The Bachelor star Jake Pavelka is claiming altruism and precognition were why he decided not to let subsequent The Bachelorette star Ali Fedotowsky change her mind and return to compete for his final rose on this past winter's edition of the ABC reality dating show.
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"When she called me wanting to come back, I understood why she wanted to come back. But, I saw a train rolling down the tracks that she didn't know about," Pavelka said during an appearance on Wednesday's The View broadcast.
"I knew that she -- just the way that it was going to be portrayed when she left -- that she was going to make a beautiful Bachelorette. And who am I to take the opportunity away from her, because I got to do it? I was such an incredible experience for me."
The View co-host and The Bachelor superfan Elisabeth Hasselbeck was skeptical of Pavelka's claim, however he insisted he was being truthful during her follow-up questioning.
"You sensed she could be the Bachelorette?" Hasselbeck asked.
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"I knew she was going to be the next Bachelorette. I wasn't told that, but that is such an amazing experience I didn't want to take that away from her," Pavelka replied.
"So you weren't in love with her, obviously? Because you would have never let her go if you were," Hasselbeck reasoned.
"Oh my gosh, I loved her, I will always have a special place in my heart for her," Pavelka insisted.
Pavelka's The View explanation differs significantly from his prior comments about why he declined to let Fedotowsky -- who left the show to avoid losing her job but later decided she'd made a mistake and attempted to come back -- return to his The Bachelor edition.
"Ali, I was falling in love with you in San Francisco, but the problem is when you left it really forced me to put what I felt for you aside," he told Fedotowsky when she asked him to return during a phone call broadcast on his The Bachelor edition. "And Ali, I can honestly tell you I'm further along with these three women here and I don't know who I would send home to have you back. I don't know how I could make that happen."
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"Everything about me wants to say get on a plane and come here right now, but I'm falling in love with these women that are here," he told her. "Ali I have to just go with my heart -- I know what it's telling me, I know exactly what it's telling me. I just don't think it's a good idea."
During his The View appearance, Pavelka also attempted to shoot down recent speculation that being gay is the real reason he stopped being intimate with Vienna Girardi -- the now-former fiancee he picked at the conclusion of his The Bachelor season -- several months prior to their recent break-up.
"There was a lack of intimacy because our problems were so heavy, and I can't separate love and intimacy. I guess that's the Southern guy in me, and apparently that makes me gay!" he said.
"Right, because everybody thinks you're gay," Hasselbeck replied. "They think, okay, if he's not intimate unless cameras are rolling -- now there are papers everywhere saying you're gay."
"No, no," Pavelka said.
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"We'd love you just the same, either way," Hasselbeck said.
"It's not true, no, I'm not," Pavelka told Hasselbeck. "I have absolutely nothing -- you know one of my best friends is gay, but I just can't see how somebody could look at you and not be completely attracted."
"Okay, she's married," fellow The View co-host Sherri Shepherd interjected.
"She's very married! Very married! But that doesn't make you any less attractive," Pavelka replied.
About The Author: Steven Rogers