ABC
Of course, I watched the show anyway! And I'm here to say: They delivered -- to an extent. Although we got no more dish on what really happened between Rozlyn Papa and the mysterious ABC producer who lost his job over her, I give creator and exec producer Mike Fleiss credit for confirming some long-suspected, behind-the-scenes details.
1. Why Jake picked Vienna Girardi: 20/20 cohost Chris Connelly explained, "Tenley just didn't seem to be able to unfasten Jake's seatbelt quite like Vienna…Proof to some of a time-honored Bachelor love lesson: 'Lust conquers all.'"
2. There are two private, camera-free rooms in the mansion. Former season 4 contestant (and ABC special correspondent) Melissa Rycroft showed viewers one, the master bathroom, where she said "we would get ready together for dates and rose ceremonies," and revealed, "We were our own chefs, our own housekeepers, and our own makeup artists.” Touring the bedrooms, we saw a shockingly small closet five women share. For two months, contestants are in "total isolation from the outside world. No laptops, no ipods, no tvs, no phones."
3. Host Chris Harrison used to think his scripted lines were stupid. "For a while I fought it," he said. "Everyone knows there’s one rose. This is stupid. I don’t want to say, ‘This is your final rose tonight.’ But now I embrace it."
4. Season 1 Bachelorette Trista and Ryan Sutter's wedding cost nearly $4 million, and the couple pocketed a cool million on top. Six years later, they live a private life in Colorado, where he's a firefighter, and she's a stay-at-home mom to 2-year-old Max and 8-month-old Blakesley.
5. Good TV trumps all. After a season 1 clip, when a contestant's panic attack required an ambulance, Fleiss said, "We weren’t sure going into the series whether or not the women would really care, whether they would really compete for the love of one guy.... And once we started seeing girls hyperventilating and what not, we knew it was working." And on his seemingly heartless decision to let Rycroft get dumped on national TV, he said, "
6. But at least Fleiss admitted -- finally someone admitted! -- the contestants aren't all there to find romance.
7. Another revealing exchange came when Connelly asked, "Why do so few women just walk away?" He put this excellent query to a relationship therapist. "It's the group dynamic," replied the therapist. "People are all geared around 'how can I stay,' and 'how can I win?' So it seems very counterintuitive to think, 'How can I get out of here?'”
The most intriguing answer to that question came from Rycroft. "This is gonna sound terrible, but I wasn’t attracted to Jason [Mesnick]," she said. "If I were to meet him on the street and be single, I don’t think that we would ever date. But put in the circumstances that we were, I thought he was the greatest thing to drop from heaven.'"
8. The producers have changed their ideas about the key to the show. "The initial thought [was] that we had to have real love and a marriage," Fleiss said. "Now we know that’s not necessarily true. It’s really based on whether or not [the viewers] like the guy and hate the girls…
9. Ever wondered whether contestants are drinking heavily? "Champagne, tequila, beer, red wine, white wine," said Fleiss. "I don’t think it plays any more of a role than it does in dating situations just in general." Estella Gardinier of season 4 joked about an average day: "Wake up. Go to the margarita machine. Take a nap. Go to the margarita machine. Say hi to the girls. Go to the margarita machine."
10. And the question we've all been dying to ask: Do the Bachelors have sex with the women?
"I heard they called me the Kissing Bandit," Guiney said. "Ultimately it was like you know just trying to figure out if you had a romantic connection." Uh-huh, sure, Bob.
Plus:
- Bachelor Jake Had 'No Doubt' Vienna Was the One
- The Bachelor Finale: And the Final Rose Goes to...
- The Bachelor Tell-All: The Return of Rozlyn
- Bachelor Jake Will Be on Dancing with the Stars!
What revelation surprised you last night on 20/20's 'Inside the Bachelor: Stories Behind Rose'?
