Reality Roundup: Devin Strader tries to tell his side, Julie Chen Moonves has COVID and more

September 13, 2024

Have no fear, your reality roundup is here! Here’s a look at what happened in the world of reality television this week:

The Bachelorette (ABC)
In a since-deleted video, Devin Strader sought to defend himself after it was revealed he abruptly called off his engagement to Jenn Tran once the cameras stopped rolling. He refuted claims that he broke up with Jenn over a “two-minute phone call” and that he refused to see a counselor, showing screenshots of private text messages and call logs from that time. On an episode of The Viall Files Thursday, Jenn said she felt “betrayed” and “disrespected” that Devin released the texts.

Big Brother (CBS)
Host Julie Chen Moonves was absent from the show’s live eviction episode Thursday night after she tested positive for COVID. The Talk co-host Jerry O’Connell stepped in for her. Chen Moonves, who used to co-host The Talk, called into to the show Thursday and gave O’Connell some tips. “When you go into my dressing room, go into the bathroom, on the second drawer to the left, there is a corset. I’m telling you Jerry, there is no way you’re going to fit into my dress tonight,” she joked. It’s the first time she hasn’t hosted since the show started in 2000.

Selling Sunset (Netflix)
The sun has set on a Selling Sunset season 8 reunion. Variety reports there will not be a reunion episode this season amid cast drama. There are numerous feuds between cast members — including one involving Chrishell Stause hitting back at castmate Nicole Young for spreading cheating rumors about Stause’s close friend Emma Hernan. Stause even criticized the show’s producers for airing the rumors without giving Hernan a chance to defend herself.

Emma Roberts on Britney Spears biopic casting rumor: “My true dream”

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images, Michelangelo Di Battista/Sony/RCA via Getty Images

Emma Roberts is throwing her hat in the ring to play the princess of pop.

Britney Spears‘ former assistant Felicia Culotta recently suggested Roberts play Spears in the upcoming movie adaptation of her bestselling memoir, The Woman In Me, and the actress says the role would be a dream come true.

“I was like, I love her assistant,” Roberts told Cosmo. “I mean, it’s my true dream to play Britney Spears. It’s a rumor, but I hope maybe it’ll come true. I mean, I remember I locked myself in my room and listened to In the Zone and said, ‘I cannot leave this room until I memorize every word.’”

Roberts shared even more of her fandom, saying she is always playing Spears’ music.

“I mean, I sing Britney to my son in the bath all the time. I’m always like, ‘God, he must think I’m so weird.’ That’s some millennial parenting,” Roberts said.

In the TMZ interview where Culotta originally suggested Roberts for the part, she said both women understand child stardom, with Roberts appearing on the Nickelodeon show Unfabulous and Spears on Disney Channel’s The All-New Mickey Mouse Club. She also suggested Timothée Chalamet as someone who could take on the role of Spears’ ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake.

“It’s nuts” – At New York Comic Con, Jeffrey Dean Morgan talks hype around Negan and ‘The Walking Dead’

ABC Audio/Stephen Iervolino

Jeffrey Dean Morgan is no stranger to the Comic Con experience, but it still floors him how fans have reacted to him since he joined The Walking Dead universe as Negan.

“I mean, I had been in the kind of the comic book world for a little bit. I’d done, you know, Watchmen and The Losers. So I’d done some stuff. But Walking Dead, when I came in in season 6 was a whole ‘nother world.”

He adds, “I mean … it was huge. And I don’t think there’s any way to get to prepare yourself.”

He continues, “Yeah, it was nuts.”

“It still is!” said Morgan, who was sharing a press conference with his Walking Dead: Dead City co-star Lauren Cohan. “I still, you know, see stuff … you see people dressed as our characters or any number of toys and action figures, I think that it’s always a lot — in a good way.”

“Never gets old!” Cohan enthuses. “It’s exciting!” he agrees.

Also at New York Comic Con over the weekend, the pair debuted a teaser to the second season of their hit AMC show Walking Dead: Dead City, which the actors also executive produce. It debuts in the spring of 2025.

‘Inside Out 2’ stays atop streaming list for the third straight week

Disney/Pixar

Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2 has stayed atop the Fandango at Home streaming chart for the third straight week.

The animated movie is, so far, the highest-grossing movie of the year, having made more than $1.6 billion worldwide since it hit theaters June 14.

Coming in second on the streaming chart was M. Night Shyamalan‘s latest thriller, Trap; the summer hit Twisters ranked third for the week of Sept. 2 through Sept. 8.

In fourth place was a new entry, Borderlands, which suffered a disastrous box office fate when it hit theaters on Aug. 9.

Another animated hit, Despicable Me 4, rounded out the top 5.

Incidentally, interest over weekend box office champ Beetlejuice Beetlejuice seems to have spurred streams of the 1988 original, which made #9 on the list, while Kevin Costner‘s Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1, which is also streaming on Max, rounded out the top 10.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.