thought process in ways you don’t see from other shows because in this show the fourth wall is allowed to be broken.
In the first five minutes of the new episode, Stassi talks about how people may have known her from Vanderpump Rules for 8 seasons, how she was cancelled in 2020. She claims since then she’s had a chance to self-reflect and she didn’t like who she saw. To her, she hit rock bottom and she chose to recognize how she contributed to that and now she’s not like the same Stassi from Vanderpump Rules anymore. We get a montage of scenes from this show that are yet to come that feel a little…Vanderpump Rulesish, and then she says she’s excited to show us who she is and that she’s worked hard to start over and she wouldn’t be here without the people she loves. We get more cut scenes of Stassi with her daughter, which is ironic, but we’ll get into that in a second, and then the show starts, beginning with the test footage they filmed while pitching the show.
Apparently, Stassi has been waiting five years for this, and if it’s to get back on reality tv or if it’s to have her own show, I don’t know. But she says she wants to have her hands in many different things and be like Kris Jenner.
Which…House of Stassi has too many Kris Jenner references for my liking, and one honestly is overkill. I’m not a Kardashian fan for a lotta reasons. I’m pretty sure I have them blocked so a lot of the time I forget they exist, and the fact that Stassi reminded me they do is annoying in itself.
But also, from what I’ve heard, even people who are Kardashian fans aren’t really fans of Kris Jenner. Like I’ve never heard anyone talk about Kris Jenner in an inspirational way or out of admiration. I’ve never heard anyone say Kris Jenner is “present with her kids” though I have heard her referred to as a hustler.
I also know that her doing that is probably a little cross promo since their show is on Hulu as well, ‘cause they also have cross promo with Vanderpump Villa and The Secret Life of Mormon Wives, but at least Stassi made appearances on both of those shows. To my knowledge, I don’t think she’s ever been involved with the Kardashians in any way.
Stassi & Katie
I think the most interesting thing from a production standpoint that happened this season is Stassi bringing Katie back because it gives: she needed extra reassurance that people will tune in.
And look, I won’t pretend like knowing Katie would be on the show didn’t encourage me to watch it, because it did. Katie and Stassi went through ups and downs on Vanderpump Rules and in the later seasons they weren’t as close as before.
Even post show, Katie talked about how distant their relationship had become, and I also didn’t think Katie would go back to reality tv, ‘cause she seemed to outgrow it, so yeah, I was curious why Katie would do it and for Stassi of all people, ‘cause I didn’t even think they were friends in the last ten or so years. Well maybe not ten, but I’m pretty sure at some point they stopped being friends completely and lost contact.
I’m sure that this is a popular opinion, but Katie was needed on the show and she definitely clocked in. If I had to guess on why she said yes, it was probably because she got a check for spending a scene in her own sandwich shop (aka free promo), didn’t have to open up too much about her own life, and she got to tell Stassi how it is. She is also a seasoned reality tv star and especially in the last episode, you can see how she was not here to fuck around and she was willing to do what needed to be done for the show, which included leading the conversation with Stassi when Kristina started to feel like they shouldn’t have that conversation anymore.
That being said though, you can see Stassi and Katie working on their relationship now that they’re different people and addressing what happened between them. I don’t doubt that a part of both of them also wanted that friendship back in some ways because they did used to be really close.
One of the things Katie told Stassi on the show became a big topic of conversation this season which was “If they [don’t] come out of you or they’re not married to you or they’re not on your f**king payroll, they don’t get to be in your life.”
I don’t know Stassi, but based on the people on the show that seemed to be a pretty accurate statement.
While other castmates felt offended, Stassi was impressed with that line, praising Katie’s bluntness in the confessional, which is ironic because she didn’t seem to like what Katie and others had to say by the end of the season.
“Cancelled” conversations
Another thing that comes up a lot during this season is Stassi saying that she was cancelled. I will be referring to it as a “cancellation" when I talk about it, but I want the record to show that if she was truly cancelled, she would not be on a tv show right now.
I think it would also be more appropriate to say that she faced the consequences of her actions. I know it’s more words than “cancelled” but still…
I will continue to use her words as I quote her and talk about her. I just wanted to throw that out there that I don’t agree with her usage of the word.
During the season, to me, it feels like Stassi really feels like now is her time. I don’t know if it’s that she feels entitled to the spotlight after what she went through, aka the consequences of her actions, or if she is scared that it can suddenly all be taken away from her again.
Either way, the conversation did get exhausting to hear about after a while, and I know that this is her show and her life and it was a really low moment in her life. I get it, but again, it was the consequences of her actions.
While I appreciate that she didn’t hide away from it at all, I think at times she was more focused on the effect it had on her life and not enough the effect it had on Faith's life. It was a moment in hers, but one of many experiences Faith and other Black people will have throughout their lives.
Stassi didn’t even actually say out loud what it was that she did. It’s referred to as her “cancellation.” They do show some of the headlines of what she did, but she doesn’t actually address it and explain how she knows it was wrong on the show, so it could lead people who don’t know what happened to thinking other people were exaggerating about what she did.
She did have a sit down with Sher and Gabriella about it briefly towards the end of the show and I have mixed feelings about that. I didn’t think Stassi and Gabriella were that close, and I don’t know what I missed, it also could’ve been the editing from Vanderpump Villa, but I didn’t get the impression that she was that close to either of them, so seeing them on this show was surprising and it did feel a little like, “Look. I know Black people.”
