It has always been rumored that if The Bachelors do not cooperate with ABC during their reign, ABC will make it their mission to soil their star. In fact, Jason Mesnick confirmed this in his most recent podcast, in which he admitted to a pressured proposal, along with series creator “Mike Fleiss standing over him waving a check in his face in exchange for such cooperation.” For the first time in history, ABC failed to manipulate its star, whose on-air beating exceeded even my worst expectations.
While I’ve always known that Chris Harrison’s personal paycheck likely justifies his cooperation on this crazy train, I had no idea the lengths he’d go to retaliate. If you missed ABC’s ‘After the Final Rose’ special, Juan Pablo Galavis picked Nikki Ferrell over Clare Crawley, and their post-show interview entailed pummeling questions from Harrison about whether Juan Pablo was in love with Nikki. Though Nikki admitted her love, Juan Pablo did not, and Harrison refused to relent, even declaring Juan Pablo’s love for him. To take it one step further, Harrison said, “I don’t know what I’m looking at,” implying that if their relationship status didn’t involve love, then it was far beyond Harrison’s comprehension. As an aside, Harrison is now single. I’m curious whether he declares love after four months of dating, and I’m even more curious how he’d handle getting sandbagged by a show determined to execute his downfall. As for the mysteriously rude comment Juan Pablo made to Clare, since none of us know it’s content, we can’t judge. Furthermore, it’s curious that Clare was ready to wed this man, and her hindsight judgment is only unfavorable upon rejection. Gee . . . that’s the first time I’ve seen that happen.
I know that Juan Pablo Galavis is a flawed star with issues of his own. I also know he got an unfavorable edit, and that Chris Harrison’s behavior on After the Final Rose was wildly inappropriate. The real lunacy of this show has always been it’s fast-track to love and inauthentic on-air proposals. After years of watching such unnatural courtships, we finally find the guy that simply wants to date the chick he chose. It seems the only person that doesn’t understand what that looks like is Chris Harrison.