Arie Luyendyk Jr. Says The Process Of ‘The Bachelor’ Isn’t ‘Natural’ And ‘Barely Works’

Former The Bachelor star Arie Luyendyk Jr. opened up about his experience with the reality television franchise on the Wednesday, June 10, episode of the Couple Things With Shawn and Andrew podcast. While Luyendyk was lucky enough to find lasting love on the show with his wife, Lauren Burnham, he does believe that the process the show uses is far from perfect and is unnatural, according to Us Weekly.

While Luyendyk ultimately had a happy ending during his season of the show, it was not without struggles. He initially proposed to Becca Kufrin, despite the fact that he still had strong feeling for Burnham. He received a lot of backlash when he later called off the engagement and pursued a relationship with Burnham.

The emotional breakup with Kufrin was televised, to further add to the drama. He now explains that his confusion in the end was due to the fact that his relationship with Burnham progressed very late into the process.

“I didn’t think she was that into me the whole beginning of the show, so I kind of let other relationships develop and then it got toward the end and I was like ‘Oh dang! She actually really likes me. And then it was just like, our relationship bloomed so late in that whole Bachelor world that, that’s why the ending got a little mixed up.”

He went on to discuss how much the process of The Bachelor weighs on a person emotionally, particularly at the end when they feel pressure to make a life-changing decision with little time and usually with having strong feelings for two different women.

The pressure often causes the lead to make the wrong decision, or to propose before being truly ready to get engaged. It is for this reason that Luyendyk feels that long lasting happy endings are hard to come by.

“It’s just, like, it’s not natural to have two people that you [have], at the end, and then have to break up with one person and get engaged to another person an hour later. It’s just so weird. It’s, like, no wonder it barely works,” he said.

In recent weeks, Luyendyk has been very vocal regarding what he feels are flaws within the process of The Bachelor. As The Inquisitr previously reported, he feels that while most people go into the show hoping for a perfect and happy ending like Sean Lowe and Catherine Giudici, this sort of outcome is rare.

Luyendyk and Burnham’s marriage is going smoothly and they welcomed their first child, Alessi, in 2019.