Sean Lowe
When people ask me about my time on The Bachelorette and The Bachelor, they usually say something like this:
“Well, there’s nothing real about reality tv.”
I wrote a lot about this in my book, so I don’t need to rehash how “real” the show is. Instead, I wanted to take the opportunity of Easter to talk about the “reality of the cross.” This is what got me thinking of it… an article in the New York Post about a designer I’ve never heard of:
To look at her carefully curated Instagram feed, designer L’Wren Scott was a 1-percenter, a gold-plated member of the international elite: There she was on vacation in India with boyfriend Mick Jagger; at his retreat on the island of Mustique; about to board a chartered helicopter; lounging poolside in gold jewelry and designer sunglasses; stretched out on a private plane, using her $5,000 Louis Vuitton handbag as a footrest.
“I always say luxury is a state of mind,” Scott told The Sunday Times of London last November. “Because for me, it really is. It’s legroom, it’s a beautiful view, it’s great food at a great restaurant you’ve discovered because you obsessively read Zagat, as I do.”
And then, last Monday, she committed suicide, hanging herself in a $5.6 million Chelsea apartment that likely did not belong to her. Within hours, Scott’s life was revealed to have become an elaborate facade — her business at least $6 million in debt, her fashion-world friends and celebrity clientele unaware of her despair.
“Ironically, last week I said to three different people, ‘I wish I had her life, look at her life — she’s always somewhere fabulous and fancy,’ ” stylist Philip Bloch told WWD. “You think, here’s someone who has it all. You just never know.”
Of course, she is just one example of people whose lives seem to be one way when they are actually very far from the way they portray themselves. Lance Armstrong. Ray Rice. Michael Vick. Annie Leibovitz. Jim Bakker. Bill Clinton. Richard Nixon. Martha Stewart. Bernie Madoff.
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