That aside, the conversation about Stassi’s cancellation did sort of come up naturally. I’m sure it was on the agenda to be discussed, but it did flow in the conversations they were having and Stassi says something along the lines of being anxious at networking events because she doesn't know what people think or know about her and what preconceived notions they have about her.
It leads to a conversation about how Stassi thinks about what happened every day and she says that she has talked about it with another Black person before and it’s scary. She admits she was selfish and said whatever she thought and she got rewarded for doing that back then, but it’s not an excuse.
I did appreciate that she admitted to her ignorance and her privileges in being able to do and say whatever she wanted without consequence. And actually, in that conversation she did acknowledge that she rightfully did suffer the consequences of what she did.
So, some of what Stassi said when she was talking to Sher and Gabriella I appreciate because it did seem like she self-reflected on some things in that regard. It could’ve been a better conversation, it could’ve been worse. But it’s also weird to me that they had it so late in the season. I guess it’s because they showed up for that dodgeball game it was just the flow of the timeline and everything but…yeah. I can understand why people would walk away from that feeling icky even though I think she did take some accountability in the conversation.
During the conversation, Stassi says that Sher and Gabriella wouldn’t have liked her before the situation happened and Gabriella quickly agrees which made me laugh, because it wasn’t a revelation at all that she was unlikeable and they wouldn’t have liked her.
Sher says, “Besides the obvious, the dark passenger was an icon.”
And Stassi makes a comment that it’s still there and you never know when it’s gonna come out, but “it’s now reserved for boyfriends, well, now husbands.”
Stassi & Beau
The test shoot starts with Stassi and Beau being confronted about a fight that occurred on Vanderpump Villa season 2 because Beau got a tattoo of his sister’s name and said he didn’t want one with Stassi’s name because it was a bad omen to him since they’re married.
Stassi was offended and it became a huge fight, so now at the test shoot, that fight has been brought up by Stassi’s friends where they say they were uncomfortable with that argument and basically tell Stassi, she and Beau need to go to therapy because there’s trust lacking between them. During that conversation [at Vanderpump Villa], she threw out divorce and that also triggered everybody I guess.
In the test footage confessional, I say based on her clothing but who knows when it was actually filmed, Stassi says, “I didn’t know a fight between me and my husband could affect so many people. It sounds like they need to take up some hobbies.” As they leave the scene, Stassi is talking to Beau and is frustrated that everyone’s opinions are directed towards her and that he’s getting off easy. She says Beau acts like he’s a wounded animal.
That conversation comes full circle when the season ends with everyone pretty much giving an intervention to Stassi, telling her that she needs to be more present with Beau and that she needs to be willing to listen and communicate with him because throughout the season it’s pretty clear that Beau is harboring feelings about not being considered or seen and he feels like he isn’t a priority in Stassi’s life. The cast is worried the path Stassi & Beau were on will lead to divorce, even though in the confessionals, Stassi and Beau both claim they’re good, with Stassi saying they’re all projecting because they’ve been divorced themselves.
I’m not here to talk about if confronting them was right or wrong, but I do want to talk about the dynamics between them, because I think it’s something married couples with children fall into when one of them is a stay at home parent.
Let me start first and say, I don’t know everything about Stassi and Beau because I don’t follow them like that. I enjoyed seeing them together on Vanderpump Rules and on Vanderpump Villa. Beau seems to be very patient with Stassi considering how her self-described “dark passenger” comes out.
Stassi stays arguing, yelling, and having outbursts on tv and I don’t know if her reaction is because of anything Beau says or does, like if he triggers her, because Stassi has always been very outspoken and defensive. And while I can understand why Stassi feels like everyone is attacking her, because it was like 5 plus people against her, based on what I know, which is what happens on these tv shows, it does feel like it is because Stassi is the problem, as she briefly questioned in the first episode.
There’s people questioning if all of the arguments between Beau and Stassi were staged for the show…and honestly I don’t know. Listening to other cast members talk about Stassi and Beau’s relationship, it’s clear this was an agenda item from producers, but I don’t know if it was one from Stassi herself. A part of me felt like it was something they agreed to touch on, but in the moment a lot of the conversations and feelings they had escalated into being more real than they anticipated and I do believe she was ambushed at the end. Like I don’t think she had any idea they were there to have that conversation. And you can kind of see her be like “oh, this is what we’re doing” and her feeling of betrayal when they brought up what happened in Italy again and when they were talking about how Beau basically feels like he’s not a priority.
A lot of the season was sneakily, or maybe not so sneakily, about Beau and Stassi’s relationship. Beau tells Stassi in different ways throughout the season that he felt like they were roommates, that Stassi doesn’t actually see him. And in a confessional in the 7th episode, Stassi admits herself that at times she can be selfish and forgets to take his wants and needs seriously because she’s so focused on her own. When she’s talking to Taylor in that same episode she says she wants him to be happy, but she doesn’t want to sacrifice herself for the sake of him, which is crazy when marriages require sacrifice and compromise.
