Fall TV Blog

The Bachelorette star Jillian Harris is teaming with Ty Pennington and his crew at Extreme Makeover: Home Edition for an upcoming episode, ABC confirmed to PEOPLE Tuesday.

Harris, who has her own interior design company, said in a statement that she’s “been an adoring fan of the series for years and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to work with such an amazing team. I really feel like the world needs a lot of love right now and to be a part of this and see others give their time and love so generously, it is truly inspiring.”

In the episode, which is currently filming and does not yet have an airdate, Harris and the Extreme Makeover design team travel to Slaughterville, Okla., to help rebuild the home of Brian and Audra Skaggs. The couple’s son, Jhett, received a heart transplant when he was 10-months-old. Now 2-years-old, Jhett’s weakened immune system is at risk due to the deterioration of the family’s moldy, rotting and termite-infested home.

“People know Jillian as a great personality, but they may not realize that she’s an incredible designer, too,” Extreme Makeover executive producer Anthony Dominici says.

Bachelorette fans saw Harris get engaged to Chicago software consultant Ed Swiderski on The Bachelorette finale last July. She relocated to Chicago in September to set up a home with Swiderski.

In addition to Extreme Makeover, Harris is working on the launch of a furniture line, featuring custom, 18th-century dining and lounge pieces. She’s also penning her first book about applying her famous “hot dog theory” to dating situations. –Monica Rizzo

Craig Sjodin/ABC

Old rivalries and dramas from past seasons of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette will get new life this year as ABC is creating a spin-off show in which former contestants will live and compete together in a Big Brother-style house.

The show, titled Bachelor Pad, will bring back 20 memorable contestants from the previous 13 Bachelor and five Bachelorette seasons, according to The Hollywood Reporter’s Live Feed blog. It’s expected to premiere in late summer.

“All these people have been friends, been enemies, they date each other and bring all this great backstory to the show,” says executive producer Martin Hilton. “It seemed like there was an opportunity to combine that world with a new competitive reality show.”

The contestants haven’t been revealed, but Hilton said top players and former winners are on board. The show will feature various challenges, some inspired by incidents from past seasons. Contestants will be booted from the house at the end of each episode. And Bachelor and Bachelorette host Chris Harrison has signed on to emcee. –Tim Nudd

Tell us: Will you watch Bachelor Pad? Which former contestants would you like to see on the show?

ABC

How do you find true love on a reality show? You might think it takes a sexy swimsuit for an inevitable hot tub scene, a red rose and a romantic helicopter ride, but some Double Stuf Oreo cookies might also do the trick!

In fact, eight couples have found love on TV’s most successful franchises: The Biggest Loser, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. Who knew battling the bulge was just as much of a turn on as roses and champagne?

Biggest Loser winner Matt Hoover argues that a side salad is way more romantic than long-stemmed roses, noting that the weight loss show is “like The Bachelor for big people!”

“When you’re going through something like that with someone, you can’t help but build a closeness,” he says. “When that happens and when someone sees you transform and become the new you, there’s something to be said for that.” Here’s a rundown of couples who found real love on reality TV: (more…)

The Bachelorette’s Jillian Harris and her fiancé Ed Swiderski stepped out Wednesday to pick up some sexy unmentionables at the new Victoria’s Secret store on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue because, she says, “I feel like I’m a little down on my lingerie collection.”

Not that Ed is complaining. When asked what he thinks is the sexiest thing a woman could wear, he responded, “No panties.” Jillian gave a similar answer, claiming she thought “no bra” was the sexiest way to go.

The couple, who recently moved in together, were also eager to talk about the news that Bachelor Jason Mesnick proposed to Molly Malaney in New Zealand. “We had no idea they got engaged and we just literally talked to them yesterday,” Harris said, adding that they just found out. “They sent us a picture of them in New Zealand and they looked so happy … I guess I never thought about it, but them being in New Zealand would be the best time to do it. It all makes sense!”

(more…)

Unlike the many who’ve come before them, recent Bachelorette couple Jillian Harris and Ed Swiderski took the giant leap from being just another reality show couple to get engaged while the cameras are rolling, to bonafide real-life couple when they moved in together in September.

Now living in Chicago, both admit in the latest issue of PEOPLE that it took a lot of effort to get to this next step in their relationship. Last August, two former girlfriends of Swiderski’s claimed that he continued relationships during his time on The Bachelorette, and even after he became engaged to Harris.

Before he proposed to Harris, “I was a bachelor in ever ysense of the word,” Swiderski admits to PEOPLE. “I am not an angel, but things were exaggerated.”

