With the announcement that Nick Viall is the leading man for The Bachelor Season 21, the answer of what happens with Nick and Jen Saviano at the end of Bachelor in Paradise Season 3 was pretty much given away. Currently on the spin-off, Nick and Jen are coupled up and have been since her arrival a few weeks back. A preview for next week’s two-night finale shows Nick meeting with jeweler Neil Lane and saying that he and Jen can be the next couple to leave Paradise engaged. Yet the preview also shows Nick unhappily breaking down in tears as Jen hugs him at the engagement podium. With Nick as the next Bachelor , Nick’s relationship with Jen obviously didn’t work out.
#TheBachelor feels like a better title than runner-up. Congratulations @viallnicholas28! pic.twitter.com/cj43cHujXw
— Bachelor in Paradise (@BachParadise) August 31, 2016
A day prior to filming the finale, Nick spoke to Glamour in Playa Escondida, Mexico. During the interview, published on Wednesday, Nick talked about Jen, as well as his past relationships with Andi Dorfman and Kaitlyn Bristowe.
Regarding his first impressions of Jen, Nick admitted that he didn’t really remember Jen from her time on Ben Higgins’ season of The Bachelor , during which she was eliminated early on and hardly had any camera time, but that he was very curious about her because of her physical beauty. Nick, who described Jen as naturally gorgeous and stunning, said that Jen’s arrival on Paradise came at a good time for him.
Crabs! ???? #BachelorInParadise pic.twitter.com/BBPARrqYYf
— Bachelor in Paradise (@BachParadise) August 17, 2016
“I don’t know if you’ve met Jen, but she’s gorgeous, stunning, one of the more naturally beautiful girls I’ve ever met. So, from a physical standpoint, I was very curious about her. I didn’t know too much, so fortunately for me, she showed up at a point where honestly I was getting a little tired of being here…at that point I was like, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ And then Jen shows up, and we instantly hit it off.”
Nick said that Jen has been great, before admitting that his feelings have developed slower this time than his previous times on the franchise.
“She’s been great, and I’m really lucky to have met her and have this connection with her, but it is different for me. I’m kind of known as the guy that says screw it and goes for it, and I think during my time here, I’ve had a little more pause.”
When asked how Jen Saviano is different from Andi and Kaitlyn, Nick gave an answer that hinted that his feelings for Jen aren’t as strong as they were for Andi and Kaitlyn and that he wasn’t ready to propose to Jen. As the franchise’s fans are well aware of, Nick proposed to Andi on The Bachelorette Season 10, only to be turned down in favor of Josh Murray. Nick then returned to show to pursue the next Bachelorette, Kaitlyn. Again, he proposed but was left heartbroken when she chose Shawn Booth instead.
“Jen is incredibly different from them. I am kind of holding off my answers in terms of [forever] because I have some soul-searching to do and decision-making. I definitely see a lot of potential with Jen, and honestly I’m not quite sure how I’m going to approach the finale.”
Does Nick Viall still harbor any feelings for Andi Dorfman or Kaitlyn Bristowe? While Nick was clearly heartbroken both times when Andi and Kaitlyn declined his marriage proposal, Nick now believes that it worked out for the best. He said that he was “very lucky” that Andi and Kaitlyn made the decisions that they did.
“I don’t deny that I had very strong feelings for Andi and Kaitlyn, but looking back, I’m very lucky that they made the decisions that they did. Nothing against them, but things definitely worked out for the best. My ability to trust my emotions in this world is something that I’ve been struggling with.”
Nick’s season hasn’t even begun and it’s already controversial. There’s the fact that Luke Pell, one of the runner-ups from JoJo Fletcher’s Bachelorette season and a big fan favorite, has criticized the show’s producers for basically dumping him as the leading man when everything was already agreed to and he was about to travel to Los Angeles to be announced as the next Bachelor. Luke made it clear that he didn’t appreciate how the show’s producers treated him.
“I don’t have a problem with it if they think that they have a better candidate for the show, that’s fine. But it’s the way that it was handled. Asking me to be genuine and authentic and open and vulnerable…and then I don’t get genuine and authentic in return from the organization.”
Then there’s the claim that Nick dumped Jen to be the next Bachelor. On Thursday, CBS Detroit reported that Lauren Himle, whom viewers saw join Paradise on the latest episode and who became friends with Jen during their time together pursuing Ben Higgins, went on a radio show Wednesday and claimed that Nick dumped Jen in order to be the franchise’s next star.
According to Lauren, Nick and Jen continued seeing one another after Paradise and were “still together in a relationship” just a week ago. Lauren went on to claim that Jen picked up on Nick not doing her right.
“I am not a big fan of him, he dated my great friend Jen on Bachelor in Paradise and they did break up on the show, but it was my understanding that they were still seeing each other after the show completed. So Jen is one of the smartest people I know, she picks up on the bull —-. Her and I are both pretty good at picking up on guy’s game (s). She knew that he was kind of manipulating her towards the end, this just happened, they were solid a week ago. It’s fresh.”
As previously reported by the Inquisitr , after Nick Viall was announced as the next Bachelor, Jen Saviano posted some tweets and Instagram posts that suggest that she’s less than pleased about the news. She even answered the question of whether she’ll return to The Bachelor to pursue Nick with a tweet that seemed to speak negatively of Nick. In contrast, both Andi Dorfman and Kaitlyn Bristowe publicly congratulated Nick and wished him well on his journey to find love.
[Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images]