I Didn't Come Here to Make Friends (34 page)

Ben Flajnik
reached out to Courtney via e-mail on July 30, 2013, to clear the air. She wrote back to him and told him about this book. “Am I in trouble?” he asked. Within weeks, he’d auctioned a date with himself for $2,500 on Gilt.com, shot down rumors he was boning fifty-nine-year-old Kardashian momager Kris Jenner, and told a gossip site that he’d begun dating a “great girl” in the wine business who is “super smart.” No release date for his reality show
Young Sonoma
has been announced.

Emily O’Brien
was briefly linked to Mike Burns (Ashley Hebert’s
Bachelorette
season), but they called it quits because Emily was getting her Ph.D. in North Carolina. She is currently engaged to a Duke Orthopaedic chief resident named Donny.

Nicki Sterling
went back to her normal life after
The Bachelor
. She isn’t on any social media sites (at least publicly) and has a serious boyfriend who reportedly auditioned to be on Emily Maynard’s
Bachelorette
season.

Kacie “B” Boguskie
appeared on Bachelor Sean Lowe’s season, but was eliminated in the third episode. She did not say “fuck” in her second limo exit interview. She was surprisingly friendly to Courtney when they both appeared on Katie Couric’s daytime talk show in June 2013. While they were sitting in their makeup chairs, she told Courtney, “They pinned us against each other.” Kacie B got engaged to music producer Rusty Gaston in February 2014.

Blakeley Shea Jones
was briefly engaged to
Bachelor Pad
star Tony Pieper. She’s back in North Carolina waxing away as an esthetician at her new business Couture Artistry. She’s a big commenter on
Bachelor
alums’ Instagram accounts.

Lindzi Cox
lives in Seattle and is really happy. She’s single but looking for love and “gypsetting” around, as she calls it.

Casey Shteamer
is still Courtney’s best friend. Her passion is traveling and she recently spent a month backpacking in Peru. She lives in Chicago and runs her fashion blog ImperfectWonder.com.

Jenna Burke
not only hooked up with Jef Holm, but she also hooked up with Sean Lowe after a charity event sponsored by her iced coffee company RealBeanz in September 2012. A week later he was announced as the next Bachelor. Jenna was devastated. She truly thought they had a connection.

Emily Maynard,
perhaps after being burned by so many tools from
The Bachelor,
is now engaged to the preacher of her local church in North Carolina.

Ali Fedotowsky
is now a host for E! News—and even appeared in the Woody Allen movie
Blue Jasmine
. Ali, who is dating Kevin Manno, still defends Courtney to this day. In a recent interview she explained, “Courtney Robertson was portrayed as a complete bitch on-camera but she’s very sweet. I really love Courtney.”

Trista Sutter
avoided Courtney like the plague at an event at the
Bachelor
mansion. Coward.

Arie Luyendyk Jr.
is still racing Indy cars and super trucks. He dated Bachelor Nation’s Selma Alameri (from Sean Lowe’s season) for a short time. She called Courtney to commiserate, but got over him pretty quickly. Courtney and Arie are good friends and still keep in touch. P.S.: The Kissing Bandit is currently single.

Cavan
helped Courtney heal from her breakup with Ben and became her boyfriend briefly again in the spring of 2013. Courtney moved in with him in San Francisco, only to realize within two months that they still weren’t right for each other.

Dylan
texted Courtney on February 9, 2014. “For whatever it’s worth thank you,” he wrote. When she replied, “For what?” he never responded.

Chris
lives in Palm Beach, Florida, and runs the raw food empire Christopher’s Kitchen. He had a baby boy in December 2013.

Jesse Metcalfe
’s career was resurrected by his starring role on the revamped TV series
Dallas
. He’s engaged to
Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3
actress Cara Santana. Courtney is happy he found the right girl to settle down with.

Adrian Grenier
still booty-call texts Courtney to this day. The last time he wrote her, he asked, “Are you still on that show?” There’s a good chance he has no idea she wrote this book. Or that he’s in it.

Courtney Robertson
(that’s me!) is still single and ready to mingle. Her modeling career is on the upswing again after booking a DirecTV commercial in the summer of 2013 and signing with Wilhelmina Models in 2014. She is still a hopeless romantic and looking for a man who actually wants to get married.

PHOTO SECTION

My third-grade perm, 1992. It was all the rage, I swear!

In 1993, the Phoenix Suns played the Chicago Bulls in the NBA Finals. I painted my window to support the home team.

My best friend from growing up, Sara (
right
), and me (
left
), 1992.

My amazing sister Rachel (
right)
and me (
left)
on our first day of school in 1994. Posing for a first-day snapshot was an annual ritual.

A model in the making—my sixth-grade school photo, 1995. Hello, unibrow.

Mom painted a sign to warn the whole neighborhood that I was fifteen.

(John Urbano)

These shots are from my first modeling job. Abercrombie & Fitch invited me to shoot on location in Tortola, British Virgin Islands, when I was a senior in high school, 2002.
(John Urbano)