'Bachelor' creator on Brad Womack rejections: He sort of said, 'F**k it.'

Brad Womack gave his own reasons for rejecting both of his two remaining suitors during The Bachelor's eleventh-season final Rose Ceremony, however show creator Mike Fleiss apparently has his own thoughts on why Jenni Croft and DeAnna Pappas each went home empty-handed.


"He just sort of woke up that day, was cranky, and sort of said, 'F**k it,'" Fleiss told Entertainment Weekly during a Tuesday interview.  "He couldn't see himself with either of those chicks and so he blew them both off."

Despite the fact that Womack and Fleiss had rooms right next to each other during filming for The Bachelor over the summer, Fleiss said he "didn't see" Womack's decision coming until he revealed it to producers on the day the final Rose Ceremony took place.

"Much like Jenni and DeAnna, I was convinced this guy had fallen for one or both of these girls," Fleiss told Entertainment Weekly.  "It was a shock to the whole staff. When we knew how he wanted to play it, it was like a morgue around here. Usually at the finale there's a happy couple afterwards and they're all drinking champagne. This time when it happened the staff just freaked out. Everyone shlumped back to their cars. It was really dark."

Fleiss added he's still unsure why Womack gave Croft and Pappas the understanding that one of them would receive his final rose and even shopped for a diamond engagement ring.


"I don't know why he said the things he did. I don't know why he let the girls say the things they did. I don't know," Fleiss told Entertainment Weekly. "Maybe he was trying up until the last minute to make it work. Only Brad knows for sure."

While he's uncertain what was going through Womack's mind, Fleiss said he's aware that The Bachelor 11's ending was "going to be controversial and that some viewers would say, 'F**k that. I'm never watching the show again.'"

Fleiss said a marriage proposal from a The Bachelor star to one of his suitors is "not mandatory"  -- something that's evident from the fact that four of the last five and six of the last eight The Bachelor editions ended without its star proposing to his final bachelorette.  Still, Womack was the first The Bachelor star ever to not even offer a final rose to one of his suitors in an attempt to pursue a relationship in the real world.

"It's not supposed to be a guaranteed proposal," Fleiss told Entertainment Weekly.  "It's about how men and women relate and date. It's about getting into the mind of a single guy and the mind of a single girl, and we certainly got that. What [Womack] did was the thing that women fear the most -- he became intimate and then split the next day. The fact that it happened to two girls at once was a unique opportunity."

However it was apparently a "unique opportunity" that ABC wasn't too thrilled with.


"They weren't happy about it," Fleiss told Entertainment Weekly.  "They would much prefer a proposal and a happy couple like [The Bachelorette first-season lovebirds Trista Rehn and Ryan Sutter, who have since married and had a child] or [The Bachelor's sixth-season couple Byron Velvick and Mary Delgado, who are engaged but have yet to wed]."

ABC also apparently wasn't too be pleased with the original ending Fleiss came up with even after Womack rejected both Croft and Pappas.

"The original ending -- before the network made me change it -- was after the girls were crying we fade down and come back up to a shot of Brad sitting on the couch, remote control in hand, clicking on the game, munching on a submarine sandwich," he told Entertainment Weekly.  "That's what I wanted at the end. But the network said no."

While Fleiss gushed about Womack doing a "great job" and being a "great guy," he also expressed some regrets about the most recent Bachelor.

"I wish he would have been a little more committed to making those girls happy too. I think that's what was lost," he explained to Entertainment Weekly. "Those girls really put themselves out there. Jenni might have been more open with her emotions than any other girl in the history of the show. She wasn't a blithering, crazy girl. You felt like she was truly in love. I really felt for her. I felt myself tearing up, which almost never happens."


Fleiss told Entertainment Weekly that in addition to airing a twelfth The Bachelor installment next spring, ABC is also planning to air a new season of The Bachelorette -- the last edition of which aired in Spring 2005 -- next summer.  ABC couldn't confirm Fleiss' The Bachelorette comment when reached by Reality TV World on Wednesday. 

According to Fleiss, it's still unknown who would star in The Bachelorette's Summer 2008 fourth edition.






About The Author: Christopher Rocchio