When Cara Maria Sorbello (Twitter, Facebook, Etsy) and Abram Boise (Twitter, Facebook, Blog, Rent his Montana House) met on MTV’s “The Challenge: Cutthroat,” we saw them fall head over heels in a bizarre-o-world kind of love that only the two of them could have. It was intense, artsy, beautiful, strange…and beautiful all over again. In the beginning, they would post these cute little videos of themselves on roads trips or just hanging out together on YouTube. Then, at some point, the newness, or as I like to call it “the la-la phase,” wore off, and the intensity that brought them together seemed to be the same intensity that was pulling them apart. And it was no secret to the world, often you’ll find them duking it out on their Facebook and Twitter accounts.
In this final part of my interview series with Cara Maria, I present the highlights of what she shared about her relationship with Abram. We went there on poop incident, cunt calling, difficulties of long distance relationships, being Facebook official, her hesitations, etc. Funny, this interview was conducted just after episode 1 of “The Challenge: Battle of the Exes” aired on MTV, but is still as relevant several weeks later as it was at the time. I had a lot to sort through, and here’s my best attempt to convey it to you.
Also, as I mentioned in Part 1/2 (“Cara Maria talks about MTV’s ‘The Challenge: Battle of the Exes‘), I also spoke to Abram so you’ll get to read his take on things very soon!
INTERVIEW with Cara Maria: Part 2 of 2
Facebook is the Devil
Our conversation began with the Facebook statuses and tweets, from January 29, 2012, that prompted me to reach out in the first place.
Ifelicious: What’s you and Abram’s status as of today (Feb 1)?
Cara Maria: Right now we’re both single.
Ifelicious: Have you spoken to Abram since posting those updates on Sunday?
Cara Maria: Since my crazy status updates? Ya, I have.
Ifelicious: If I took what you wrote word-for-word, I figured you were done with the whole thing.
Cara Maria: Ya, I know, it was one of those moments.
Ifelicious: Well, we all go through those moments…By the way, were you two ever Facebook official?
Cara Maria: I don’t think we ever were, and it’s funny because I remember when we were in Montana and we were having a conversation about…calling each other boyfriend-girlfriend, me an him both felt the same way like ‘That’s weird. It’s weird’…but to me, that’s what he was. He was always the only guy in my life. I didn’t want anybody else…It’s not a normal way to start a relationship, I guess, meeting on the show and all that, and because I lived in California, because he lived in Montana, I didn’t expect anything to really happen from it, and when we started just seeing each other and seeing each other…I didn’t want to say, ‘You have to be mine and only mine,’ because I didn’t want to put that noose around his neck, basically…Plus I have this thing where I feel if you tell a guy what to do…they’re going to do the opposite. I want him to him to be with me because he chooses to be with me. I want him to not choose other girls because he chooses not to be with other girls…That’s how I kind of wanted it, but yet we never put a label on it which complicated things, I guess, more than I meant it to.
Ifelicious: To me, that’s important to work out. I’m married now, but when we first met, I wanted to be able to say, ‘Ya, that’s my boyfriend.’ That means that you guys agree mutually agree to be with each other. I guess you’re telling me that you had all of the components of a committed, monogamous relationship without explicitly saying that, though.
Cara Maria: If we were living in the same state, and we were seeing each other, it would be easier to say, ‘Ya, let’s be exclusive.’ Like, even though in my heart, I didn’t want anybody else, I didn’t feel that it was fair to say, ‘You have to be mine, but yet I can’t be there with you all the time.’
Love is a Battlefield
Ifelicious: In that interview that they have with you two on MTV.com, there was that point where he’s saying, ‘I offered to move to be with you.’
Cara Maria: But, it’s more complicated than that…and, for him, he looks at it like that…and other people might look it like that, too…[but] I have all these other reasons. I look at things logically, and I like to have things planned out. I like to know financially…I have my horse, and I’m never going to leave her again. She and I have a history. I put her in the hands of someone else, and she was almost euthanized…So, if I’m moving to Montana, I’m bringing a horse with me, and I’m taking her out of her environment that she’s been in, that she’s comfortable in. I’m pulling her in a trailer, and I’m bringing her to God knows where to live what kind of life with a guy. It’s not like I’m really free, so then I’m like, ‘OK, then he can come up here,’ but he can’t because he has the sun-house, and he’s got to be there for the summertime when it rents out…logical things, like ‘Ya, sure, come out here, but you’re going to have to get a job. How long does it take to get a job because right now I am at my mom’s because I don’t even want to know if I want to stay here [in Boston]. So, there’s so many complicated issues.
Ifelicious: I see.
Cara Maria: His house in Montana is like my horse. You can’t really leave it.
Ifelicious: It sounds like you’d have to really plan it out.
Cara Maria: But then the big fights come from the fact that I tried to explain these things to him.
Ifelicious: I thought his Montana house was jointly owned by his family.