Beau has been talking about going back to work since Italy, Italy happened during Vanderpump Villa, and at the beginning of the first season for House of Stassi, he still hadn’t gone back to work. From my understanding, he was a househusband, there to cook and take care of the home and the children, while Stassi went out and worked. That’s the narrative that they’re pushing on the show, which is what I’m gonna go by because again, I don’t know them outside of the shows that they do.
Granted, I believe they have a nanny, but I don’t like that people are making it seem like he doesn’t have the right to feel how he feels just because they have a nanny. I’m not gonna say he’s not privileged for having a nanny, he obviously is, but it doesn’t mean that he’s feelings shouldn't matter just because he also has help. It just means that’s how hard being a parent is. That even with help, you’re still struggling.
I don’t listen to Stassi’s podcast and I haven’t read her books. I don’t follow either of them on Instagram, and I’m only giving this disclaimer again because I’ve seen people criticize Beau and say that he’s putting on an act or that this is the life he asked for, and that he’s actually the problem, but for the purposes of this conversation, I think it’s irrelevant if it’s an act or if it’s what he wanted or not. First of all, the idea of something is different from the reality of it and I think it’s valid to decide, actually I don’t want to live like this anymore, no matter the gender of whoever is experiencing it. But also because I think this is a valuable conversation to have about what it means to be the stay at home parent.
Stassi feels like it’s her turn as a woman to be able to go off and work. She admits she wants to be able to balance being present with her kids and working hard. And to me, it seems like she feels she deserves all the opportunities she’s now gotten, especially because she was able to pull herself back up after her quote unquote cancelling. So, Stassi admits she doesn’t want Beau to go back to work when they’re well off financially. Stassi, ironically, doesn’t understand that Beau is looking for a sense of purpose outside his household, the way that Stassi seemed to feel when all of her opportunities dried up.
In typical Stassi fashion, she makes Beau’s desire to go back to work about her. She doesn’t want him to go because it will uproot the system they already have in place. She thinks it will complicate things, which I think means she will have to turn down opportunities she wants or she has to pay someone to fill in the gap where Beau was.
All of this is interesting to me because Stassi also talks about being the breadwinner and the stress of having all of these responsibilities on her shoulder and like how hard that is, while simultaneously not wanting Beau to also find a life outside of his responsibilities of the household and while going back to work to help provide for things financially.
I do think Stassi was being selfish and unfair and I think her reasoning, of her being allowed a career outside of the household and flipping gender roles, doesn’t really mean anything, as she seems to casually say as an excuse for why she should be allowed to take every opportunity she wants without consideration of how it fits into anyone else’s schedule.
I just roll my eyes a little bit about the whole thing because I think it’s fair to say Beau is not unique in feeling this way. This is how a lot of women feel and we hear that with Kristina feeling pretty much the same way as Beau with her own home situation. I just don’t think it negates how Beau is feeling. I don’t think it means his feelings should be dismissed. And I don’t think them breaking the gender stereotype of having the husband at home and the wife at work is that progressive…as she tries to make it seem.
Even the date Stassi took Beau on to show that she’s making an effort, I just feel like everything we’ve seen in their relationship is concerning and as someone who has no vested interest in whether they stay together or not, I agree with their friends, that they do need to go to therapy together…
Watching the season, in my unprofessional opinion, it seemed like Beau was experiencing signs of depression. And I know I’m always talking about armchair therapy and armchair diagnosing people, but I’ve also said I’m not perfect, and I think based on what was shown, Beau’s frustration of not connecting with his wife, of feeling like a 1950s housewife, of not socializing like how he wants to with his friends, I think it all lends to Beau at the very least not being happy, which pretty much every cast member on the show, aside from Stassi, has recognized and have talked about at some point, and in the name of tv wanted to help him address with Stassi.
In the confessional, Beau seemed a little frustrated that the conversation on the finale happened. He knew that this conversation was going to backfire, and it lowkey did. But at dinner when Kristina talks about the frustration of feeling like your day doesn’t matter when you’re the parent at home with their kids, Beau does join in and agrees that’s how he feels and the day to day is where he and Stassi are struggling.
Stassi brings up she’s around her kids as much as Beau is and says that it’s weird that they’re holding this intervention, which I won’t disagree with, but again, it’s reality tv and reality tv stars have poorly timed conversations about serious topics, so it’s on brand.
Stassi says she’s doing her best, and Beau says it’s not good enough. “You see the word family but you don’t see me. “You see your kids. You see us. But you don’t see me.”
Watching this all play out all season, it truly didn’t feel like Stassi was hearing any of them and she was trying to do band-aid fixes, like See! I’m making an effort! But then also, a lot of the effort. it’s rarely talked about and it’s not shown on the show, like…the only thing we saw on screen was the date and the tattoo pretty much. So…it’s hard to like…sympathize…with her in that way when everyone is basically complaining about her and she says that she’s making changes but we don’t actually see the changes.
I think Stassi wasn’t really hearing any of them and it’s because she was stuck on feeling like she was being attacked.
Stassi and Motherhood
During that conversation, where Beau’s talking about how she doesn’t see him, it gets brought up that he can’t socialize during the time where she would have to put the kids down by herself and make dinner for them.
