Is there anyone you know of, whether they're a celebrity or a real person, who is just so incredibly toxic? Have they ever led you on to believe that they've changed, and then will go back to their old ways and make you realize how scary they are? I have been lucky enough to not have met this person in my real life, but there is one person lately that has made me realize this scary truth: Paulie Calafiore.
Paulie is a reality TV star from New Jersey who first appeared on CBS's 18th season of "Big Brother" and was known as season 16 runner-up Cody Calafiore's brother, and is currently on MTV's "The Challenge: Final Reckoning" teamed up with a woman from his "Big Brother" season that he quarrelled with and talked down to as part of their twist to team people up with their vendettas. On "Big Brother," he befriended soon-to-be runner-up of season 18 and 19 Paul Abrahamian. The two were inseparable - they were known as "P&P" and Paul even gave Paulie the haircut he has. Soon after, we started noticing things about Paulie; right after he got the Head of Household power, his personality very quickly turned cocky. He became selfish and began talking down to others, and there are multiple live feed clips of him being rude or talking down to others, women especially. He is a jerk just to try to crack others on a personal level, and has even gone as far as telling a woman of color that her daughter wouldn't be proud to see her "behavior" on television one day.
After "Big Brother" ended, he kept it pretty casual, despite having been such a hated houseguest. Nothing he did was worth looking into until he started seriously dating a girl from Nick Viall's season of "The Bachelor," NICU nurse Danielle Maltby. I was upset when first reading about this, because why would such a sweet person like Danielle date such a terrible person like Paulie?
Through the months, their relationship continued to be steady, Danielle constantly vouched for Paulie being an amazing man, and then, it happened - I started feeling like Paulie learned from his mistakes and has started being a good person. I thought to myself, Paulie has somehow matured from the monster he was "Big Brother" to a kind, caring man who had a lot of love for his girlfriend and was in this for the long haul. A funny thing then happened after this realization: there were reports that Paulie had cheated on Danielle with "The Challenge" star Cara Maria.
Cara Maria met Paulie during "The Challenge" and despite Paulie telling her about Danielle, they both succeeded on destroying Paulie's relationship and Cara Maria helped expose Paulie for the person he truly is and keeps flickered away. This was both of their faults, but I wish I could say that I was surprised when I saw this. I was surprised because Paulie had managed to make me believe that he has changed and will not hurt anyone like he did on "Big Brother" with his words and talking down. He is genuinely both and it is scary, and unfortunately there are people in the world that are exactly like this in real life. If you ever meet a person who can perform this scary magic act, run as fast as you can, before someone gets hurt.
