One can only imagine the betrayal that Becca Kufrin must have felt during Arie’s brutal breakup, all captured on camera and broadcast to the world.
But now, Arie is speaking up — about his decision to dump Becca and propose to Lauren. And the decision to film it.
And as it turns out, Arie says that he feels betrayed — by the producers. He claims that things were “completely edited.”
In a new interview with GQ, Arie tells the interviewer that he was “haunted” by the thought that, in choosing Becca, he’d allowed his soul mate to slip away.
So he called Lauren on New Year’s Eve.
“As soon as I heard her voice,” he says.
“I knew that I had to end things with Becca.”
Instead of simply breaking things off with Becca, though, Arie apparently went to producers first.
He says that they were the ones who pitched bringing in cameras.
Arie says that these silver-tongued producers talked him into bringing in the cameras by promising him that this was the best way to move forward.
By filming it, they allegedly told him, he would be able to show the Bachelor Nation that he was just being honest to his feelings while being respectful of Becca’s.
Arie says that they told him:
“‘Then we can show you going back to Lauren, and people are going to rally behind you because you took this big risk and you did it for love."”
He says that the producers persuaded him by assuring him that people would be on his side.
“‘At the end of the day, people will just want to see you happy."”
Obviously, very few people are invested in Arie’s happiness these days, even though he and Lauren have announced their wedding date and venue.
“You’ve got to understand,” Arie tells the interviewer. “These people were my friends.”
This, he says, is why he trusted them. But he now feels “100 percent” betrayed.
Then, Arie has some damning words to share about the actual breakup scene with Becca.
You know, the one hailed as “the first completely unedited scene in reality television history” by ABC’s promotions?
Arie says that this was hogwash.
“It was completely edited,” he accuses.
The 40 minute segment was agonizing to watch, and he suggests that it was intended to be that way from the beginning.
“I was told to stay on that couch.”
We guess that we know what Arie would do if the Milgram experiment were performed today.
“I tried to leave, and then production was like, ‘You need to go back inside. She’s finally calming down. I feel like you owe it to her to have this conversation."”
Good advice? Maybe not. But production’s job is to make good television, not to be your life coach.
“So then I went back in the house.”
He confirms that production tried to discourage him from leaving.
“Yeah. I left, came back. I stepped away from the couch, I went back to the couch.”
But the Bachelor Nation didn’t see that part.
“They cut out, obviously, production talking to me from 10 feet away.”
Arie says that, by editing out their instructions for him to remain, the resulting video “was super unfair to me.”
But he does acknowledge that, you know, this is how reality television works.
“It’s their job to make it entertaining for people.”
It is interesting to hear that Arie is trying to cast of blame to make himself look better.
Just because something was someone else’s suggestion doesn’t mean that you are blameless for doing it.
And they would have had to try harder to make him look insensitive if he had come across as more compassionate.