In the confessional, Stassi says if the roles were reversed, this wouldn’t be a topic of conversation. And in some households, maybe she’s not wrong, but I don’t think that fact means everyone has to accept how she’s moving. Like again, I think she’s saying that very dismissively and it’s not as progressive as she thinks it is. You’re not changing the world with that one small act the way she acts like.
Stassi mentions later in the argument she tries to be the best mom but their kids are difficult and they’re really hard. And she says over and over again as she literally melts down, crying, that their kids are hard and she admits she can’t handle her kids and Beau reminds her of that all the time.
She tells them all to shut the fuck up and says that they hit her where it hurts.
She tells Beau that every night she talks to him about how she feels like a bad mom and she can’t handle this and she storms off crying.
During this dinner, that was really a shitshow, feeling a little bit like a coup, that occurred only to ensure a drama, it really clicked for me that Stassi hides behind her motherhood.
She leaned into motherhood as a way to change her reputation. She has her children in photoshoots and she does mention them, but the finale episode shows that she feels a disconnect with motherhood or feels like she’s a bad mother. I think part of it is because she’s working all the time, and it’s something that she seems to feel guilty about. And because she feels away about her parenting and motherhood, she feels attacked when Beau asks that question.
And while I do think it’s kinda messed up he brought that up in the moment with an audience and for a tv show, it does feel like they touched a root issue, and a real issue, in the marriage that I genuinely don’t think Stassi was planning on talking about, even if they were planning to speak a teeny tiny bit on the fact their marriage was strained.
What sucks though is that this could have opened the door for a more productive conversation. Like this could’ve been treated like a therapy session for Stassi to unpack how issues with her mom present in her parenting, how she’s so afraid of losing her career again that she feels like she has to go hard now with all the opportunities she’s given. Or even just an outlet to talk about her control issues.
This could’ve been a conversation starter about how tough motherhood is, how hard it is to be a working mom and the guilt that may come with not having a lot of free time or missing milestones when your children or young. It could’ve been a conversation about the pressures of being a good mom. Or about how the reality of motherhood is different than the idea of it or what some people portray motherhood to be ‘cause motherhood is something that is personal and I think it’s different for every person experiencing it.
Instead of that type of real vulnerability, we got a triggered Stassi, letting the dark passenger out, yelling at everyone because she felt attacked and because she felt insecure about her motherhood. And then on top of that in her confessional, she still doesn’t really reflect on any of it, instead blaming everyone for coming at her on her show it seems like.
About Harry Jowsey
Let’s Marry Harry is a reality dating show, where the winner marries Harry Jowsey.
I first met Harry Jowsey on Netflix’s Too Hot Too Handle. If you don’t know, that show is basically about hot people being locked in a house together with a cash prize pot. Contestants aren’t allowed to do anything sexual with each other or with themselves, and if they do, they lose money from the collective prize pot that all the remaining people will win.
Harry and former Netflix villain, Francesca, met on the show, broke some rules together, but still ended up making it to the end. They dated after the show and though I can’t remember the specifics of their relationship, if I remember correctly, they had a long distance relationship at some point and it didn’t seem like the healthiest relationship.
Harry competed and made appearances on other reality tv shows since then, like The Floor is Lava, which I have watched, and The Amazing Race Australia, which I haven’t watched.
I recognized him when I was watching The Wrong Paris, starring Miranda Cosgrove, on Netflix. I heard about him on MTVs Match Me If You Can, though I never watched it. And I was *shocked* to see him in whatever season he was on of The Perfect Match. After that show aired, he ended up dating one of his costars, Georgia, who won the show with someone else.
Probably, most popularly, Harry competed on Dancing With Stars with Rylee Arnold. It’s rumored that they had a situation, and according to Harry, because of those rumors, his relationship with another one of his costars from Perfect Match, Jessica, ended.
Harry, like Stassi, is one of those people you would know if you’re deep in the reality tv space because even if you haven’t seen one of his shows, you’d probably know about his podcast Boyfriend Material, where he sometimes interviews reality tv stars and big influencers.
Harry Jowsey has the reputation of being a fuck boy and he knows that, which is why he named his podcast Boyfriend Material.
Believe it or not, I don’t follow Harry like that. Minus the things I’ve seen him in, I had to look up what else he has done, but some of the times Harry did something in the last few years, it would end up on my feed. The most recent incident I heard about was the Jessica and Rylee situation and since then, outside of a few interviews he did, I haven’t really heard much about him.
Let’s Marry Harry Overview
So imagine my surprise when I was scrolling Netflix and saw the public serial dater, rumored toxic cheater, Harry Jowsey, was getting a television show titled “Let’s Marry Harry.”
I posted it on threads, but my first thought was “Now what producer made Harry pretend like he wanted to get married?”
The answer was Alex Cooper and I shouldn’t have been surprised.
The premise of the show is exactly what it sounds like. Women signed up for the show and competed against each other for the goal of marrying Harry. Harry, a rumored womanizer, a known fuckboy, a toxic king whose public relationships haven’t lasted very long.
Not only are they planning to marry this man,but they also are forced to live with him and the other women he’s dating. At least on the Bachelor franchise they all get some time away from the main person and aren’t forced to be around them 24/7.
At times this show honestly reminded me in some parts of the tv show Unreal, which I always randomly plug because it’s a great show. Even though Unreal is a work of fiction, for me, it put what reality tv is in perspective, especially when it comes to lifestyle content and dating shows like this.
