James Weir recaps The Bachelorette 2018 episode 4

SHE has been haunted by a salacious rumour for months. And on The Bachelorette, Ali was forced to confront gossip about her past.

AFTER weeks of deflecting salacious rumours surrounding her split from Grant Kemp, The Bachelorette’s Ali has been forced to storm across the mansion’s patio armed with a glass of wine to tear apart a guy who tried to expose her past.

We’ve all drunkenly stormed across a patio to instigate a public confrontation — usually in high school and often holding a plastic tumbler of cheap vodka. The drink may change as you get older, but the flush of public humiliation feels just like it did in year 10 when that bitch Renee went and told everyone at the party you have unusually large areolas.

On Thursday night, the rumours aren’t about areolas. They’re about stairs.

Let’s be honest, we’re only here because of the stairs. And if you don’t know the story about the stairs, you haven’t been paying enough attention.

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On one hand I don’t want to be responsible for spreading rumours but on the other hand I do love sharing personal information that doesn’t affect me in the slightest. So all I’ll say is, when Ali was dating that bozo Grant from Bachelor In Paradise, she went to visit him in LA and, he claims, he found her on some stairs with someone else and they were … doing things.

In my mind the staircase was rather grand and made of marble but the details have never been confirmed.

Anyway, the story continues to haunt her because Grant keeps making long-distance calls to Australian media to re-tell the story about the stairs.

And it turns out one of the guys in the mansion loves reading New Idea because he knows all about the rumour. He uses this knowledge recklessly, and it leads to his demise.

But first, we have to deal with more catastrophic news. Osher quietly enters the living room and gently tells the boys Roger David has today fallen into administration.

It’s a sad day for heterosexuality.

But where will I buy reasonably priced semi-formal outfits now?

We get so swept up in the emotion that we don’t even remember how we end up on a couch in the dark with some guy called Danny.

Danny is 39, has nary a wrinkle and whispers lots of inspirational Instagram quotes out of context.

Murmur.

A confused look comes across Ali’s face as she tries to make sense of the old-timey expressions, but Danny thinks the funny face is Ali’s way of flirting. So he goes in for a kiss. And Ali, who made out with three people within the first two episodes, rejects him.

But we didn’t come here tonight for inspirational quotes and rejection. We came here for rumours.

When we arrive at the cocktail party, the boys are whispering about some smack Nathan was saying around the pool today. If you forget who Nathan is, he’s the guy who looks like The Human Ken Doll.

“He’s spreading rumours about Ali and Grant. About some threesome,” one of the boys says. We jump in to correct him that the rumours aren’t about threesomes but stairs, but then we remember we don’t like gossiping and so we step back and let the action unfold naturally.

“We were sitting beside the pool and he starts ragging about how he has inside information about Ali and stuff that was in the media about stuff she had done. Which really was degrading towards her,” Charlie says.

Charlie is super annoying and clingy and he’s basically Jarrod but less pink. His quest to be the good guy is irritating.

“It was disgusting,” he slams, before taking it upon himself to tell Ali everything. “If it’s going to come from anyone, it needs to come from me.”

He storms out and drags Ali onto a lilo where he reveals all. He tells her about Nathan’s New Idea subscription and how he’s spreading the gossip.

“Oh my god, let me at ‘em,” Ali fumes.

I’m just shocked that Nathan has a New Idea subscription.

With a wine glass in her hand, she storms across the grass, through a hallway and whirls out onto the patio where she confronts Nathan.

“Nathan! Hi! Just wondering … WHAT you were saying to the guys around the pool about me?” she yells.

“I heard you were saying really disgusting things about me this afternoon. And I want to know what it is you were saying.”

Nathan is too scared to repeat the information, so he keeps referring to it as “the rumours” and all we can think of is Lindsay Lohan’s debut single.

“I was told you went over to LA. And … something happened. I don’t want to go into details,” he says.

Charlie gets involved and tries to be annoyingly protective and Nathan screams back that he’s a “spiteful piece of shit” and we’re embarrassed to be witnessing the moment.

Ali’s had enough and pulls Nathan outside.

“Nathan, this isn’t going to work,” she says. “It’s time for you to go.”

Moments later, Ali rolls up to us holding a wine glass and drunkenly retells an exaggerated version of events even though we actually just saw it unfold.

But we don’t care. As long as no one’s talking about our areolas.

For more observations about Roger David and public confrontations, follow me on Twitter and Facebook: @hellojamesweir

‘And then I told him I wouldn’t even push him down the stairs!’