The Bachelor has been breaking hearts and ratings records since its debut in 2002.
The reality TV series follows one man on his quest to choose the love of his life from
a pool of lovely contestants.
It's rife with drama, but how much of this fairy tale is fiction?
Do you really want to know?
Crafting a love story
Chris Bukowski has appeared on so many seasons of the franchise, that in 2015 he announced:
"So I am formally retiring from reality TV.
It's finally time to hang up the roses."
He has since claimed the series derailed his life goals, damaged relationships with his
family, and misconstrued his true identity, telling the Cut,
"You can be on that show and not say a word, and they can do whatever they want to you.
I mean, they took me and made every kind of character out of me, and I signed up for it."
It's not the only time the producers have crafted the story.
Fans may also remember Courtney Robertson, from Season 16, as the wild girl who went
skinny-dipping with Ben.
But she later told the New York Post that the infamous moment wasn't as spontaneous
as it seemed.
"Let's liven it up, let's get this party started."
Robertson says producers made her sneak into Ben's hotel room.
The skinny-dipping was her idea, but the moment was orchestrated behind the scenes.
Totally closed off
Former contestants say isolation is often used to manipulate the "reality" of the show.
Melissa Rycroft, the fiancée who was dumped by bachelor Jason Mesnick in favor of the
runner-up on Season 13, told The Cut that contestants endure complete isolation during
their time in the mansion.
And Leslie Hughes, who appeared on Season 17, backed this claim up, telling the Daily
Beast that she had to give up her cell phone, computer, and magazines.
She said,
“We have nothing.
We are completely cut off from the world.
We have to talk to each other—we have nothing else to do.”
Tracking contestants' cycles
LA Times writer Amy Kaufman dropped her tell-all, Bachelor Nation, in 2018.
And per USA Today, one of the book's shocking claims is that producers track the women's
menstrual cycles to maximize the feels.
Former producer Ben Hatta said,
"It helped the producers because now you've got someone who is emotional — and all you
want is emotion."
The book claims producers also place enormous pressure on contestants to get engaged.
"Katherine...Will you marry me?"
"Yes."
2008 Bachelorette winner Jesse Csincsak told Kaufman,
"There is no 'What if I don't propose' option.
It's just 'Here's the ring.
Go give it to her.'"
Life in the mansion
You'd think living on an opulent estate would come with some perks.
But Hughes told the Daily Beast,
"We have to do our own cooking, our own laundry.
[…] We do everything you would do when you're at home, except be able to go outside […]"
The women revealed to Glamour that they are even expected to bring hair supplies, clothes,
and makeup from home.
"We've got my racy, vulgar swimsuit.
It will have all the guys going crazy."
"Well, there's only one."
And then, the women endure "cramped living quarters," and share two "tiny bathroom areas."
But there is one thing the production supplies: All the alcohol contestant's can drink.
Hughes said,
"It's how they get you to be more talkative, more sensitive.
[…] They were like, 'You want some champagne, wine?'
And I was like, 'It's 12 p.m., noon!'
And they're like, 'Welcome to the Bachelor family.'"
The grueling rose ceremony
Once upon a time there was a rose ceremony, that took a few suspenseful minutes to watch…and
up to 13 hours to film.
"Dominique will you accept this rose."
"Gladly."
Hughes dished the deets on the excruciating shoot, telling the Daily Beast,
"[The first night] was very long.
We didn't start until 7 at night and we didn't finish until 8 in the morning!"
Show director Ken Fuchs also told The Hollywood Reporter,
"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, so that takes time."
The UnREAL deal
UnREAL is a Lifetime satirical drama series that follows a young reality TV producer and
her attempts to keep her integrity intact as her boss forces her to make the show as
salacious as possible.
"Welcome to Everlasting."
"Get me some bitch interviews, now."
But if UnREAL seems too "real" for some, that's because series creator Sarah Gertrude Shapiro
worked as a producer on The Bachelor for three years.
"In my early twenties I had a day job in reality TV.
It was this crazy, horrible time in my life."
Shapiro described her job on The Bachelor, telling The New Yorker it was,
"[Getting contestants to] open up, and to give them terrible advice, and to deprive
them of sleep."
Shapiro said she would flat out lie to women she knew were about to be sent packing, revealing,
"The night they were going to get dumped, I would go to the hotel room where they were
staying and say, 'I'm going to lose my job for telling you this, but he's going to pick
you — he's going to propose."
When the loser left in the limo, Shapiro revealed that she joined them with "jalapeños or lemons
hidden in her jacket pocket" to get those tears flowing by any means necessary.
"If she's not feeling it, we make her feel it."