For former Bachelorette, this show is real
Jillian & Justin documents year in life of ex-Bachelorette and her partner on W
For anyone who watched Jillian Harris try and ultimately fail to find a mate on “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette,” her latest TV show might seem like a vindication.
Harris, 37, was an interior designer from Alberta when she competed on “The Bachelor” in 2009, failing to win over Jason Mesnick but entrancing fans to the point that she became the first Canadian star of “The Bachelorette” in 2010. But her engagement to Ed Swiderski only lasted about a year.
Now, however, Harris has a TV career of her own, a fiancé and a son. And “Jillian & Justin,” debuting Wednesday at 10 p.m. on W, gives viewers a peek into her new life.
Harris, one of the co-hosts of “Love It or List It Vancouver,” says she originally pitched a show about the home she and Justin Pasutto were renovating in Kelowna, B.C., but “after spending a couple of days with us on camera it became more a document — I don’t want to say reality show — more about our life.”
And what viewers will see, Harris said, “is a really crazy rollercoaster ride through the last year of our life.”
It includes iPhone and GoPro footage shot by the couple themselves.
“What the show touches on the most is whatever our life kind of threw in front of the camera,” added Pasutto, a former professional snowboarder and entrepreneur whom Harris met standing in line outside a Kelowna pub called, ironically, Roses.
Pasutto, who had never done a TV show before, said it “ended up being an absolute blast and a huge memory.” Still, it had its challenges. Although you would think Harris would be blasé about having cameras document her every move given her Bachelor/Bachelorette experience, this was different.
“Bachelor and Bachelorette wasn’t my real life,” she said. “This was our real, actual life.
“On one hand, I felt so incredibly blessed and lucky to be able to have such a cool opportunity, but I was stressed and I was guilty in the series,” she said, referring to her feelings about leaving baby Leo, who was born last August, behind for work.
“It was just a really overwhelming time in my life to begin with,” Harris added, which is understandable considering she and Pasutto were tackling new parenthood and a major renovation along with their jobs and other regular life stuff while making a TV show.
“There were some parts I felt like, ‘Oh, do we want to be sharing this? This is private,’” Harris said.
Case in point: the night she went into labour with Leo.
The baby wasn’t due for a couple of weeks and the film crew wasn’t even supposed to be in Kelowna, plus Harris and Pasutto had agreed not to shoot Harris’s labour.
But Harris was in the shower after her water broke when Pasutto came into the bathroom and told her the film crew was on the way.
“I said absolutely not,” Harris recalled. But he said, “Come on, we’re so close to the crew, they’re like family. It’s a great memory for us and a cool experience for everybody to see.”
And see it viewers will when the show debuts.
“I’ve always been an over-sharer,” said Harris, who is a regular Instagram poster, and also has a website and blog.
“For me it’s like storytelling ... I love to be able to tell the story of our life and share it with the world. I hope it entertains people, makes them laugh, makes them cry, makes them question.”