by Amy Kaufman
It all makes me wonder how the producers saw someone like Bigger during the casting process. Was he labeled right off the bat? “Broken family, from the ’hood, overcame adversity?” I’d like to believe that isn’t how the show views people—in these stereotypical boxes—but I’ve seen too much.
During early seasons, at least, notes on each contestant would be circulated among top producers and kept in binders. There was standard biographical information included on all the contenders: name, age, hometown, job, salary, educational background. But certain notes would be highlighted—indicators of personality traits or past traumas for the team to dig into during ITM interviews.
I got my hands on one of the binders filled with annotated bios from Jesse Palmer’s season. He was the fifth Bachelor, an NFL quarterback who has since gone on to become a Good Morning America contributor. And by the time Palmer was the star of the show in 2004, the producers had this thing down to a science. Just take a look at some of the notes the producers made about the potential ladies competing for his heart. The remarks—which are verbatim, by the way, though I didn’t include every note on every young woman—don’t paint the kindest picture of the producers. Instead, they come across as calculating and formulaic—and certainly not sympathetic. I’ve changed the names of the contestants to protect their identities, since they’re pretty much being mocked.
Jamie, 21
Seems very young and immature (UCSB sorority chick–ish!)
Wants to find love on TV and have a $4 million wedding.
Get her in the house because she’ll drive the other girls crazy—or the other girls will definitely annoy her.
Very produceable—another one who comes with strings.
Could be a star on The OC and Dawson’s Creek.
She like wants to get like married like—can we stand it??
Britney, 25
Fragile as glass—nervous during interview.
NERVOUS, too SELF-CONSCIOUS, INDECISIVE.
Went to ER . . . had brain hemorrhage . . . had a birth defect . . . could either have surgery or be on medication for the rest of her life.
Whole experience put things in perspective . . . never gets emotional talking about this (but she’s crying now). “I don’t ever cry about this . . .” “I’m sorry, I’m a wreck.”
CRYING IN INTERVIEW regarding her brain surgery.
Challenge living with other girls in one house—other girls won’t like her!
Allie, 26
Jewish.
Gets prettier the longer you watch her tape.
First love ended up cheating on her—GET THIS!!
Says she’s been through a lot of things in her life (but doesn’t say what) . . . GET MORE ABOUT THIS.
A few days before production begins, the final contestants—and a handful of alternates—are flown back to L.A. This time, they stay at a Sheraton in Agoura Hills, which is closer to the mansion than LAX. Upon arrival at the hotel, each contestant is asked to hand over anything with an on/off switch—cell phone, tablet, laptop—and a handler puts the devices in an envelope.
Over the next couple of days, contestants are confined entirely to their hotel rooms as streams of producers come by to introduce themselves. With nothing to do other than watch TV, the isolation can become maddening—but it also serves to get everyone completely focused on the show. Sans distraction, contestants naturally start fantasizing about the man or woman they’re about to meet in a few days.
The participants also start planning how they’ll introduce themselves to the Bachelor or Bachelorette after they get out of the limo. Some contestants come in with ideas, though producers always have more far-out gimmicks to suggest.
When Justin Rego turned up on the show with a broken leg, producers suggested he charm Bachelorette Ali Fedotowsky with the line: “Ali, even though I broke my foot, I want you to know I’ll never break your heart.”
Rego—who went by his wrestling alias “Rated R” on the 2010 season—said he balked at the cheesy idea. Fortunately, when he got out of the limo, Fedotowsky naturally asked what happened to his leg, and he was able to skip the saccharine pickup line.
Not that anyone is forced to show up in a cupcake on wheels. (Ugh, remember that guy?) When Sean Lowe told producers he wanted to “play it straight and be somewhat normal” with Emily Maynard, he didn’t receive any pushback. Instead, he was told that he was going to be first out of the limos to meet the single mom—a distinction that goes to anyone the team thinks might really hit it off with the Bachelorette. (Same goes for the person who’s last out of the car.)