Watching this show it was clear that it was mostly unserious and for the purpose of having a reality tv show. I do believe a few of the contestants were serious about and wanted to marry Harry and I think Harry does want to be married eventually, but throughout the season it was clear he wasn’t taking this seriously and it was clear that he didn’t want to be married…yet.
The show was also very clearly put in place to change Harry’s image. There’s so much talk about how Harry has changed and that he is a new man now after experiencing grief, which is supposedly why some people believed Harry was serious about the process and about marriage. There’s so many conversations about Harry’s growth on the show while we simultaneously see how he was moving through the edit.
I would feel differently about the show if the concept itself wasn’t flawed. The show should’ve never ended in a marriage, but I’m sure if it didn’t there would’ve been people seeing the show for what it was, which was a publicity stunt and a money grab. People also probably would’ve further challenged how unserious the process was going to be and the show runners or whoever greenlit this probably wanted there to be “real” stakes, which makes it wild that they didn’t even actually get married. Harry said on a podcast they signed the marriage paperwork but waited until after the show to file them because they didn’t want people to find the marriage certificate online and spoil who won. There are people who would’ve done that in the reality tv space, so I do get that…like, that’s not a reach. But I also think it’s really convenient that the show that was intended to lead to Harry getting married really led him to the possibility of getting married in title and not in any legally blinding way.
But anyway, in the show, Harry has three other people with him to help him make the decision, one of which being his ex, Georgia. I didn’t realize it at the time, but now that I’m thinking about it it looks like we have another case of a seasoned reality tv star recruiting another of their coworkers to convince people to tune in.
This time the catch was that Georgie was Harry's ex, vs. his best friend.
I thought their break up was a bad one, so I was surprised to see Georgia there, but I guess they worked past that and became friends. I didn’t really recognize the other two people Harry brought on to help him with this decision, but they were also considered friends of his.
In the beginning, his friends made the decision on who would get eliminated which tells me that they didn’t think Harry would make this decision with a clear mind. Harry was able to veto their decisions at certain points if he wanted to keep working on a connection with someone his friends voted off.
I honestly don’t think the people he brought on to help him worked out in his favor, because to me it felt like they were just glazing him, talking about how wonderful of a person he was and how much he’s changed and wanting a long lasting relationship and how he wants to be married, but I didn’t really buy anything they were selling really.
It was a little weird because the two women, Amanda, who I don’t recognize but is known for being a host I guess, and Georgia were aware of his reputation and seemed to understand why and how he got that reputation, but also kept talking about how there’s more to him once you dig past that.
I’m sure he’s charming, that’s part of what gets people hooked on him, but i also feel like Harry’s reputation as a fuck boy was a giant elephant in the room the whole show. I don’t know if these women knew they were competing for Harry or if they knew it would be someone and found out it was Harry when he showed up, but it was hard to take this seriously because Harry was the lead and then watching things play out as they did, now in the future I know not to take Harry seriously.
The show felt like a trainwreck and it was hard to look away.
We got Harry in confessionals, focusing on the bodies of the women he wanted to marry. We got Harry admitting he felt himself becoming toxic, which…I guess he had a brief moment of self-awareness…I guess. And we got Harry hooking up with a woman on the show and then lying about it when confronted, which was so diabolical I’m still in shock about Harry’s audacity.
In a confessional at some point during the show Harry literally says, “Horny Harry needs to think about the future” and him saying that about himself is another thing on the list of why this show wasn’t a good idea. Because if you gotta talk yourself out of listening to “Horny Hart”, don’t you think you’re not ready to get married yet Harry?
I’m not gonna lie, the finale episode got me. The entire show I figured this was gonna be a Double Shot at Love with DJ Pauly D and Vinny situation and that Harry was gonna decide he actually wasn’t ready for marriage because watching his behavior of the show, I genuinely thought he would come to that conclusion. So when he actually picked someone and it was Amber I was shook just because I thought he was gonna give a speech that didn’t land about how he was gonna choose himself and walk away single. That probably would’ve been a better ending anyway than what happened.
Listening to Amber and Harry give their vows though, I did buy into it. They seemed to really love each other and Harry’s speech and the line about his father’s glasses did make me go awwwe.
I was thinking Maybe I’m the cynic. This is all really beautiful.
And then, I found out there was going to be a reunion and I didn’t see Harry post anything about his now wife at the time after the finale dropped. I probably looked too soon and on the wrong platform because I heard there were snapchats or something, but I didn’t see those.
And then the reunion dropped and I can’t say I’m surprised with the way it all played out.
I think it’s pretty irresponsible for Harry to do the show, to be in an environment where the contestants are seasoned reality tv stars so, they don’t know any better, can’t catch themselves before they genuinely fall for him and before they get invested in their future and who mistakenly believe that Harry is just as invested as they are.
The women during the reunion had said that they were hoping to see a new side of Harry and that they were hoping he would change because he seemed so sure he was a different person and it seemed like he was striving to be a different person.
But, I side eye anyone on the show or off of it who acts like he didn’t show his ass or who tries to downplay his behavior in any way. I don’t know Harry, he might have changed, but nothing on the show showed anyone the changes that he claims to have made.
