Love is blind fans remember Shake Chatterjee as the guy who asked women in capsules if they worked out and if he could lift them. Then, perhaps unsurprisingly, his fiancee Deepti Vempati left him at the altar, but Shake didn’t mind because he still had a reservation at Nob that he was looking forward to.
Now, thanks to his Love is blind reputation, the reality star seeks redemption on E! House of villains — precisely because he doesn’t really see himself as a villain.
“I felt misunderstood,” Chatterjee, 36, tells PEOPLE of why he wanted to join the show. “I wanted to win the money, but part of it was just showing a side of me that wasn’t shown at all Love is blind. I’m a veterinarian, which is a big part of my life, but Love is blind silenced that empathic, soft, caring side of me, completely, deliberately, to prove their point. So I said, ‘Huh, maybe this villain series will show how good and wonderful I am.'”
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Shake Chatterjee in the second season of ‘Love is blind’.
Netflix
Still, Chatterjee admits it House of villains “he brought out my negative side in many ways.”
“I won’t say that I’m so resistant to the villain title now,” he continues. “To me it is not House of villainsit was School of villains. Because I went in there just being myself and I said, ‘Oh, wait, no, this isn’t working. I’ll be destroyed if I just go in there with this attitude.’ I had to learn very quickly from the best villains in the game how to survive in that environment. And through that, I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m a villain too,’ when I’m supposed to be a villain anyway.”
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Chatterjee admits that he did not recognize most of his own House of villains castmates, which include Challenge star Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio (Challenge), Survived legend Jonny Fairplay (Survived), Bachelor alum Corinne Olympios, TraineeOmarosa Manigault Newman, The taste of love featured Tiffany “New York” Pollard and Vanderpump Rules‘ Jax Taylor.
“I’m not a big reality TV person,” he explains. “Johnny Bananas, I’ve heard of him the most. I’m not going to say that I’m that familiar with his work, and I wish I was, because looking back now, I’m like, ‘Man, I probably could have seen through some of these things that were going on. ‘ But I know how big a deal he is.”
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Shake Chatterjee and Omarosa Manigault Newman in ‘House of Villains’.
Casey Durkin/E! Fun
The Netflix star believes that his fellow contestants, such as Devenanzio (41) and Fairplay (49), had the upper hand when it came to this game.
“They would pick up on things immediately,” says Chatterjee. “Things that would have gone completely over my head, they were the first to catch on.”
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Fairplay actually helped Chatterjee a bit when it came to the competitive elements of the show.
“Both Bananas and Fairplay were into these things, but it was Fairplay who would introduce me,” says Chatterjee. “Bananas kept some things to himself. He shared them when it was ready, but Fairplay, he said, ‘Hey, this is happening.’ And I say, ‘I’m thankful that at least for now you and I are friends.’ Sometimes that changes as the show goes on. You are friends and then suddenly…”
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Shake Chatterjee at ‘Love Is Blind’ Season 2 Reunion.
Adam Rose/Netflix
Such was the case for Chatterjee and 44-year-old Taylor, who – as House of villains trailer teased — butted heads all season long.
“Things were fine in the very, very beginning,” says Chatterjee, who now lives in Miami and started working as a loan officer alongside his vet job. “But the nature of the show is that we compete with each other. This show almost makes you want to sneak up and backstab a little.”
Chatterjee says he and Taylor “were put in a competitive situation pretty early on, and I knew I had to have an edge on him, so I did whatever I felt I had to do.”
As a result, “he reacted in a certain way,” Chatterjee says of the Bravo star. “Jax and I didn’t get along the best, but his reputation speaks for itself. It will be a lot of fun to watch.”
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Tommy Garcia/Bravo
Chatterjee can’t say what the competition was like, but at the end of the day, he feels “honored to be among these guys.”
He says: “Just being in the same house with them was enough for me.” I was excited about it. I didn’t even care if it was a negative impression, to be completely honest with you, because – I don’t know – I never thought I’d even be doing these things. So if I’m on their radar, then I’m flattered, even if it’s bad attention.”
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House of villains premieres Thursday at 10:00 PM ET on E!
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education