Shayne Dahl Lamas and the Lure of Fame

I hadn't been watching the TV reality show The Bachelor since an earlier season of it, but two seasons ago, my mother suggested I watch it again, and now, like my mother, I'm really into it. It's fascinating because it's very revealing of personalities and meanness/deception/lying/underlying motives.

My mother and I adored the contestant Shayne Lamas (the daughter of Lorenzo and the grand-daughter of Fernando Lamas and Arlene Dahl), the one who the bachelor, Matt Grant, from England chose out of 25 American women. The way the show edited what was presented as documentary (rather than scripted) footage, Shayne seemed genuine, warm, kind and compassionate, mature far beyond her 22 years.

We were surprised by the announcement yesterday, the day after the show's finale, that Shayne is appearing on the cover--and inside, in a six-page (non-nude) spread--of the second issue of Girls Gone Wild magazine, whose first cover featured NY Governor Eliot Spitzer's whore.

I guess having grown up in Hollywood, Shayne felt she had to jump at the offer to further her 15 minutes of fame. Sort of sad, because--despite the hair that she's been dying platinum since she was 12, which gives some people the impression that she's just another shallow Hollywood starlet--Shayne seems to have a depth that would make for real acting talent. I hope she hasn't derailed what could even be an Oscar-worthy career by typecasting herself in this way.