“If they have high hopes for you or want you to stick around, they don’t want you to ruin it on night one by doing something totally off-the-wall and maybe rubbing the Bachelor or Bachelorette the wrong way,” Lowe explained.
Once each contestant has an idea of their limo entrance spiel, producers make the rounds to check out everyone’s rose-ceremony outfits. Professional hair and makeup is offered on the first night only—you have to apply your own fake lashes for the entirety of the season unless you make it to the final rose ceremony.
After getting all dolled up, crew members put microphones on each contestant. Everyone waits anxiously in their room for a few hours, hair falling flatter by the minute. Finally, groups of five are called downstairs and sent into limos. This is where the cameras greet everyone for the first time. It’s only a 4.6-mile drive from the hotel to the mansion, which takes roughly eight minutes. On the way, there’s usually a Champagne toast or a few shots of Fireball tossed back to loosen the nerves.
At the mansion, the limo idles in front of the driveway gates. There are some makeshift tents set up, where contestants are able to get out to have their hair and makeup touched up or take a quick pee. Everyone is told the order in which to exit the limo when it pulls up in front of the house.
Then it’s time for the car to actually roll down the driveway. When the mansion comes into view, it’s impressive, surrounded by massive lights and cranes that make the production look like a movie set. When the chauffeur is ready to open the limo door, everyone is instructed not to thank or look at the driver.
“Take your surroundings in,” a producer advises, “enjoy it, and have fun.”
Why I’m a Fan
MELANIE LYNSKEY
The thing I always have liked about reality television—and especially dating shows—is the human interaction in them. People try to present a particular image, but then they can’t help themselves, and they’re just themselves at a certain point. I like observing the differences and the behavior of how the Bachelor is with each of the women. It feels really voyeuristic.
I’ve always been very impulsive when it comes to love. By the time I was twenty-one, I think I was engaged, like, five times. I was kind of crazy. I’d get into these romances and suddenly I’d be engaged to somebody and then I’d break it off. I’d live with people after a week. So watching The Bachelor, I’d think, “These people are nuts if they think it can happen so quickly!” And then I was like, “Wait a minute. I got engaged to someone I’d known for ten days. And he proposed to me with the top of a Champagne bottle.”
I always had the idea that there are a lot of people who are right for us. When I was a teenager, I imagined that I would have, like, six husbands or I’d have children from five different men. That seemed so bohemian and romantic to me, and I felt like there were so many amazing people in the world. But as I got older, I started realizing stability was nice—just being with one person who you can trust.
So, no: I did not have the princess dream at all. And I don’t know why the show is stuck on that particular narrative. I don’t know if it’s a way that they’re trying to class the show up a little bit, by saying it’s about love and marriage, but it just seems so unrealistic to me. I mean, I get that part of the fun of watching the show is se
eing the ring and the proposal. And my crazy side is like, “Go for it! How wonderful!”
But it’s easy to make promises and say, “I’m here to protect you, I’m going to do anything you want, I’ll move to your hometown and everything will be great!” Then, when they watch the show together and have to witness everything it took to get to that point—I just don’t think that most people have what it takes to recover from that. So in the back of my mind, when they’re making these promises on the finale, I’m like, “Oh, well, just wait and see.”
I think there are a lot of old-fashioned concepts that the show is trying to keep alive, but all these women have made the choice to do it. . . . And if you’re in a place in your life where you’re making super healthy decisions and being positive and responsible, you’re probably not going to make the choice to be on The Bachelor or The Bachelorette.
But I feel protective of the contestants. I think the producers have a responsibility to be good people. I understand that these people are signing contracts, but they always think, “I’m not going to look ridiculous, because I’m not ridiculous.” And then they do.
