Host of “The Bachelor” Chris Harrison is used to exaggerating, but when he said Monday “This isn’t like any ‘Women Tell All’ episode I’ve been a part of,” there was a ring of truth of it.
Honesty, after all, was a theme of the two hour show, the traditional precursor for the finale. And while most such sessions feature women weeping and asking for explanations why they weren’t chosen, this one was dominated by women who frankly didn’t like the guy and seemed happy they got the heck out of there.
In the past two weeks, there have been more women who left on their own volition than were rejected by the Bachelor in question Juan Pablo.
None regretted it.
The show began with an interview with the previous bachelor and his wife, who not only courted on TV but were married on it as well, less than two months ago. Seems a little early to check up on them, but the show is always happy to trot out one of the very few success stories created by the program, so here they were again to face embarrassing questions from Harrison, who asked how their wedding night went.
“Fireworks,” Sean said.
“Quick fireworks,” amended his bride, Katherine.
It was funnier than the second time waster of the night, an interview with Piggy and Kermit to promote their latest Muppet movies.
It was 10 minutes into the show before the women were allowed to speak out, and when they did we got an earful.
Like Andi, who walked out after a night in the fantasy suite went sour, the others had similar complaints about how uninterested Juan Pablo seemed to be in them. “Our conversations were pretty surfacy,” Danielle said.
Cassandra said he never tried to find out even the littlest things about contestants: where they went to school, what their favorite color or kind of pizza they liked.
It was more like he was trying to find someone to date rather than marry or be stepmother to his child. Maybe he was also using his child as an excuse for many things.
Sharleen, the Canadian who was the first woman to quit the show this season, when there were just five women left, was more charitable. They had some good conversations. “I thought he was curious,” she said. By which she meant he kept asking questions about what it was like to live abroad when she was an opera singer in Germany.
She didn’t regret leaving. “I knew he wasn’t the one for me ultimately,” she said. “We didn’t get each other completely.”
And as for making her choice to leave, she made an important point that Harrison and everyone else chose to ignore: “Its a two-way street.” That is: women have as much right to reject the man as he does them. Rose or no rose.
Andi was a little more harsh saying Juan Pablo’s comments to her had “a lot of negativity,” and some comments were “entirely inappropriate and rude” and “made me feel cheap.”
That mostly came when he talked about how Andi just barely made it, or that he had spent the previous night with Clare.
When Juan Pablo finally came out, he was still not that great in defending himself. “I’ve been honest dine day one with all of you,” he said. “And sometimes that can feel a little rude.
“It’s going to hurt when you’re honest to somebody,” he said. “It’s definitely going to hurt.”
Some told him he didn’t feel very engaged and many didn’t feel like they were in individual relationships of any kind with him. Another said he should stop using his English skills as an excuse not to explain himself better.
And Kelly had a complaint about the comment Juan Pablo made to a reporter at the TV Critics Association winter press tour ABC party that gay people shouldn’t be on The Bachelor because “they’re more ‘pervert’ in a sense.”
“Coming from a parent who is gay,” Kelly said, tears in her eyes, “I was hurt by that.”
The situation was taken out of context, he said (though the full interview released at the time clearly showed that it was not). And he had a lot of gay friends.
After a while you started to feel sorry for the two remaining women who may be stuck with him, Clare and Nikki. Presumably they’re still out in St. Lucia waiting the finale, or so TV would have you believe. Actually that’s all been shot and in the can for months and next week they let you know if his choice is still with him or if there was even a choice at all.
There are shots of both women in tears in the coming attractions and the Harrison promise that the finale will be “something we’ve never seen before.”
The way this was going, it may be that both women reject him and he’s left twirling the stupid rose.