When two women are fighting to be the biggest Bachelor villain, no one wins.

Before we delve into this, I want everyone to do some breathing exercises.

Breathe iiiinnnnnnn and breathe oooooouuuuuttttttt (and repeat 10 times).

Okay, ready? We will get through this together.

For those unaware, there is a currently a very public fight going on between The Bachelor 2016’s self proclaimed villain Keira Maguire and The Bachelor 2017’s latest villain, Jen Hawke. We really should have seen this coming, because “cat fights” automatically happen whenever two humans with fallopian tubes collide.

Duh! It’s basic biology. Don’t blame me, blame science.

Anyway, here’s a recap of what’s happened in the last 24 hours…

The pair have been trading swipes online for what feels like the entire season, but tension really ramped up when Keira, 31, debriefed Thursday night’s episode on her Instagram account.

Amongst the hashtags #sheneedstogo and #delusional, Keira also described Jen, a 27-year-old marketing manager, as “such a nasty piece of work” in a video shared via her Instagram Story.

When Jen walked off the show for good, Keira told her 53,000 followers: “I’m so excited. Oh, bye Felicia, don’t trip on the way out.

“She’s not even worthy of getting a car, she’s so delusional. Walk home, b*tch.”

On Friday morning, Jen addressed the comments during an interview with The Daily Telegraph, telling the publication that Keira is “trying to cling onto some limelight for a little bit longer.”

“All I could think was ‘Seriously babe, you haven’t extended your vocabulary in a year, you can’t move beyond that scope’,” Jen said.

“So when I see her face, I think I can’t even dumb myself down to deal with this chick.”

Phew, okay. So that’s where the ‘public feud’ currently stands. Did we all make it through unscathed? Are everyone’s teeth intact after all that clenching?

It’s all so messy. So… b*tchy. And, well, a little surprising.

It’s a fact that Australia loved watching both Keira and Jen’s stints on our television screens. Without their glorious facial expressions and cutting remarks – without them expertly playing up for the cameras and producers – the show would be a complete bore. We would be swamped with soppy snogs and saccharine soliloquies and blergh. 

Without our beloved villains, the fun would be lost. Ratings would likely plummet. And The Bachelor would die a slow, irrelevant death.

That’s why the Keiras and Jens of the world score the largest social media followings and are always called on to star in I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! – the public love them. We can’t get enough of them. And so, we watch. Again and again and again.

Why? Because we’re clever enough to know this “reality television” isn’t really reality at all. This is all a carefully curated production; one that necessitates the ‘the mean girl’, just as it necessitates ‘the crazy one’, ‘the ditzy one’ and ‘the ultimate girl next door’. This is a production, and Keira and Jen are driving the narrative. And when it’s done, they’ll pack up their things and go back to the real world, giggling at that dumb show and its silly premise.

Listen: Zara McDonald and I debrief last night’s episode of The Bachelor on Bach Chat. (Post continues…)

Both women played a role while locked in that bizarre lady prison, and they played it well.

So what are they doing with this ‘feud’? In perpetuating this villain dialogue long after the many candles were blown out, Osher loosened his tie, and the cameras turned away, what are they saying?

That women really are nasty? That we can’t get along? That we tear each other down at every turn? That being the b*tchiest is some kind of gold star to fasten to your designer activewear?

It isn’t. It’s not.

Perhaps – probably – both women are simply living out what we demand of them, a self-fulfilling prophecy determined by tabloids and trash mags who fail to see that the curtains have closed, and the show has ended. Keira and Jen doing what we ask of them – and the insatiable appetite for every new juicy detail – only fuels the ‘feud’ that the media created further.

But, ultimately, there’s a difference between on-air drama and off-air bullying.

Actually, there’s a gaping chasm between the two.