Bachelorette contestant Ian Thomson got fans fired up on Monday night when he told Kaitlyn Bristowe she was “shallow” and came on the show “to make out with a bunch of dudes on TV.”
Viewers won’t get to see how things end between Ian and Kaitlyn until Week 6 (June 22), but he’s already taking heat for what may have been a bad edit crafted by Bachelorette producers. To add to the anti-Ian rants online, a fake Twitter account was set up, making fans and the media believe that Ian was campaigning on social media to become the next Bachelor .
“Even before last night’s episode aired, Ian has been petitioning for Bachelorship all over Twitter, retweeting fans who have sent him messages of support and those who want to see him as The Bach.”
The Twitter account was set up prior to Monday night’s show, displaying the name “Ian T.” (account name @IanT21 ) along with a picture of Ian from his modeling days. According to the Princeton grad, he does not use Twitter, and he put in a request to have the fake account taken down — by Wednesday afternoon, the account was suspended.
Although it appeared on Monday night’s episode that Ian was the one being shallow, it’s quite possible that producers spliced sound bytes from various interviews together to make his words sound a lot more insulting than they were. The Bachelor franchise is known for giving cast members a bad edit, with the Washington Post calling producers out for manipulating not only the footage, but the contestants as well.
Ian’s former castmate, Josh Seiter, tells Radar Online that contestants on ABC’s popular reality show are given “scripted lines,” and their actions, even when talking to other contestants, are controlled by producers. Even more shocking is Seiter’s admission that it is the production team that makes the “final decision” as to who goes home and who stays on the show.
Some cast members, like this season’s drunk, Ryan McDill , don’t need an edit to create drama. However, any Bachelorette fan who watches the new Lifetime series, UnReal , will get a better understanding of what really goes on behind the scenes. Co-created by a former Bachelor producer , UnReal is not a reality show, but it is about a reality show similar to the Bachelor and the Bachelorette .
The series shows how a bit of production wizardry makes it easy for contestants, like Ian Thomson , to be portrayed as a self-centered know-it-all, instead of a confident man who seems to know what he wants — and it wasn’t the Bachelorette .
[Image: ABC]