As far back as he can remember, Adam, a 40-year-old Chicago native, has watched every Bears football game. But since last year, he’s got a new streak going: He’s watched every episode of Kristin Cavallari’s new E! reality show, Very Cavallari.
He tunes in every week, he tells MEL, even though his wife actually hates it. “I made her watch it once, and she’s refused to watch it with me since.”
During the offseason, when Adam’s Bears group chat is mostly inactive, his other Bears-obsessed friends will chat about the show, but not as deeply as he’d like. “I just wish the conversations were more in-depth,” he says. “They’re all usually like, Wow, this show is crazy. And I can’t believe Jay!”
That would be Jay Cutler, 35-year-old former quarterback for the Chicago Bears — and, since 2013, husband to Laguna Beach and The Hills alum Cavallari (her legal name is Kristin Elizabeth Cutler). He’s featured semi-prominently on Very Cavallari, usually providing some curmudgeonly comic relief.
Adam and his group of friends aren’t alone in the perhaps-unlikely pairing of Bears bros and a reality TV show marketed to women that airs on E! every Tuesday night.
Virtually every week in the Chicago Bears subreddit, r/CHIBears, someone posts a highlight clip of “every Jay Cutler scene” from that week’s episode. As one redditor put it, it’s “[NFL] RedZone for Very Cavallari fans.”
All Jay Cutler Scenes on Very Cavallari (Season 2 Episode 3) from CHIBears
Inspired, I started watching the show — and now I’m hooked. I too have become one of those Very Cavallari–loving Bears bros. And while I could blame this on the fact that it’s one of the few shows my fiancée likes to watch outside of Friday Night Lights reruns, I can’t look away from the show. There are two main reasons why.
First, despite Kristin Cavallari’s obvious shortcomings, she’s a boss, and the show is entertaining as hell. If anything, it provides some exciting new things to talk about with my fiancée, like why it took so long for Shannon to be fired, why Brittainy is still dating that sad-sack Grimace-lookin’-ass musician and why we hate rich people who don’t really have to do anything to survive.
The second, and probably more pertinent, reason Bears fans get hooked into the show is Jay Cutler. As a lifelong fan of the Chicago Bears, I can confirm that Jay Cutler resides in a special, sourpuss-faced, cigarette-smoking corner of Bears fans’ black hearts. He was supposed to be the end of Chicago’s eternal quarterback woes (praise Mitch), but he showed mere glimpses of greatness and provided nearly a decade of false hope.
So it is a delight to see him mope around in retirement, watching his deer camera and providing snarky “everyman” commentary on the goings-on at Cavallari’s home-goods store Uncommon James. Aside from the dating and drunk shenanigans of any other reality TV show, Very Cavallari has “something for the bros” in Jay Cutler.
Like Adam, I’m frustrated with my own Bears group chat for its lack of commitment to the show. So I reached out to a bunch of die-hard Bears fans to see if they’re ride-or-die for Very Cavallari, too.
Charles, 35
I’m a straight, single guy and the show is just a guilty pleasure. I always watch full episodes when I have the time, and if I miss a certain week or don’t have time, I make sure to catch up with the Jay Cutler–only clips.
My friends and I used to have a get-together and watch Jersey Shore or Siesta Keys, so this isn’t too different. But overall, I watch the show for two reasons.
First is Jay. I just love his “me-against-the-world” attitude that he had back on the Bears. I get it when Kristin says, “Behind that tough guy exterior hides a nice thoughtful guy.” He won’t drop his facade at all but will begrudgingly do nice things. Also I think it’s hilarious that he hardly gets along with Kristin’s hot, hot employees/friends. I would never think Jay would be a country farm boy, but I get that too. He’s just so… awesomely strange. He’s an enigma. He doesn’t care… yet he does.
The second reason I watch is the hot girls. The hot redhead who was just fired, I started following her on Instagram. I also followed KCav’s Jay Cutler Instagram account.
Harker, 26
I don’t have cable, so I have to catch up via the videos posted to the internet, but I’ll also read summaries of the episodes and look at people’s tweets while the show airs.
Personally, I love Jay Cutler, so I initially started watching just for a window into his life. It always struck me as a puzzle that Jay would have this grump baller “don’t-care” personality, but then also somehow get a sweet wife like Kristin Cavallari.
So I first started watching just for Jay and to learn more about him if I could. Eventually, as the show wore on, I got interested in the business aspect of his wife’s business and Jay’s perspective and commentary.
I also like seeing how Jay lives and spends his time in retirement, which is not something you hear much about that much for NFL players. Usually the cameras are all over NFL players’ houses and lifestyles during their tenure with a team, but once [players] retire, they like to be private. Ironically, Jay has turned into the opposite; he was extremely private as a pro but now, as a retiree, fans have the most access to him they have ever had.
Overall I think it’s a fairly decent show. Sometimes the drama feels like it was staged a bit, but Jay says enough off-the-cuff things to keep it interesting. I like to hear about Kristin and Jay’s early relationship, and I love when Jay goes into work and has to whip things into shape. Jay’s commentary on Kristin’s valley-girl models bumbling around the shop messing up orders is hilarious.
Adam, 40
I find most of the non-Jay people on the show to be varying amounts of stupid, annoying, melodramatic and incompetent.
The whole deal with [Cavallari’s recently opened lifestyle storefront Uncommon James]’ shipping being screwed up is symptomatic of what happens when you have models and not logistics and operations professionals running your business. But of course, those types would not be on-brand for KC.
Tyler, 26
I’ll usually watch when it airs and keep it on in the background as I’m doing other things. I keep an eye and an ear out for any Jay scenes or Jay mentions on the show and mark the time stamp. That way I can go back through and cut them up and compile the Jay highlights [for the Bears’ subreddit].
I originally watched the first episode because I was a fan of Jay, and I figured I could give it a shot to get a glimpse into the current life of a former player. I showed the highlights to a girlfriend once and she thought it was hilarious that Jay had that personality and also that I was spending my Sunday nights watching reality television for the purpose of creating a compilation of Jay.
I’m pretty sure I follow Kristin’s other instagram, @ifjayhadinstagram, which she uses to post photos of Jay that tend to be on the funnier side. I definitely pass them along to the group chat whenever I see a good one.
Truthfully, I watch with the DVR on so I’m able to skip past anything that isn’t involving Jay or Kristin. That said, whether fabricated or not, it probably isn’t the best idea to manage shipping and packaging by having models who cannot put together boxes be the people solely in charge of shipping out merchandise.
Quinn Myers
Quinn Myers is a staff writer at MEL. He reports on internet culture, technology, health, masculinity and the communities that flourish within.
