There wasn’t much exciting going on at the ABC Party of the TV Critics Association summer press tour. Mostly we were waiting around for the traditional Tienneman Square style security sweep they use to end the party — amusing to to watch if you’re not caught in it, drink in hand.
But then I saw this face across the room and had to approach.
Ashley I., right, was on the five minutes I had seen of “Bachelor in Paradise” the night before. She was the woman whose claim to fame was as a beautiful virgin looking for love on “The Bachelor” season. Iowa farmer Chris Soules made her cry when she was eliminated in week six.
Now here she was in “Paradise,” with her sister Lauren, and fretting again that other women were going after the guy she liked, Derek, and that she would “die alone.” If I were the kind of person who talked to the TV, I would say, no, you definitely will not.
I didn’t see how this week’s episode resolved, or if she were really eliminated, allowing her to be at the ABC party. But no, she made it through, she told me, and she was at the party, mostly not bothered by any of the press, even though she was there with the woman who had been described as the “kingpin” of the season by the guys who lusted after her, Jade (pictured left).
Part of the speculation of Jade being so in demand is assumed to be something with her having posed in Playboy, a fact that she revealed to farm boy Chris late in the game, and might have got her eliminated. But at the party, she seemed much less glamorous than this. Certainly my attention went solely to Ashley, where I told her, as I might have told the TV, she’s not going to die alone.
She probably knows that. She also knows how the month-long season of “Bachelor in Paradise” ended up. But it reminded me that the best part of the press tour, and reality television, is the ability to go up to people and discuss the choices they made on their shows. Beats talking back to the TV.
Later, they didn’t even do the sweep.