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Turns out that Taylor Frankie Paul's cursed, likely-forever-buried, season of "The Bachelorette" is the content gift that keeps on giving. Earlier this week, Paul's final guy, ocean lifeguard / model / aspiring musician Doug Mason joined Charity Lawson and Rachel Recchia on Bachelor Happy Hour for a two-part interview. And oh boy... was it a rich text. (Pun intended.) We listened to both parts of...

Perhaps the most controversial scene in "The Swan: Behind the Mirror," documentarian Erin Lee Carr's new 100-minute exposé on the 2004 extreme makeover reality show "The Swan," is the last one. (For those who aren't familiar, the show promised to transform each of its contestants from "ugly ducklings" into "swans" through extensive plastic surgery, dieting and life coaching.) The ex-contestants wh...

Last month marked the 30th anniversary of the iconic comedy "The First Wives Club." And as two ladies who are now at a stage of life that Elise Eliot might term "district attorney," we jumped at the opportunity to discuss the film's zany plot, stacked cast, and hilarious but poignant exploration of divorce, ageism, male entitlement, and women's empowerment. When the movie opens, three college frie...

A new Rachel Cusk novel is an international event. Her Outline trilogy became the kind of breakthrough hit that few novelists (especially writers of austere autofiction) can ever hope to attain. But what could make the latest novel from such a literary rockstar even more buzzy? Well, a little celebrity scandal couldn't hurt! Over the summer, reports began to circulate that Cusk's new novel, "Life...

This week on the podcast, we were ready to let loose and have a little fun. After a few relatively heavy topics, it was time to get back to the important business of frivolous television. In this episode, we chat about three TV shows we've binged in the past month: The Alix Earle reality series "Earle Meets World," a fascinatingly vacuous reality show about making brand content; the mediocre but s...

CW: Though we will be discussing the Lindsay Clancy case only in broad strokes in this episode, this events are extremely disturbing, and we will be referencing child murder and severe mental illness. If you choose to listen, please do so with care. Last week, following a month of wall-to-wall media coverage and feverish social media discourse, the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy ended in a mistria...

In honor of the "Love Island" USA season 8 reunion, we are making our July episode featuring Anna Peele, author of "Enter the Villa: The (Unauthorized) Reality Behind 'Love Island,'" free for all Rich Text subscribers. By the beginning of July, I have entered my now-annual "Love Island" fugue state. I fall asleep watching new episodes, and I wake up and immediately reach for my phone to scroll soc...

Recently, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez revealed that she was freezing her eggs during the August recess. In fact, in a very AOC move, she documented the entire process on Instagram, and used her videos to speak directly to her followers about her decision, the experience of freezing eggs, and policies she believes could provide childbearing people with more options for planning their families. Predict...

CW: Pregnancy and childbirth are discussed in detail in this episode. It's a big week on Rich Text, because Emma is back in the (metaphorical) building! On the two-month birthday of her daughter, we recorded her first postpartum podcast, and it was such a pleasure to be back to our old tricks. (She will be taking more time before returning to Love to See It, so don't be alarmed to see that Leigh i...

In the opening scenes of the new (certified fresh!) Netflix movie "Don't Say Good Luck," Sophie Birenbaum (Sunny Sandler) is abuzz with pleasurable nerves. She's rehearsing her audition song for her high school's production of "Waitress," helping get her twin brothers off to school, giggling with her best friend. By the end of the day, she has learned – thanks to a poorly timed butt dial from her...

The Bravo and Bravo-adjacent cinematic universe has been in full swing in recent weeks, and I needed to talk to an expert. So this week, Gibson Johns (entertainment writer and host of Gabbing With Gib) joined me to discuss ex-"Vanderpump Rules" star Stassi Schroeder's return to reality TV with her Hulu series "House of Stassi," the back half of "In the City," and the finale of "The Valley." First,...

CW: This episode will contain discussion of domestic abuse. Please listen with care. The fourth season of "The Ultimatum: Marry Or Move On" has limped to a miserable conclusion – and we're finally caught up and ready to talk about it! This week, Bachelor in Retrospect cohosts Carrie Rosen and Annemarie Navar-Gill joined me to discuss the depressing finale, which saw all four of the remaining coupl...