Cara Maria: They help him, but he’s responsible for the mortgage… People from the outside looking in don’t understand all these other things…You can’t really have a relationship with somebody when you can’t partner into something 50-50.
Ifelicious: I sense from Abram that selling the house would be something he would do at some point in time.
Cara Maria: Ya, we talked about that.
Ifelicious: So if he did that, then he’d have no strings attached financially, and who knows?
Cara Maria: But, I mean if I didn’t have my horse and he didn’t have the house, and we were both free, then we could be together in Mexico right now for all I care. I’m such the person to go travel and be free, but we both have heavy duty commitments and we both have to come up with [an income]. I mean, just because you’re on MTV doesn’t mean you’re rich.
Bitches and Cunts
Ifelicious: You guys love intensely and you fight intensely. Going back to that same clip on MTV put online, you’re whispering in his ears something like, ‘But you just called me a bitch and a cunt,’ and I was like ‘Whoa!’…What happened? Had you all been arguing earlier that day?
Cara Maria: Ya…I forget what we were arguing about that particular day. I don’t even know what sparked all that…We really do fight intensely, and I usually retreat when it comes to fighting with him, and I let him keep talking and talking and talking, and I need a break…Like we’re not obviously going to get this resolved right now so take a minute to sort your thoughts, breathe, take a second and then we’ll go back to it, and that’s what I meant when I said that…When I told him, ‘I like it better when you walk away,’ it’s because I needed that time for myself because he was going to keep yelling.
Ifelicious: That’s when I worry about you guys. If you get to a point, even in anger, calling each other names like that?
Cara Maria: Oh, I know, and I don’t. I will not yell at him. I will not say ‘fuck you’…Whenever, me and him argue, I sit back and I’m like, ‘Why are you calling me these names? You should never call anybody these names that you care about.’ I don’t believe in that.
Ifelicious: To me, that’s a really big deal.
Cara Maria: It’s not like that’s the first time he’s said it…and then when I try to explain where I’m coming from…it’s like he switches. He’s like a light switch, and he tweaks and he gets really angry, and he’s a really passionately angry person when he gets angry…and when I try to talk to him or try to explain something to him, he tells me to ‘shut up,’ and then he’ll talk for three hours straight.
Love is also a Two-Way Street
Ifelicious: That kind of arguing is not a two-way street. That doesn’t sound healthy, and I have no business weighing in but I’m going to weigh in just from what I hear you saying…You need to be able to argue [in a healthy way]…Imagine if you guys did live together.
Cara Maria: And he should listen, too. I listen to him when he talks…Granted this last one was the ugliest ever…I was telling him the meanest things I’ve never said to anybody…He did not say anything mean at all. He was just like apologetic and just basically like, ‘Well, you don’t want me. What am I supposed to do?’
Ifelicious: I will tell you the Sunday night Abram that I talked to was the most calm version of him that I’ve spoken to before…I might be tempted to say that he sounded a little bit broken…I was thinking, ‘This is interesting,’ because I know Abram to be very passionate about whatever it is that he’s talking about.
Cara Maria: There’s just some things that nobody understands. I could go on and talk for hours about how beautiful and wonderful he is and that the things that he’s done for me are above and beyond what any guy has ever done for me…He’s just passionate about what he does. If it’s love, he’s pure passion in the love; and when it’s anger, he’s pure passion in the anger. There seems to be no balance in the middle…He’ll get so mad at me for saying this, there’s a lot of jealousy and insecurity, I feel, from him…I would never touch anybody else, and I never even try to make him jealous…[but] he’ll try to make me jealous, and he’ll do stupid things, ridiculous things, and like God forbid, if I ever did any of that, the world would blow up for him…and it’s not fair. I feel like it’s a very one-sided relationship…Obviously, if everything was just beautiful and wonderful and amazing as it might look to some people on the outside…I would be with him…I don’t feel completely, 100% trust in him…I don’t feel completely safe with him…There’s something there that’s keeping my wall up.
Ifelicious: I would say trust your instincts. Just the few things you’ve mentioned tell me that you all need to learn to work through conflict.
Cara Maria: We did not learn to communicate on ‘Exes.’
The Poop Incident
Ifelicious: I do want to ask you about that whole jail and poop smear thing that came up with Abram last year while he was on his Star of Happiness book tour. I was like, ‘What on earth?’ I didn’t get to talk to you at that time.
