RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The three-hour finale of "The Bachelor" premiere tomorrow night and fans of the reality show know that something unprecedented happened the other week that left us all deep confused.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE BACHELOR")
LAUREN BUSHNELL: I am completely in love with you.
BEN HIGGINS: I've known I'm in love with you for a while as well.
JOELLE FLETCHER: I do love you, and...
HIGGINS: JoJo, I love you, too.
MARTIN: Bachelor Ben told both Lauren B. and JoJo that he was in love with them - both of them. The finale is tomorrow, as we mentioned, and Bachelor Nation is on the edge of its collective seat to find out who Ben gives that final rose to. There is one man out in the universe who already knows the answer. His name is Steve Carbone. He's made a name for himself as the ultimate spoiler by posting on his website about twists and turns in reality TV before they actually happen on air. Steve Carbone joins us from our member station in Dallas, KERA.
Steve, thanks for being with us.
STEVE CARBONE: Thanks for having me on, guys.
MARTIN: We should say obvious spoiler alert here. For those of you who don't want to know the finale, you might want to turn it down. We should also say that includes me, Steve, because I am a fan of "The Bachelor." I'm planning on watching the finale. I don't want to know who wins ahead of time. So I'm going to ask you to do me a favor.
CARBONE: OK.
MARTIN: We want you to be able to tell our listeners who wins, but I don't want to know. So if you'll bear with me, I'm going to exit the studio for just a second. And you can blurt out the answer and then when my producer tells me it's safe to come back into the studio, I will, and we will then commence with our conversation about how you do what you do. Is that cool?
CARBONE: Works for me.
MARTIN: OK. So give me a second. I'm going to leave. Here I am. I'm going to walk out of the studio.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR CLOSING)
CARBONE: Ben is engaged to Lauren.
MARTIN: All right. Did you do your deed?
CARBONE: That, I did. Now, can I ask you a question?
MARTIN: Yeah.
CARBONE: Who do you think wins?
MARTIN: Well - who do I think wins, or who do I want to win?
CARBONE: Both.
MARTIN: OK. I think JoJo's going to win, and I want Lauren B. to win.
CARBONE: OK.
MARTIN: So there it is. I mean...
CARBONE: Yeah, and I'm not going to react...
MARTIN: Don't tell me. OK, yeah. Don't reach.
CARBONE: ...Positively or negatively, yeah.
MARTIN: OK. That's just what it is.
MARTIN: All right. So let's talk a little bit about - how do you get your information?
CARBONE: (Laughter).
MARTIN: Who are your sources?
CARBONE: Well, I can't - yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, I - obviously, I can't give up that kind of information. But I can just tell you that the site started spoiling - I started spoiling in 2009, so it's been about seven years now of spoiling and...
MARTIN: Of spoiling. Like, you just use that verb. You own it. You are a spoiler.
CARBONE: Yeah. I'm a - I am a spoiler site. I mean, for six years before that, all I did was recap the show in a very snarky, sarcastic way because the show is very silly and kind of dumb and easy to make fun of.
MARTIN: True.
CARBONE: So that's what I did. But in 2009, I was given my first spoiler. It was about the ending of Jason's season where I said hey, he chose Melissa at the finale, but they have since broken up, and he's been dating Molly. And you're going to see that. And nobody bought that because it was just, like, that's way too out there. What does this guy know? He's never given us a spoiler. And then it happened and then it's like - oh. So that put me on the map. And then I kind of just became this de facto authority on the show. And ever since that season, it's just every season I get information...
MARTIN: That's so crazy.
CARBONE: ...About the show and probably 95 percent of it has been right.
MARTIN: Wow. Do you feel, like, a certain amount of power associated with this whole thing?
CARBONE: I'm very well-aware of how big the site is and how big the show is with a rabid amount of fans. But I know what I do is - I'm not curing cancer here. I mean, I'm giving spoilers to a TV show.
MARTIN: Do you like the show? I mean, yeah, it's an easy target. It's easy to make fun of it. There are a lot of things that are abhorrent about it. But clearly, if you're spending all this time thinking about this show, watching the show - is there something about it you like?
CARBONE: No.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
CARBONE: I don't care about the show. If I wasn't making my living off this show, would I watch it? Absolutely not. What I like about the show is I like spoiling it. I enjoyed the fact that I'm a one-man operation in Dallas, Texas, that is literally spoiling a network television show watched by 8 million people every week. I get a thrill out of that, yeah.
MARTIN: Yeah, yeah.
Steve Carbone of RealitySteve.com - thanks so much for talking with us, Steve.
CARBONE: No problem. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.