Starting out as somewhat of an odd couple, Randi and Greg actually became one of the more entertaining teams in this fifth season of Beauty and the Geek. Greg is the shy, soft-spoken “Gaysian” from Azusa, California, and Randi is the aggressive, no-nonsense stylist from Missouri City, Texas, now residing in Houston. During her time on Beauty and the Geek, Randi famously fought with Amber, as well as with Joe in what were possibly the biggest blow-ups in the history of the show.
Greg and Randi lost against Tara and Joe in the elimination round last week, so they spoke to BuddyTV and shared their insights on being on the show. They were probably the most entertaining folks I got to talk to this season from Beauty and the Geek. As soon as I started talking to them, they laughed with each other about how much I sound like Cara.
Randi said that she didn’t have a real reason to be on the show except to help other people. “I know that I have a really strong personality and usually when I’m around other people, it seems like I can bring them out of their shells the people who aren’t so used to being outspoken,” she said.” Greg wanted to be on the show because, “I’ve been isolated [in my little world] baking cakes and doing Origami and sewing and all that stuff. And I really wanted to get out there and socialize with people….To be comfortable in my own skin.”
Indeed, Greg did seem more comfortable in his own skin when I spoke to him. He said that right now, he’s “immersing myself in the gay culture and trying to be more gay and try to go out to all the clubs in West Hollywood. Fun gay stuff. I want to go on a gay cruise.”
About Greg’s Asian gangsta makeover, he said, “Randi definitely helped me a lot. I really wanted to look cool and be able to be checked out by guys and she definitely helped me with attitude as well. I’m a lot more fierce than I was before.” He has kept his look even after the show, and now when he goes out to club, he gets check out by other guys.
Randi’s three favorite challenges were the football game, the science fair and the soap opera. She said she like the football game “because they edited me to look good because I was really funny that episode.”
In response, Greg said, “Yeah, I’m surprised they got footage because it was like, ‘Bleep! Bleep! Bleep!'”
The duo came in second place for the soap opera challenge, which was Greg’s favorite challenge. Greg said, “We had so much fun. We were so loud and. You know, we’d be practicing and we’d be serious, and then start laughing and be so loud. It was just really fun.”
Randi described how their raucous rehearsals disturbed everyone else’s practice sessions. “Everybody else was being too serious,” she said. “Tara, she didn’t want Joe to touch her. Kristina had an issue where Jason wanted to take off his shirt … They didn’t show it but she was really uncomfortable.”
Now, the question I was dying to ask Randi was about her fights with Amber and Joe. There really is no way to summarize her explanation and still give her justice, so here is the audiofile and the complete transcript of the portion of the interview that I like to call “Randi’s Rant.”
Randi, you got into a lot of fights with the other cast members, like with Amber in the beginning and then with Joe this last episode…
Randi: Do you have enough tape because I can tell you, I can really break that down for you.
Oh, yes please.
Randi: Okay. I’m glad you asked me that because I’ve been holding it in for a while. That first episode, number one, I want to let everybody to keep in mind that this is TV and that reality TV is not always reality. Number two, the reason Amber and I got into— number one, Amber is from Houston. Me and Amber went to high school together, okay? So I remember Amber. She was a couple classes under me but I remember her because I knew everybody. But Amber, she moved to L.A., so now she’s all brand new. I don’t even want to say what she is, but I guess she is a different person now.
The reason we got into the argument was because the whole time that we were there – and it was not the first day we were together that we got into the fight. It was portrayed like that on television, of course, but we had already been there for a couple days. Amber was really getting on everybody’s nerves. Amber was being obnoxious. You know, she was talking about the guys like dogs. And it’s like, I’m the kind of person, I can only sit back so long, and you know, I had to keep hearing it. It’s like, everybody, they were all scared to speak up for themselves. I guess I was the only one who – you know what I’m saying? – if there’s a problem, I’m going to say something.