Cara Maria: What’s screwed up is we had been talking. We had been writing each other, and I’d been crazy about him, and everything was going great for us at that point…The producers [from “The Challenge: Rivals“] wouldn’t tell me anything. They had actually hidden a couple of letters from him because he had written me one letter that said ‘Oh, I was in jail. No big deal, though’…[The producers] withheld it from me until after the ‘Rivals’ final. So me and Laurel [Stucky]…we got on the internet and we saw the article, and when I saw it, I was like ‘You’re fucking kidding me. Oh my God!…That is disgusting. That’s an embarrassment. That’s in my hometown, my friends.’ What the hell was he thinking?…I usually do this thing when I get back from a challenge, I like to stay gone and stay away from technology…I hadn’t told Abram that I was home. He had already known that I read about the shit incident. In the meantime, I find out from my friends that he was trying to take a friend home that night [of the poop incident]…I hate when he drinks…He turns into like this animal….When I finally talked to him about it…He’s always honest with me like he doesn’t hide and he doesn’t lie about it. That’s one good thing, but he admitted to sleeping with one girl and attempting to hook up with another two more girls or something before I came home [from ‘Rivals’]…and he’s yelling at me saying that ‘Well, you didn’t tell me that you were home!’ So he was in his head thinking that I hooked up with somebody from the show or something. He was just assuming the worst, and he had already fucked around on me.
Life in a Fishbowl
Cara Maria continues…
Cara Maria: There’s one thing that I want to say. [The Challenges] are about winning…If I was all lovey lovey with Abram, then people would say ‘She follows him around like a puppy dog’…and if I’m not lovey lovey with him, and if I’m doing my own thing, being independent, then I’m a bitch. Poor Abram is just giving his love to me and I’m being a cold hearted bitch. So there’s no pleasing anybody. Everybody’s got an opinion and I want to punch them all in the face.
(We laugh together)
Cara Maria: Ok, I’m done!
Ifelicious: It’s got to be frustrating…because [the show] airs on television, and you’ve got people watching every week who feel they’re experts.
Cara Maria: You don’t even know me. You see what’s edited on TV. You’re not behind closed doors with me and Abram. You don’t know what goes on, so don’t judge and don’t give me your opinion because it’s on TV. You think you know us; you don’t. This is a great therapy session. Thank you!
Ifelicious: Ha ha! That’s fine…I think it’s good for us to just have this as a conversation. Let’s just move on from the whole Abram topic.
Cara Maria: I don’t want to be all bad Abram. When he’s good, he’s good. He’s done, like I said, more than any other guy has done for me. He’s just this beautiful person when he’s loving and happy, but then there’s some moments where I’m like ‘I need to walk away.’
Ifelicious: Based on what you’ve shared, it sounds like Abram can be as much of a sweetheart as he can be difficult.
Cara Maria: I mean he’s a bastard…He said he was a bastard.
Ifelicious: Well, on that note, I’ll let you all work things out.
Even Exes Have Exes
Ifelicious: Have you ever dated anyone seriously since you and Abram met?
Cara Maria: No, since I met Abram, [he’s] the only one I’ve been with.
Ifelicious: Wow!
Cara Maria: There was one when we broke up after the poop incident that I did go back and sleep with an ex, because I don’t like new people..and then I realized that I didn’t really want to be with that person in the first place…So I really have only been with one other person once when me and Abram were not together, and he hangs that over my head despite all of the women he’s been with. Whatever.
Closing Topic: Making Loot
Ifelicious: What else are you doing outside of the show?
Cara Maria: I have the Etsy store.
Ifelicious: What are you doing to make a living? Are you just doing the appearances, or is there something else you do?
Cara Maria: Right now, just the appearances and bartending, but I’m really focusing on getting the pirate dreads to go bigger. To sell to Spencer’s and stuff…I was thinking to maybe get into some sewing…and maybe start sewing some clothes and designing stuff. Anything I can do with my hands.
There you have it! You deserve a gold star if you read this all the way through. 😉 Trust me, even this version is edited down, but I like to give y’all an in depth look at the folks we see on TV when they’re willing to give me the time. Thanks, Cara Maria! Let me tell you, she’s just a really kind spirit, and I hope whatever is meant to be between she and Abram will be.
Want more? Read all of my blog posts related to the the Challenges – CLICK HERE.
VIDEO: The Brynn Project interviews Cara Maria Sorbello
(on your cell? can’t can’t get the YouTube vid below to play? CLICK HERE to go directly to it on YouTube)
Related Links
- Ifelicious Thoughts– Interview Part 1/2: Cara Maria talks about MTV’s ‘The Challenge: Battle of the Exes’
- Crushable– Cara Maria Sorbello breaks up with ‘Challenge’ co-star Abram Boise following his arrest
- Stars Align.– MTV: Battle of the Exes – Crazy in Love (recap)
- PickTainment– The Challenge: Battle of the Exes Recap – “Where did our love go?”
VIDEO: The Rookie Bartender, Season 2, Episode 1
(on your cell? can’t can’t get the YouTube vid below to play? CLICK HERE to go directly to it on YouTube)
“‘The Rookie Bartender’ is a competition between four bartending students at The Poppin’ Bottles Bartending Academy who are trained by celebrity trainers: MTV’s Cara Maria Sorbello, Bad Girl Alum, Kate Squillace, Boston promoter Dave Branca and infamous Boston bartender and party-master Dre Haynes…”
[…] spoke Ifelicious about her relationship with Boise. And she noticed before she returned home from The challenge: […]