If you think THE BACHELOR and it’s sister-show, THE BACHELORETTE, are feel-good shows full of love and romance, you must have missed this week’s 20/20 “expose” that went behind the scenes of the popular reality show. But during the course of the special, creator/executive producer Mike Fleiss exposed not only his own complete and total heartlessness, but the truth behind one of television’s most mysogonistic hours. Don’t take our word for it… here’s what he had to say.
“Let him blow both of the girls out of the water and I think that might be cool.”
That’s Fleiss’ take on the shocking moment in which season 11’s Brad Womack went into the finale knowing he was not going to choose either of the final two women. That’s right, ripping out the hearts of two women was “cool” to the show’s head honcho.
“We are very careful in our casting to develop characters that the audience is going to root for and root against.”
Fleiss admits that his show has less to do with “reality” than it does making good television. Which is all fine and good… if a few moments later he hadn’t claimed that the whole premise was romance and the search for love.
“There is sex. You know, there’s not a ton of it. I think the average is that the guy will wind up having sex with about three women during the course of the show.”
Explain to us again why season 14’s Rozlyn Papa was booted from the show for allegedly having “inappropriate relations” with a producer?
“Whether or not someone is there for the ‘right’ reasons, you really don’t know until they start crying.”
Fleiss made this claim only 15 minutes after admitting that producers knew from the start that crooner Wes was interested in landing a record deal as opposed to finding love with THE BACHELORETTE’s Jillian.
“To deprive [the audience] of that moment would have been unfair.”
Fleiss rationalizing the decision to let season 13’s Melissa Rycroft get dumped on camera without warning her in advance that Jason Mesnick had opted to replace her with runner-up Molly Malaney. 