Reality Check: 'Bachelorette' contestant Aaron Erb put on blast

On a recent edition of his podcast “The Viall Files,” season 21 “The Bachelor” star Nick Viall expressed annoyance at Aaron Erb, one of Jenn Tran’s suitors on the current season of ABC’s “The Bachelorette.” Erb, 29, quit the show on the July 22 episode for a career opportunity, and cryptically bad-mouthed other suitors on his way out, refusing to give Tran, 26, clarification.

"I feel like Aaron really wasted your time. I feel like he owes you an apology," Viall, who turns 44 next month, told her about 90 minutes into the nearly two-hour episode. “He clearly knew this whole [work] opportunity was a possibility and I would challenge that he knew the whole time and knew he had to leave early. … Instead of investing his time and getting to know you,” Erb tried “to get your head to make you insecure about the other men and questioning their intentions.”

“He brought a prop,” Viall said, referring to a self-help book Erb patronizingly gave another suitor — a direct mimic of something his brother Noah Erb had done in 2020’s season 16.

"I don't disagree,” Tran replied. “Him doing what he did [for his career], I’m so happy for him. But, yeah, like the whole book thing.”

Compounding matters, the book does not appear to be real. As Internet sleuths have noted, neither “Principles for Self-Growth: How to Understand Yourself and Gain Emotional Depth” nor its purported author turns up in any online bookstore or Google search. Additionally, the spine of the book on-screen misspells the first word as “Priciples” — leading many to claim producers had faked the whole incident.

Look who's back

Former “Vanderpump Rules” star Stassi Schroeder, who along with Kristen Doute was fired in 2020 for a racial incident involving Black cast member Faith Stowers, is coming back to TV. The streaming service Hulu announced Schroeder will star in a half-hour “docu-comedy” titled “Stassi Says.”

Additionally, she appears to have made amends with Lisa Vanderpump, star of Bravo’s “Vanderpump Rules” and Hulu’s “Vanderpump Villa,” and is joining the cast of the latter. In a joint Instagram post Friday on their accounts and those of Hulu and of “Vanderpump Villa,” the two kibitz in a brief video that ends with Vandermpump telling Stassi, “Welcome back, darling.”

Finale

The last three chefs on PBS’ “The Great American Recipe” season 3 — Marcella DiChiara, Jon Hinojosa and Adjo Honsou — compete in the closer Monday at 9 p.m. on WNET/13.

Premieres

Married home renovators Brian and Mika Kleinschmidt, who won HGTV’s “Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge” and season 2 of “Rock the Block,” now compete against each other in the network’s new beachside renovation competition “100 Day Hotel Challenge,” with “Property Brothers” stars Drew and Jonathan Scott as judges, Tuesday from 8 to 9:35 p.m. … Wednesday from 8 to 9:20 p.m. on MTV, a long-running physical and mental competition offers an all-star season with “The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras” … and from 9 to 10:31 p.m. on HGTV, the mother-daughter duo Karen E. Laine and Mina Starsiak Hawk return for season 9 of their home reno series “Good Bones” … and early Friday, the streamer Paramount+ debuts a new extension of the drag queen franchise with “RuPaul’s Drag Race Global All Stars.”

Recaps

Jenn Tran eliminated John Mitchell and Thomas Nguyen in the first of two rose ceremonies on “The Bachelorette,” and Dylan Buckor in the second, while Austin Ott became the second contestant to quit.