Harry, Emma, & Abby
My first question is, how is Emma, the person who wasn’t in the top three, one of the first people to get asked a question by the host.
Before you think of an answer,it was clearly because Emma was going to try to see the good and the bad of Harry Jowsey. She is yet another person on this show who will say, “Yes. Harry isn’t husband material, but we knew this going in and I saw something in him. Yes. He has a reputation and fell into bad habits, but I saw a lot of growth.”
I think any defense of him is a pretty surface level approach to take because we know everyone is capable of doing good and bad. We know that people aren’t perfect. I think all of us watching this show would agree that some if not all of the women probably signed up for this show for a multitude of reasons that don’t just involve being married to Harry Jowsey, but it doesn’t change how Harry treated the women on the show.
Harry may be a good friend, as Emma says towards the end, but he’s clearly not husband or boyfriend material and him being a good friend doesn’t change how he treats women he doesn’t want a friendship with. The show is called Let’s Marry Harry not “Let’s be friends with Harry”, so I don’t know why people are so stuck on defending that he’s a good friend when that’s not what the show is about.
Abby also had some moments during the reunion because I guess she slept with Harry during filming at some point. She claims she didn’t want it out there and another contestant she confided in spread it, but I literally would not have known she slept with Harry if she didn’t say anything. Even if there rumors were out there and it was going around it was her, she could’ve lied at the reunion or not confirmed it if she didn’t want it out there because I don’t even think they were recording when they hooked up.
To me, Abby seemed hella eager, borderline bragging, about how she slept with Harry and even coincidentally being there on Harry and Amber’s honeymoon? I’m not saying she was trying anything with Harry but I just get the impression Abby would be down for whatever with him, even a casual situation, and I’m not knocking her for that. I just don’t like how she framed the entire thing, like it was a secret and she didn’t want it out there, when she clearly is happy to talk about it with anyone who will listen.
Post the reunion airing, I think Abby has become more transparent about Harry’s shit and she did defend Amber during the reunion at some parts, so I won’t do too much on her.
I do think it’s telling though that Abby and Emma were the two people that Harry shouted out at the reunion among the women in the cast. And it was giving “I’m only friends with men™”, energy and pick-me type energy (derogatory obviously) so I guess that’s really what rubbed me the wrong way about them. Like Abby just like “Oh he picked me. Oh he kissed me. Oh he hooked up with me. Blah. Blah.” And then Emma being like “He’s actually a really good friend.”
It’s just like, shut up, because we’re sitting here listening to different women talk about how Harry wronged them in some way or played in their face or just like they didn’t feel like he was treating them respectfully or that he wasn’t taking the whole thing seriously and it was treating it all like it wasa joke, and you’re sitting here making jokes about things and saying “This is true, but he’s also a good friend to me and he’s still a good person!”
Like, I can’t help but roll my eyes.
Harry & Kissing
A big topic at the reunion was that Harry spent a lot of time making out with people on the show with the host saying it rubbed the audience the wrong way, and truth be told it did make me side eye him a little bit because you’re doing all this, feeling on all these women’s bodies on television, tongue kissing them, having sex with them, but in three-ish or whatever weeks you’re gonna settle down with one person and marry them?
The only tens I’ll give with this whole show is that the reunion allowed the women to speak their truths about the situation and they left it in the edit, even if we did get them also trying to clean up Harry’s image at the same time. Because we got one person saying Harry is good at what he does and that’s being a fuckboy. We got another person saying this was basically a brothel and that season 2 should be Harry vs. 20 therapists. Someone even claimed he was a bad kisser.
Also during the reunion, Faith aired her grievances about getting kicked off for talking about her kiss with Harry. I believe she was the first one who got a kiss from him and Harry didn’t like that Faith told the house about it because he said he valued his privacy.
At the reunion Faith says she didn’t tell the house, she just confirmed that it was true because there was no point in lying and she called Harry a hypocrite because he claimed to care about privacy when he spent a lot of the time making out with people in the house in front of the other women.
When Harry cut her from the show, I already knew he was up to some bullshit, because I figured he was upset with Faith because it meant he couldn’t be sneaky with Faith. He could be sneaky with Abby, she didn’t tell until the reunion. He could be sneaky with Amber, who didn’t want anyone in the house to know they hooked up anyway. He couldn’t be sneaky with Faith, since she wasn’t going to lie about it.
They showed footage of how Harry was making out with some of the women in common areas where other women could see it and we get an edited montage and confessional of one of the contestants, Debralee I think, saying it makes her uncomfortable and she doesn’t want to hear or see Harry making out with other women. And then we see another contestant, Rickiyah, saying that Harry isn’t moving respectfully when he’s kissing other women in public areas, which I’d have to agree with.
Then Harry throws a fit in his own confessional, sitting on the floor and pouting like a baby and admitting himself that half the fun of this is kissing people and he’s upset that he can’t kiss anyone. So he continues to tell the women he wants to kiss people, but he can’t do it in public because it makes people upset, which frustrates the women who want to be kissed. And watching it feels icky, feels manipulative, feels like weaponized incompetence because all Rickiyah was saying was that he needed to be respectful about it, and it just is making me think, “How exactly did Harry change?”
