The Bachelor franchise is a reality TV staple and bonafide cultural phenomenon.
As with pretty much all reality TV though, there are things going on behind the scenes
that viewers aren't privy to.
It's time to separate rumors from facts.
These are false things to stop believing about the Bachelor franchise.
Yes, for the first 16 seasons of The Bachelor, the lead never ended up married to his final
pick.
A couple of Bachelors - Jason Mesnick and Arie Luyendyk Jr. - have married their runners-up
after realizing they'd made a mistake, and are happily married.
Still, The Bachelor admittedly has a pretty shoddy record in terms of successful couples.
The Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise, though, are a different story.
The Bachelorette has about a 30 percent success rate for its final couples, according to HuffPost,
which is pretty good considering The Bachelor's 11 percent.
For example, former Bachelorette Ashley Hebert married her final pick J.P. Rosenbaum.
The couple has two children together and even renewed their vows in August 2018.
JoJo Fletcher and Jordan Rodgers are another one of the franchise's power couples who've
even scored their own house-flipping show.
Paradise can also take credit for a number of successful couples.
Clearly, finding love on the Bachelor franchise is tough, but not impossible.
"Incredibly emotional.
Very tough.
The same day that I got engaged I had a break-up.
And that normally doesn't happen."
The proposal on a Bachelor franchise show wasn't always a staple.
Several of the early Bachelor seasons ended with a promise to keep dating, not an engagement
ring.
The norm of proposing every season began with Season 12.
Juan Pablo was the only one to not propose to his final pick after that point, until
we get to famous fence-jumper Colton Underwood.
Underwood broke all the rules when it looked like contestant Cassie Randolph would leave
the show before making it to the final two.
He flat-out told her, quote, "At the end of this, I want it to be you."
Eventually, the two reconciled and ended the season not with an engagement, but with a
budding relationship.
Underwood told Today,
"The show has a stigma of you know, 'Hey, you end in an engagement,' so we initially
felt like we always had to defend our relationship,"
Underwood's decision, along with Bachelorette Hannah Brown's decision to break up with her
fiancé Jed at the end of her season, has led to a discussion of whether or not the
show should even end with an engagement at all.
For those who don't know, the Bachelor franchise fantasy suite dates occur when there are only
three contestants left.
The lead and the contestants spend time away from the cameras, and it's presumed to be
where they have intimate relations.
And with the way the episodes often play out, it looks like the lead goes from one fantasy
suite to the next, but that's misleading.
Former Bachelorette Andi Dorfman wrote in a column for The Hollywood Reporter,
"What people likely don't realize is that the fantasy suites are stretched out over
a two-week timespan.
It does come in one quick episode, but this isn't back-to-back like viewers see."
This makes much more sense for the filming process and for the lead's mental well-being.
Dorfman explained,
"Sure, most of the time there's intimacy involved.
But it's not just physical, it's emotional as well.
The experience is a kind of unveiling of the fantasy, in an ironic way.
Cut the cameras, cut the microphone: it's just you two and you get to see the true side
of this person behind closed doors."
With every televised engagement, there is, of course, an engagement ring.
All the rings for the Bachelor franchise are designed by Neil Lane, a Hollywood jeweler
who has been working with the popular shows for over a decade.
The rings are no joke, and they are incredibly valuable.
Therefore, it makes sense that the producers want to protect the investment.
Bachelor Nation couples must stay together for at least two years to be able to keep
the ring.
If they do not, they must give the ring back, as per their contracts.
For example, Bachelorette Jillian Harris had to give back her $60,000 ring once her relationship
crumbled.
Every single cocktail party on The Bachelor means a new dress for all the female contestants.
Looking your best on all these dates isn't easy or cheap.
Jillian Harris shared on her blog,
"I remember when I went on the show we got goodie bags filled with some stuff that they
wanted us to wear but half of it didn't even fit.
And that was it!
[...] I had re-mortgaged my house and I spent something like $8,000 on clothing."
After doing research, E! News concluded that women spend somewhere in the $1,800 to $8,000
range before they get to the mansion.
Former contestant Sarah Herron told E!,
"I spent way more on my first season of The Bachelor than I did on the shows after because
through my first experience I learned that self-confidence actually goes a lot further
than a designer dress."
Hopefully, Herron's advice will save some future female contestants a bit of money...
and luggage space.
"No regrets.
I had a lot of fun."
The rose ceremonies are the climax of each Bachelor franchise episode, adding anticipation.
But the ceremony isn't exactly like it looks like on TV.
Former Bachelor Sean Lowe shared with Glamour,
"On TV, what you see is I hand out a rose, the girl comes forward and accepts it, and
then I hand out another rose.
In reality, there's about three to five minutes in between each rose because all 15 cameras
have to re-position.
That first night lasts until about seven A.M., and then each one after that lasts until about
three or four."
The rose ceremonies take place after an already long night of meeting the 25 people eager
to get to know you and then deciding who stays.
Show director Ken Fuchs shared with The Hollywood Reporter,
"There's a lot of women that the bachelor needs to meet.
Forget about doing a TV show, if you were in some situation where you were going to
meet 25 women and at the end of the night select a handful to go home, you want to sort
of get a sense of who's who and what's what."
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