Harris, who stood by Swiderski days after the news broke, maintains her fiancé did nothing wrong. “It would be more naïve of me to trust [these women] than to trust the person I’m going to bed with every single night and have spoken to every single night,” Harris says.

After a long summer of traveling back and forth to each other’s hometowns, the couple have settled into Swiderski’s one-bedroom Chicago condo.

For more on Harris and Swiderski’s big move, pick up the Oct. 12 issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.
– Monica Rizzo

Get the roses ready! ABC has announced that they will reveal the identity of the next Bachelor during the Oct. 13 episode of Dancing With the Stars. Sources tell PEOPLE that Bachelor producers will likely select one of the three runner-ups from the recent edition of The Bachelorette for the job.

Kevin Foley/ABC(3)

For interior designer Jillian Harris, meeting the man of her dreams was the easy part. It was his “total bachelor pad” -– a one-bedroom condo in Chicago -– that took some getting used to, the 29-year-old Vancouver native and former [ITALIC "Bachelorette"] tells PEOPLE.

“When I first saw it, there was a lot of brick and dark brown leather and wood,” says Harris, who’s moving in with Ed Swiderski on Sept. 14. “There were socks and underwear lying around the place.”

While Swiderski was on a business trip to Las Vegas last July, Harris went on a shopping spree to “Pottery Barn, Z Gallerie and Bed, Bath and Beyond,” Harris says. “I tried to keep it masculine, but I replaced some of his dark brown cushions with some cream and light green to lighten it up a bit.”

What did Swiderski think of the home makeover?

“I liked it,” he says. “There are things I like but would never go out of my way to shop for like pillows. I just don’t do that. But I like it a lot.”

As for taking this big step forward in their relationship, Harris says, “I can start [having] a real life again. I’m looking forward to some sort of normalcy –- making dinners, waking up early, cleaning house. It’s perfect.”
– Monica Rizzo

Wes Hayden, The Bachelorette’s “baddest boy of them all,” just wrapped up a guys’ weekend in Austin with some other former contestants from the show.

“Tanner [Pope,] who lives in Dallas, drove up while Mike [Stagliano] and David [Good] and the rest of the guys flew in to have a good time and see me,” Hayden tells PEOPLE. “I loved hanging out with the guys. We had a great time.”

What does a group of bachelors do during a guys’ weekend? While some of the guys went to Lake Austin Spa Resort to get pampered, the whole group hit local hotspot Ranch 616, where they shared dinner, drinks and dish about Bachelorette winner Ed Swiderski — and those claims he was unfaithful to his new fiancée Jillian Harris.

“I had no clue whether Ed had a girlfriend … while we were on the show. I really didn’t know about any of it,” he says. “But if it’s true, I feel really bad for Jillian. I don’t know what to believe to be honest with you. I feel bad for Jillian and for Ed. But if in fact he was doing what everybody’s been saying, then man up and deal with it.” (more…)

It seems every Bachelor rose these days has its thorn.

Several blogs reported that Bachelorette couple Jillian Harris and Ed Swiderski had split, but the duo appeared very much together, showing up at Las Vegas’s LAVO Friday night just after 11 p.m. for drinks and appetizers.

The couple had canceled a reservation at the same restaurant hours prior, prompting speculation of their breakup. The truth behind the canceled reservation: “Ed was working late,” a source told PEOPLE.

Inside LAVO, Harris and her fiancé acted every bit the couple and held hands as they walked in.

Dining on appetizers on the restaurant’s outdoor patio overlooking the Las Vegas Strip, the couple sipped wine, talked and held hands during the hour-and-a-half stay.

“They just want to take things day to day and work on their relationship between them,” the source said.

The couple has been in Las Vegas most of the week while Swiderski has been on business. –Mark Gray

At a time when Bachelorette Jillian Harris and her fiancé Ed Swiderski would like to be celebrating their engagement, they’re being hit with allegations that he was not faithful — and carried on two relationships while filming The Bachelorette.

Two women, Lindsey Johnson and Bethany Steffen, claim that Swiderski, a Chicago computer software consultant, was stringing them along while he was wooing Harris on the ABC reality dating show, and that he continued to do so even after he and Harris got engaged on May 24. The reports claim Harris feels betrayed and that her relationship with Swiderski is destroyed.

“I am not destroyed!” Harris tells PEOPLE. “There’s a little bit of anxiety that comes with this news, but I am absolutely not destroyed.”

“What did he do wrong?” Harris asks. “My biggest concern is with everything that happened after the day we got engaged, and after we got engaged he has been so open with me. He’s told me all of this, every little text message and every little phone call. I use his computer. I know that any communication he had with the girls post-show was platonic. I’m not worried about it.’ (more…)