Rickiyah talks about how she didn’t like how he was moving in the house because she was “expecting him to be more intentional but he immediately showed a lack of self control…My future husband…[would] still act accordingly if you truly want to find your future wife,” she said during the reunion.
And what she said is what gets me about the whole and about Harry, because again this show shouldn’t have ended in an engagement or a wedding. The stakes would’ve been there already by nature of Harry being a fuckboy who no one believes could settle down in a healthy and long-lasting committed relationship with anyone, much less a relationship that was filmed and brought about for a tv show.
I don’t know why he would do all that when his intention was to marry one of them. ‘Cause I figure watching it back as his future wife, you would feel a type of way about how he was moving, three or so weeks ago or whatever.
I can’t believe Harry pretty much turned people against Rickiyah, put in effort to villainize her, because she was hoping that he would be moving intentionally and in a way someone would want their husband to.
And it’s annoying to me that Abby acted like the women all came together, in a healthy and mature way to talk about moving respectfully when kissing Harry when that is literally all that Rickiyah had said in the first place.
What’s even worse than making out with someone in front of the other people you’re dating to marry is lying about what you did.
What Harry did to Sam was diabolical and I give her flowers for walking away from the show and leaving it all behind because Harry lied in her face and didn’t even blink about it. He claims it was to protect Amber, but the show is filmed so it was going to come out anyway and Sam was right. If Harry didn’t think it was worth it to tell her the truth, he should’ve just let Sam go and kicked her off the show. I thought it was so weird that he kept Sam when he didn’t have to, but then again, we know this entire show was a joke to him, so maybe he kept Sam thinking she was an easy out for this entire thing.
Sam was right to tell him off and I’m glad she went with her gut instead of letting Harry gaslight her. It was also crazy seeing Harry talk about it with Alex Cooper, because he didn’t take accountability at first until Alex basically broke down how he messed up.
Harry & Dannelle
Harry also did Dannelle dirty. I know the name of the game was that one person would be left behind regardless, but based on what Dannelle said during the reunion, I completely believe that Harry did lead her on. We saw unseen footage of him talking about getting a house for them and wanting to talk to Dannelle about it before he wanted to buy it. Dannelle said Harry made her feel so sure and confident and he gave her a second ring. Because of all that, she was so sure it was going to be here and to me, it makes sense that she thought he was going to pick he when he was talking about future plans with her as if he was going to pick her.
Dannelle also says that while she gets why Harry ultimately picked Amber, she also thought that Harry could tell how committed Dannelle was to him, that Harry could see how ready she was to marry him and that Harry just wasn’t ready for that commitment, so he chose Amber and I can actually see that point of view. I think that’s also why he didn’t cut Sam sooner and why Sam had to walk away on her own.
Dannelle calls Amber the safe option though, which I don’t agree with. The safe option would’ve been to not do the show at all. The safe option would’ve been not to marry anyone at all and I thought that was disrespectful of Dannelle to say that about Amber.
I actually think the way Dannelle moved in regards to Amber was all pretty messed up.
There’s been conversations online because Dannelle did admit to seeing Harry after the show. Harry texted her saying that he was single so they started talking again and Dannelle said they picked back up where they left off.
Some people think Dannelle should’ve checked in with Amber, some people don’t. I think that Dannelle should’ve reached out to Amber, not even just for Amber’s sake but also for her own sake. I think Harry is ultimately the problem here, but I do think Dannelle should’ve done her due diligence at the same time and not taken his word at face value. I get how reaching out to Amber might’ve ruined the idea in her head of what her and Harry could be and I understand how she was vulnerable and waiting for him to reach out and she was just so happy that he did that she didn’t think anything through. And I don’t judge her, but I do think she should acknowledge that she should’ve talked to Amber, just because Harry is known to be a player and a fuckboy. He claimed he was on a show to get married, and then a month and a half later he’s suddenly single as if he didn’t marry someone.
Even Dannelle talking about how they told each other they love each other…no part of her was like…thinking about Amber or thinking about how quickly Harry was moving on from Amber, even though they had a deep relationship too? I guess she hadn’t seen the show yet, but still. In hindsight Danelle wasn’t thinking like… Damn. I got played. I should’ve reached out before I fell for him all over again. I don’t understand why she spent the reunion arguing back with Amber instead of understanding where Amber was coming from.
So Dannelle is talking about how Harry flew out, they hung out, and then Harry changed his tune when she taking him to the airport and he was just saying he was in his head and everything and so she left heartbroken and that was the last time she saw him. Which that whole story is giving, Harry is still a fuckboy. Harry went to see her to get some. Harry used her and then disregarded her feelings. That story didn’t make Harry look good at all.
It was nice to hear that Dannelle’s done with him.
Harry & Amber
Harry doesn’t address anything really that came out post show. Maybe it was because Amber didn’t really give him a chance to speak, but even when Harry did speak, what he said was bullshit honestly and I’m not mad at Amber for going off on him.
I refuse to be one of the people who acts like the woman is the problem when she was clearly pushed to her limit and we’re not gonna act like Amber being pissed off and going off invalidates anything she said or how she felt. And it doesn't dismiss anything that Harry did.
Now there were some contradictions with what Amber said, but it’s a little tough to gauge if she’s just not able to get her point across clearly or if she’s purposely misleading people on what happened. I think based on what we watched the entire show, it’s fair to say Harry probably wasn’t that great of a husband…y’know in title.
