Viewers weren’t the only people surprised when Arie Luyendyk Jr. dumped the winner of this season’s “The Bachelor” to pursue the runner-up.
The show’s host, Chris Harrison, told E! the race car driver appeared content the day he proposed to Becca Kufrin in the show’s finale.
“It seemed he had really come to terms with the fact that this was the woman for him, and this was the woman his family really liked and he liked and would make a great wife,” Harrison said. “So that day there was never any doubt that I could see. He was excited and happy and so was she.”
“When I left Peru, all I heard was, ‘They’re doing great. They’re off on the happy couple hideaway and they’re doing fantastic,'” Harrison added. “And I’m like, ‘Good. Another happy couple. All is good.’ As of Peru, everything was perfect.”
But things were far from perfect. About six weeks later, Luyendyk Jr. broke up with Kufrin to try and make things work with the woman he had initially rejected, Lauren Burnham.
ABC filmed and aired the unedited footage of the breakup, a decision Harrison defended.
“You know, it’s funny that people often say, ‘The show can be edited. It’s scripted and you guys made him do this and made him do that,'” he said. “And then when we show you completely uncut, unedited, no bells or whistles, everybody’s really pissed off. I find the irony in that tragically funny.”
Harrison said he knows that relationships aren’t always “pretty” or “perfect,” adding he understands why the audience was so upset by Luyendyk Jr.’s decision.
He believes “you can’t just show the pretty parts” when it comes to relationships.
“That’s not how the world works, that’s not how love works,” Harrison said. “So I’m okay with showing the nasty and the ugly and the sad sometimes, because that’s what makes the good stuff so good. It’s what makes when it really works.”