People were really tired of Amber. And the day that we had the very first challenge, the make-under challenge, we were all back there after the challenge was over, backstage to get our makeup taken off. And at this time, this was when they de-miked us and took the cameras away. So that’s when the original fight started because Amber was in the back, the guy was trying to take the movie makeup off her face and they had to use something special. And she had this lace-front weave on her hair. So, the big argument was, Amber was back there, cussing the guy out, “Are you stupid?” You know, really degrading the man in front of everybody. You know, there was a whole lot of people back there. She was really loud and, you know, we were all sitting there looking back. Everybody was shaking their head like they didn’t want to say nothing. And so, I made a comment. I think I told her, “Since you are acting like somebody begged you to be here, so you need to chill out a little bit and just take it easy. You know, chill out, basically.” And she’s like, “Are you talking about me?” I said, “I’m not talking to you, but I am talking about you. I’m glad you know that I am talking about you because you’re acting stupid. You’re acting like all over-dramatic about your weave, and it’s a synthetic one anyway.” And she got mad and the whole way back home, she kept trying to say things. I’m the kind of person, if I get mad, I’m going to possibly pop you in the eye. That’s what I was in the beginning of the show, that’s how I was. This was, like, day four for us – it was like day one on TV, but it was day four for us. If you had to sit around somebody like that, they’re all about themselves and always just on and on and on all day long, you know, you get tired of hearing it. And everybody was like, “Can you just shut up?” Everybody was thinking it, but I guess I just said it. I don’t care. So I told her, “You either check yourself because you beat out people who really want to be on this show to try to change or whatever the reason was, and you’re sitting here acting stupid.” And so, she got upset because … I said it in front of everybody. She got upset because I put her out, basically.
So when we got to the house, I was sitting there talking to Leticia and Tiffany. I didn’t care that she was in the bathroom. I knew she was in there. I mean, if I wanted to whisper and go be sneaky about anything that I had to say, I wouldn’t said out where I knew she could hear me. So I left it at that. After all of that had happened, when I was talking about her, we were all sitting there discussing how she was acting during the challenge. When I started saying my part, that’s the part they showed on TV like I was just going off and just talking about Amber just because. And that wasn’t even the case. I don’t care about her calling me fat. I’m from Texas. I mean, what guys don’t like big women. I’m not anorexic. I don’t eat and throw up. I mean, I eat and it stays with me. Sorry, I look good. I don’t care. So you can say whatever you want.
A long story short, all the fights that I had was basically me speaking up for other people because other people was too afraid to speak up for themselves. Either, they were being followers or just sitting there taking it. Okay, I’m like, “Y’all don’t have to be like that.” And I guess the show supposedly it’s supposed to be like the guys were supposed to make us smarter and we’re supposed to make the guys get out of their shells, but it should have been the other way around because the guys were much more outspoken than some of the girls. So that was a very bad situation as far as I’m concerned. And I guess, me, Leticia and Tiffany, we were like the mix up because, it’s like, I’m smart, Leticia’s smart. I don’t know too much about Tiffany. I would say that me and Leticia were two of the smartest girls. Tara’s probably like book-smart but I guess me and Leticia have common sense along with book-sense. And that was the difference between us and that’s why when they were saying that we were separated, they didn’t show how we were all separated. At one point, all the girls were against me, Tiffany and Leticia in the beginning. Me and Leticia are very close. We were basically protecting Tiffany for some reason, and she’d go back to them and try to tell them things like, “Oh, Randi and Leticia are in there talking about y’all. They’re doing this and they’re doing that,” and they’d come back and vice versa, you know, girl stuff.
Okay, well I’m glad you cleared that up.
Randi: And about the Joe situation? I’m telling all because, I swear, there’s not going to be a reunion show, so you might as well go ahead and put it out. About the Joe situation, I really hate it because they flipped it on me to make it seem like I was being the bad guy when, in this situation, I feel like it was Joe because in no way, form or fashion do you spit at anybody. I’d rather take a bullet than you spit on me, I’m sorry. This is really how I feel about it. He was really upset with Tara at the time. Tara talked about Joe like a dog every day, all day, about how he stunk, how he only brought two pair of underwear to the show and rotated one pair. You know, there was a lot of stuff going on. They cut that out. When she came down to the kitchen, she was like, “Randi, don’t talk about Joe,” I was like, “Are you serious?” And in between, they cut off what I said about her and how she did it. Maybe it was “Get Randi” Day, but the way they tried to portray me on that last episode was horrible. They didn’t show how when it was time for elimination, on the scene where it was Joe and Tara were in the room and she’s like, “Nobody is in our room,” that’s because they were in there helping me and Greggie pack all our stuff. They was in there helping us with all our—everybody was in our room. It was just like how they portrayed and how they tried to edit to make it seem like nobody liked me, and nobody was against me. Please, I was the damn life of the show. This is irritating to me.
Okay. Well, yeah, I’m glad I got to hear your side of it.
Randi: They probably feel like we were the worst cast ever, but we were the funniest at the same time.
-Interview conducted by Debbie Chang
(Image courtesy of the CW)
Staff Writer, BuddyTV
