Bachelor Nation tell-all proves how gross reality show production can be

The Bachelor has delivered tales of romance and heartbreak for 35 seasons. Now, you can read all the dirty secrets behind ABC’s reality franchise.

Fans are still recovering from The Bachelor‘s all too recent shocker of Arie Luyendyk Jr. proposing to Becca, then dumping her for Lauren. But it seems the entire nation is ready for some spilled Bachelor tea.

Los Angeles Times writer Amy Kaufman is giving readers a peek into ABC’s hit show with her book, Bachelor Nation: Inside the World of America’s Favorite Guilty Pleasure.

Ingredients for this tea include new details and confessions about the reality show plus in-depth interviews with former contestants, producers and celebrity fans.

Here are some of the book’s biggest shockers revealed thus far. It’s safe to say we’re still trying to get our jaws off the floor.

For starters, producers kept track of contestants’ menstruation cycles. Let that just settle (if possible) for a moment.

Seriously, producers kept track of when women would be on their period and scheduled their “In the Moment” interviews based on that. Following the worst of stereotypes, they hoped women would be more emotional in interviews. Worse, former producer Ben Hatta says they thought contestants would confess their love while on their cycle.

If this doesn’t sound sleazy enough, producers were paid cash for drama. Kaufman details how supervising producer Scott Jeffress had $100 bills at the ready, dishing it out to producers who could get a contestant to cry or capture an intimate moment.

Former contestant Brooks Forester shocked Bachelor fans when he left Desiree Hartstock days before the Bachelorette‘s final rose ceremony. When he spoke to Kaufman about the show, he said producers pressed him to discuss personal details so he’d be more emotional.

Per usual with reality shows, those moments were edited in a way to best fit the show’s storyline.

“They’d try to get me to talk about something from my childhood, for example, or say something really personal about a family member… then try to attach that to what’s happening in the world of The Bachelor,” Forester said.

Sharleen Joynt, a contestant during Juan Pablo Galavis’ season, said she was made uncomfortable when told to say she was falling in love with Galavis.

This resulted in her ITM to last an hour instead of the usual 20 minutes. In the end, she admits she just said lines “verbatim from producers because I’d been sitting in a stupid room for an hour and just wanted to go.”

Will this book topple the The Bachelor and its sister show The Bachelorette? Or will fans rally no matter what they learn. In the spirit of positivity, Kaufman’s book could be what the show needs to freshen (and clean) things up.

Need more Bachelor spilled tea? Pick up Bachelor Nation today.

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