—Melanie Lynskey, actress (Heavenly Creatures, Two and a Half Men, Togetherness)
CHAPTER 6
Inside the Bubble
Villa de la Vina—or the Bachelor mansion, as it’s now known to millions of viewers—is hidden off a canyon road just a few exits on the Ventura Freeway past the Kardashians. The Tuscan estate, situated on about nine acres of land north of Malibu in the Santa Monica Mountains, was built in 2005—but production only moved there in 2007, during Brad Womack’s first season.
ABC doesn’t own the 7,590-square-foot Agoura Hills home, however; the man who built it does: real estate developer Marshall Haraden. He and his family live in the six-bedroom, nine-bathroom house roughly ten months out of the year and decamp to a nearby hotel when production is under way. (Production pays for the hotel stay as part of the lease agreement.)
The show takes up residence at the mansion twice a year, for forty-two days each time. When they come in, all of Haraden’s furniture comes out: “Everything leaves—everything that’s not tied down, that’s not part of the home,” he told Us Weekly. “Curtains, TVs, pots and pans—clothes—everything in one day goes out.”
I would have talked to Haraden myself, by the way, but he backed out of our interview a day before it was supposed to happen. I was all set to drive out to the mansion and have the owner give me a personal tour, but then he called to let me know that ABC had advised him not to talk to me. “I just want to maintain a good relationship with my clients,” he told me.
Fortunately, Haraden has talked to just about everyone else about the mansh, and a handful of my friends have been there for press events, so I have a pretty good sense of what it’s like there. It’s also been up for sale a few times—first in 2008 for just under $13 million, and then in 2009 for $6.8 million.
Not surprisingly, it’s also become a tourist destination: “People think that when the show’s on TV, it’s happening at the house,” Haraden said in an interview with People. “Sometimes when we come home from dinner at nine or ten at night, there’s people outside the gate climbing over the fence or on top of their cars trying to take pictures.”
Despite the lookie-loos, Fleiss has said he laments not buying the house before it became so pricey. (In 2017, Trulia estimated it was worth $7.4 million.) “I wish I had bought this place years ago,” he told the Toronto Sun in 2013. “But I wasn’t sure if we would get canceled every year and we kept getting picked up.”
Since production has to start from scratch every time they come in, it takes about two weeks to set everything up. Villa de la Vina was built to resemble a rustic mansion in Italy, though it was constructed with materials from a variety of countries: Morocco, Mexico, India, and China. So the production designers tend to go with rich, deep colors—always painting the walls with a new coat of dark paint before each season. There are also certain props that tend to look good on-camera: big lanterns, stone sculptures, and oversized candlesticks.
Angelic Rutherford, who has been leading the art department on the show since 2003, tries to switch up the feel of the decor depending on who’s living there. When girls are bunking up for The Bachelor, she wants the mansion to “feel feminine and colorful,” she told Elle Decor in 2016. “The fabrics have to be really versatile—it’s not like you can cover the couches in velvet, because the girls are wearing their bathing suits on the couch during the day, and when it’s a rose night, it needs to be dressy and reflect that night.”
Story producers set up in the room to the right of the front door, tracking the house action on monitors. The control room is farther away, in the garage, and there’s a smaller stand-alone building on the property that production uses to shoot ITMs.
After contestants have their meet-cutes in the driveway, they’re led directly into the mansion’s family room—referred to by the crew as the “Mixer Room.” The foyer that leads to the Mixer Room is where Chris Harrison tells the cast it’s time for a rose ceremony—and that area is called the “Tink-Tink Spot.” Get it? Because that’s the noise the glass makes when the host taps it to get everyone’s attention? The actual rose-ceremony room usually is the living room, but the furniture is pulled out to fit all the hopefuls. This is also where contestants head when they want a drink, since the room houses a huge bar—but it’s covered up during the ceremony.
Upstairs, there are three bedrooms, but the accommodations are cramped. Contestants sometimes sleep twelve to a room in bunk beds, and everyone’s living out of a suitcase, so luggage is usually scattered across the floor. Each contestant is also gifted an additional piece of luggage with some freebies inside: beauty products, padded bikinis, jewelry, or jeans to wear throughout the season.
