Interview with Jamie Everett, Winner of the Reversal Episode of "Meet My Folks"

Jamie Everett, winner of the Reversal episode of Meet My Folks, has been called "dumb as a post" and "Silicone Sally" on national television. This author promised to alert RealityNewsOnline readers the moment evidence of Jamie's intelligence was spotted, while other Internet writers have been even harsher in their evaluations. So, it was with just a tinge of superiority that I requested an interview with Ms. Everett, or as I had referred to her, "Redhead McBusty."

My smugness lasted until I emailed Jamie to set up a mutually convenient time to chat. I figured I would have to carefully explain the time difference between Boston and the West Coast. "Remember," I wrote Jamie, "Boston is three hours behind California."

Sixty seconds after I hit the "Send" button, I realized that perhaps intelligence isn't something that can be measured so cavalierly. I became more and more sure of this as I typed another email to Jamie, one full of apologies, corrections, and the long overdue admission I had wrongly spelled her name about 57 times in her episode's recap.

Fortunately, Jamie was more forgiving than I had been.

Andrea: Thanks for agreeing to talk to us, Jamie. Sorry about that confusion on the time difference thing!

Jamie: (laughing) Oh, no problem at all!

Andrea: Let's start off by finding out why you wanted to go on the show to begin with. Why did you apply?

Jamie: I didn't apply. NBC asked me.

Andrea: How did that come about?

Jamie: I had been on another dating show, Blind Date. NBC called me and said I'd be perfect for this new show they were doing.

I really hesitated. While I love watching reality shows, being on one is very different. I wasn't crazy about my experience on Blind Date, and I swore I'd never do another one again. But the week NBC contacted me about Meet My Folks, my car had been stolen. Being a struggling actor is hard enough without that sort of thing happening. I really needed the money, so I said "yes."

Andrea: What don't you like about being on reality shows?

Jamie: The worst part is cameras everywhere. That weekend at the Figgs, it was excruciating to have the cameras follow me around all the time. I just couldn't get used to it. I give props to the people on The Real World and Big Brother, because I could never do that.

Andrea: What has been the reaction from people to your appearing on Meet My Folks?

Jamie: Well, a lot of people recognized me, of course, and many came up to me just to say, "I saw you on TV!" But I found myself wanting to defend my actions every time someone mentioned it. I had the overwhelming urge to sit complete strangers down and say, "you know, that show was really heavily edited…"

Andrea: Tell us what was wrong with the way you were edited.

Jamie: Well, first I want to make it clear that, besides Josh's dad, I was the only other college graduate [an associate's degree in Performing Arts] on the episode. And yet, I was made out to be some sort of bimbo stereotype. Several instances that would have shown more about the "real" me were completely cut out.

For example, all three of us had brought items to show the family, things that meant a great deal to us personally. I brought my grandmother's watch, and also explained about my Native American heritage, which I'm very proud of. But the viewers never saw all this. I'm an intelligent and compassionate person, not some kind of nymphomaniac.

Also, I want to talk about the Friday night hot tub incident. That really irritated me. First of all, there were about 10 or 12 production crew members standing around. They told us that we really had to "spice things up," and they were the ones that insisted we play Truth or Dare.

Andrea: So, it wasn't Josh's idea?

Jamie: Not at all. He was pretty much going along with whatever the crew suggested we do. Not that he was complaining about the result, mind you! I have to say that I was very glad Mr. Figg came out when he did to tell Josh stop it. Lisa [the waitress] was being really pressed to expose herself, and she was just about to when Josh's dad took him aside. I was very grateful for that, for Lisa's sake.