“The Bachelor” producers try make a girl cry for no particular reason
Chris Spags I’m not going to pretend that most of our readers (myself included) are keeping up with ABC’s chick hit “The Bachelor”. But sometimes interesting things happen on there…this is one of those times. On last night’s episode, producers booked the Bachelor Brad Womack on a group date to a NASCAR ride. Small problem: One girl’s former fiance was a NASCAR driver who died in 2004.
“Bachelor” contestant Emily Maynard announced on a previous “heart-wrenching” episode that she lost her fiance, NASCAR driver Ricky Hendrick, to a plane crash in 2004 — mere days before she found out she was pregnant.
Womack, ever the astute man, noticed that Emily was smiling to stifle back tears throughout the entire ordeal. When he pulls her aside to talk, Emily reveals that the race track they were on was actually the one her ex-fiance crashed on, ending his racing career.
Some “Bachelor” fans are outraged the show would do something so blatantly manipulative. The show’s host, Chris Harrison, took to the “Bachelor” blog on Entertainment Weekly to say:
“I’m not telling you at this point that we were completely naïve and didn’t know her story and that we didn’t discuss the situation. What we eventually decided to do is what we always decide to do when faced with situations like this: Don’t mess with the true emotion and situation. You need to remember that Brad who helped us decide who goes on what dates still had no idea the full extent of Emily’s story, and that information couldn’t come from us.
“It turned out to be extremely symbolic and therapeutic for her to get in that car and take those laps for Ricky and herself.”
You’ve got to give the girl credit. That’s a pretty rough set-up to have to endure. And you have to feel for Brad Womack for being thrust into something like this…I mean, it takes a pretty wounded gazelle of a woman to want to marry a guy on a reality show in the first place, but to foist potential crazy upon him like that with no warning is just shitty all around.
At the same time, despite how the host is spinning it, I have to imagine that the producers were throwing down headsets when Emily didn’t burst into tears during her laps around the track and come back to cause additional drama. It was the saddest time that the “triumphant woman in a ‘Lifetime’ original production” music had ever been used.
‘Bachelor’ Host Defends Putting Emily on Emotional NASCAR Date [THR]
Chris Harrison blogs ‘The Bachelor’ episode 5 [EW]
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