This week, the brilliant Ali Barthwell – author of the forthcoming book "Reality TV for Snobs," Emmy-winning "Last Week Tonight" writer, recapper extraordinaire, and dear friend of the pod – joined me to discuss episodes 5-8 of "The Ultimatum" season 4! And we had as much fun as we could recapping these episodes, which are brutal to watch. (I haven't watched the finale and reunion yet, but from wh...

Season 4 of "The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On" has dropped, just in time to help fill the cavernous void left by the finale of "Love Island" season 8, and the vibes are worse than ever. "The Ultimatum" has an inherently fraught premise: It brings together six established couples who disagree about whether to get married. They "break up," date the other people in the experiment and choose one to hav...

We laughed, we cried, we gawked at leaked wedding photos! This week on the pod, I'm joined by the wonderful Kelsey McKinney, co-owner and journalist at Defector Media, for a two-part conversation: first, a general chat about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's epic wedding at Madison Square Garden, then a recap of the Netflix rom-dramedy "Voicemails for Isabelle." Though neither of us particularly wan...

By the beginning of July, I have entered my now-annual "Love Island" fugue state. I fall asleep watching new episodes, and I wake up and immediately reach for my phone to scroll social media reactions. I try to recap the major plot points to my husband, who is usually baffled by the onslaught of details and my feverish emotional state. It's all I know how to think about about at the moment. So I w...

It's a hot romance adaptation summer. After years suffering through a rom-com movie desert, streamers have discovered that rom-com television series might just be where its at. At a time when heterosexual dating has never seemed bleaker and toxic men are wreaking societal destruction at the highest levels of government and tech, it makes sense that a lot of us are yearning for the uncomplicated fa...

Another week, another feast of televisual content about the high crimes and misdemeanors of Amanda Batula and Westling Wilson! Tuesday night brought not only the premiere of "Love Island USA" (see our coverage over on Love to See It), but part two of the "Summer House" season 10 reunion and episode three of "In the City." Both Bravo shows now revolve primarily around investigating how long this co...

Between Ciara Miller absolutely eating Amanda Batula up at the "Summer House" reunion, "Off Campus" becoming a full-blown obsession (check on your millennial friends, people!), and right-wing pink pill influencers melting down about Alex Cooper's pregnancy... we had a lot on our minds this week. So what is the Rich Text podcast for other than brain dumping to each other and all of you? We started...

After 10 seasons of anchoring "Summer House," it's time for the show's preeminent Peter Pan party boy, Kyle Cooke, to say goodbye. Kyle, along with his erstwhile wife Amanda Batula and longtime friend Lindsay Hubbard, are being shipped out from the Hamptons share house to the new Bravo series "In the City." On Tuesday night, Bravo aired a finale-premiere combo that saw Kyle, Amanda, and Lindsay cl...

When we stepped into the Lawn Club in downtown Manhattan last Thursday night, we immediately knew we were among our people – reality TV people, that is. Reality stars, producers, casting directors, content creators, podcasters and journalists, all together in a room listening to the dulcet tones of John Denver as remixed by DJ Kyle Cooke, thanks to Vulture’s Reality Masterminds event. The wide-ran...

In 2006, “The Devil Wears Prada” was already on the brink of being a paean to the bygone glory days of magazines. The hollowing out of print media was already well underway. The brief boom of digital media was in the offing, but that would quickly collapse as well. The prosperous era of Vogue that the original movie was satirizing has ended. Twenty years later, we are all – magazine editors, digit...

"Summer House" and "The Valley" are two Bravo shows about young(ish) people on opposite coasts working through a plethora of banal relationship horrors. In this episode, we dive into the last few episodes of both shows. Share Rich Text If you liked reading this, click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Patreon! Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod • Subscribe •...

It was only a matter of time before the tradwife novels arrived. Not only have we been fascinated by these women – and their addictive yet alarming blend of aestheticized nostalgia porn, motherhood and domestic arts tips, and veiled (or not-so-veiled) reactionary politics – for at least half a decade, they are public figures optimized for projection, psychological speculation, and sheer fan fictio...

During the season 3 premiere of "The Valley," there is a scene that lit us up with rage. Kristen Doute's fiancé Luke Broderick is having a heart-to-heart with fellow castmate Jesse Lally about his relationship. “Our relationship is completely lacking intimacy, which is tough,” he says. “[Kristen] shuts down every advance. At what point do you stop trying?” On its face this seems like a normal thin...