Everyone has to do their own laundry and cook for themselves too, though the kitchen is well stocked. If you have a dietary restriction—say you’re vegan, or gluten-free—the staff will cater to your needs. Run out of face wash or nail-polish remover? The production assistants will head to CVS for you too, as long as you make a shopping list. In other words, you’re not allowed to go anywhere—sometimes, if you’re really lucky, production will let you spend thirty minutes at a local gym, nail salon, or beach. But that’s rare.
And inside the mansion, there are hardly any outside distractions. Some contestants are allowed to keep journals or Bibles. But electronics—phones, computers, televisions—are obvious no-nos. You can’t listen to music or catch up on the news. Reading material, like books or magazines, isn’t allowed. There isn’t even any gym equipment.
It’s all part of a well-designed producer strategy called “The Bubble.” Inside the bubble, all that matters is the show. Everyone around you—fellow contestants, producers—is talking about the Bachelor or Bachelorette, so that’s all you start to think about too. In a budding relationship in the outside world, you have your friends to gossip about a new paramour with. But at the mansion, you can only confide in producers—who have a vested interest in you falling for the Bachelor or Bachelorette—or fellow contestants, who are after the star too.
So sure, maybe you’re bored sometimes, or start to feel a little stir-crazy. But you don’t have to work, you’re getting free food and drinks and lying out by the pool. You’re part of an elite group that has been chosen to be on national television—and to many people, that’s far more alluring than a nine-to-five, even with some bizarre strings attached.
“For some people, this is the princess dream they’ve thought about,” said assistant-turned-producer Ben Hatta. “They’re in a mansion on a hillside in California with people making them food and bringing them drinks and wearing gowns. Even if they’re not into the guy, there’s competition for the rose, because they want to see what will happen next. When the mansion door closes, you’re like, ‘Are they having fun in there? My life at home isn’t as exciting as hair an
d makeup and wardrobe and limos.’ Those kinds of things really play into the psyche and basically [mimic] the feeling of love.”
When Clare Crawley—yes, “sex”-in-the-ocean Clare—turned up at the mansion on Juan Pablo Galavis’s season, she was shocked by how quickly she felt herself falling for the Venezuelan single dad.
“But you have nothing to think about,” she emphasized. “Not even tying your shoes. Not even what food you’re going to order. You don’t have to think about a single thing other than him. Imagine that: For three months, that’s all you focus on. That’s all you think about. All you talk about. So it’s almost sped up really fast.”
Behavior she might typically second-guess? She didn’t have a night to sleep on it during The Bachelor. “You don’t really know what to do, so you just kind of go with it,” she said. “But the producers know that. They control every moment of it.”
Just ask them.
“The cast is told what to do all of the time,” said Brad Isenberg, a former Bachelor production coordinator. “You’re on a schedule: our schedule, not your schedule. Even if there’s nothing happening, it’s scheduled. It’s a part of being controlled.”
Though each season takes eight weeks to shoot, only about a third of that time is spent at Villa de la Vina before the show takes off to travel. But the early weeks inside the mansion are instrumental in laying the groundwork for the rest of the season. Not only is this the period of time with the least outside distraction, but it’s also when the cast learns how to act on-camera. Everyone is asked to participate in a couple of “man chats” or “girl chats” a day—staged conversations that producers set up between different participants where the topic of discussion is predetermined.
Say you’re sitting in the Mixer Room, talking casually with a few ladies about Farrah, the woman in the house you all can’t stand. A producer—who has a headset on at all times—suddenly comes over and formalizes the discussion by asking you to participate in a girl chat. Maybe you’re asked to continue talking about Farrah and elaborate on why you hate her so much—or maybe the producer wants you to change tack and speculate about the date the Bachelor is currently on.