With the timeline of their breakup, I do think that Amber and Harry were not on the same page about if they had broken up or not, but you can see even Dannelle is shocked to see that Amber and Harry were still talking during the timeframe that Harry went to see Dannelle.
Harry says that him and Amber weren’t connecting and I actually believe that. You can see during the reunion that they were not getting along, but I get why Amber is frustrated because that’s a blanket statement and it leaves the door open on what exactly wasn’t working in their relationship and if there was a single issue or a series of issues specifically that lead to their breakup. It also just lacks accountability as a statement, which I’m guessing is why Amber started talking about how she was gaslit, manipulated, and emotionally abused and that she ran for the hills when she saw how Harry was without cameras around.
Amber talks about the influencer and how Harry went off with an influencer while keeping her hidden, but then says she was okay with the influencer because they were trying to distract people off of her. And I can believe that Amber was okay with it in the beginning, but then Harry started hanging out with the influencer without Amber too much and that’s what she had a problem with it. I can see that being what happened and she wasn’t able to verbalize it in the moment because she was so pissed.
And clearly Amber had a reason to feel insecure about that relationship with the influence because now Harry is dating the person…I believe so…it just doesn’t look good.
I do sympathize with her because I could understand the frustration that comes with not being able to tell your story while this guy acts like things between the two of you are good on social media. It was clear on the show that Amber had difficulty with being vulnerable and fully leaning into the experience and I could see how damaging it can be to finally be vulnerable only to realize it was all a lie or all for a tv show, as it seems like Harry insinuated to her. She kept saying that he said it was “good tv.”
I get how hurtful and embarrassing it is to think you were bonding and sharing something special with someone and to share your grief with someone who wasn’t all in the way they were pretending to be. I get how frustrating it is that the person you were supposed to marry, whether legally binding or not, then tells you it was too hard to maintain a new relationship in secret as if that isn’t a copout because regardless of who he chose that would be the case. This time he’s giving Vinny, from Double Shot at Love, vibes.
And then when you’re finally able to speak your truth and unleash your anger and frustration, one of Harry’s friend and other people act like you have no right to be upset, they act like Harry is the prize, they act like being friends with Harry is the same as dating him, and they act like he didn’t do anything wrong.
Sonny, the other of Harry’s friends, accused Amber of using his grief against Harry and I wholeheartedly disagree and I will say that I do think Harry hid behind his grief on this show. He was the one who used his grief and allowed other people to use his grief to prop him up. Every time people talk about how he’s changed they always tie his grief into it and that’s because grief does change people. I don’t doubt that Harry was grieving and I don’t doubt that Harry’s grief changed him, but I do question why the people close to him think grief changed him into wanting to settle down when we can clearly see that was not the case.
Amber tells Sonny, and lowkey Georgia and Amanda, that they don’t understand because they weren’t there, they didn’t see what happened between them when the cameras were gone. and Georgia and Amanda both nod their heads because Amber is right they didn’t see that stuff. They don’t know what went down and I think Sonny is an enabler and as long as Harry keeps Sonny around, and he keeps around people who will stand beside him, who will not bluntly call him out on his shit, whether publicly or privately, Harry will never actually change his approach on relationships and how he treats women.
Bridging the Gap
So, after all that, can you tell what Stassi Schroeder and Harry Jowsey have in common?
Both are seasoned reality tv stars clinging to relevancy.
Both brought on someone they have history with to gain more interest.
Both promised us that they have changed over and over again only to show us by the end of their respective shows that they actually haven’t changed at all.
Stassi promised us that she has self-reflected and that she’s different than the Stassi from Vanderpump Rules. Maybe in some ways, she has self-reflected and she has learned her privileges in the world, but after watching the show, I think it’s clear she’s still just as selfish, defensive, and close-minded as she was on Vanderpump Rules.
Respectfully, I think she does need therapy to unpack her issues and to get a hold of her inability to be empathetic and listen to other people’s point of view.
For now, I think she still makes entertaining tv, though this bit will get old. She can’t break down and yell on reality tv forever. I don’t even think it’ll be tolerated in the same way next season because by the end of the show it genuinely a hard watch.
Stassi is also still vindictive because to say she’s going to deal with the rest of the cast later because she isn’t going to end the show like this, with her crying, is wild. She could’ve said she overreacted because she felt attacked instead of giving us the selfishness and arrogance of the llama on Emperor's New Groove.
Because comparing herself to Julius Cesar is extra, I don’t care if she’s being hyperbolic on purpose or not.
Harry promised us that grief changed him. That he was ready to settle down and be a good husband. He promised he was ready to get married and after watching the show, I think it’s fair to say that I felt gaslit, not just by him but by his friends and the producers who enabled him to pretend like he wanted something he clearly didn’t want.
He promised he wasn’t a fuckboy anymore and he clearly still is. Like if this version of him in relationships is better than how he was before, then he must’ve been truly diabolical. Because the stuff he did to those women, the stuff he did on the show…insane…
I don’t know if either of these shows were a good idea for Harry and Stassi’s reputation in the long run. But I guess they were already starting over in some ways. And I guess time will tell.
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Okay. Thank you for joining me. Thank you for being here. Bye bye.