Get Up Close and Personal With Jillian Harris and Justin Pasutto

Jillian Harris crafts her dream home with partner Justin Pasutto, just in time for the two of them to dive headlong into parenthood

If you liked Jillian Harris on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, and on her current show, Love It or List It Vancouver, you’re sure to like her even more in the new reality series Jillian and Justin, airing Wednesdays on W Network.

The talented interior designer and television host brings viewers along on ?a personal and professional journey that she shares with boyfriend Justin Pasutto and their new baby, little Leo. The show follows the couple as they tackle the challenges of first-time parenthood ?and building their forever home, while meeting the demands of their careers and relationship. And anyone who follows Harris on social media already knows that she won’t shy away from difficult moments, bloating or blotchy skin, so you can expect plenty of honesty for the cameras in the way of diaper-changing and relationship stresses.

“Originally, we had just wanted to pitch kind of a design show about us building our house,” says Harris. “My mindset originally was when you have a house-building show on TV, you can get maybe your appliances for free… We’d get our house done and that’d be great. But after the cameras started filming us for a few days, the network came back to us and said they wanted to change the scope and wanted it to be a documentary style.”

At the beginning, they were both on board. After all, as mentioned, Harris isn’t shy about sharing on social media. But then she realized that unlike her Instagram account, the show would have producers and directors deciding what would be best for the audience to see. For example: the moment when Justin and Jillian head to the hospital for the birth of their first child. “That was never the plan,” says Harris. “The crew was supposed to be ?in Vancouver. I was due two weeks later and we were filming stuff with our house and I had worked 14 hours that day in heels… I remember saying to the crew, ‘I can’t work like this anymore.’ And they said, ‘Tomorrow is your last day and we will be out of your hair and you can be on maternity leave.’”

An hour later, Harris’s water broke. Justin didn’t call the hospital he called the film crew to come back. “This is the juicy stuff,” says Pasutto. “This is what the show is supposed to be all about.”

“So we all piled into the car and I was so embarrassed walking into the hospital… with two camera guys, two sound guys, a producer, my dad, my makeup artist, my cousin, Justin,” Harris laughs. “It was amazing. But I wouldn’t have traded it for anything else.”

And while this type of attention ?has been semi-normal for Harris since she burst upon the scene in 2009 as a standout on The Bachelor, it’s all new to Pasutto. “I had no idea what to expect and was just along for the ride,” says Pasutto. “I thought it would be fun and I didn’t know what the consequences would be in a bad way. So I was like ‘Yeah, let’s get a camera in here.’”

That right there is the attitude that makes docu-reality so entertaining.

Watch Jillian and Justin on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on W Network