'Bachelor Pad' cast votes off Michelle Kujawa and Juan Barbieri

Bachelor Pad eliminated Michelle Kujawa and Juan Barbieri during Monday night's premiere of the new Big Brother-like The Bachelor reality franchise spinoff in which 19 former bachelor and bachelorettes compete for a $250,000 cash prize.


Michelle, a former The Bachelor: On the Wings of Love bachelorette, was eliminated based on votes cast by Bachelor Pad's eight former The Bachelorette bachelors while Juan, a former fifth-season The Bachelorette bachelor, was ousted based on voting by the competition's 11 former The Bachelor bachelorettes.

Bachelor Pad's premiere began with the 19 contestants arriving at The Bachelor mansion and participating in a super-sized game of Twister.  Craig McKinnon -- whom the women had quickly identified as their first vote target -- won the game, giving him immunity from the competition's first elimination vote, as well as the ability to select three bachelorettes to accompany him on a date and give an immunity rose to one of the three bachelorettes.

Afterward, Juan began to attempt to limit the potential negative fallout from his previous relationship with thirteenth-season The Bachelor bachelorette Nikki Kaapke, who he had slept with during a visit to her Chicago hometown.

"I feel bad for Nikki because she's so naive," former thirteenth-season The Bachelor bachelorette Natalie Getz said.  "When Juan went to Chicago to be with Nikki, the only reason he slept with her is because he wanted a free place to stay in Chicago -- he'd never seen the city, and so he knew that came with the territory, he had to sleep with her.  Nikki hates Juan with a passion."


"We did date briefly, he invited me to go on one of our [The Bachelor/Bachelorette] reunion trips, and as soon as I got out there he hook[ed] up with another girl," Nikki said.  "Juan being in this house with me is literally a walking nightmare so I hope he goes home as soon as possible."

In addition, former On the Wings of Love bachelorette Elizabeth Kitt began pressuring former fifth-season The Bachelorette bachelor Jesse Kovacs -- who she had been seeing prior to Bachelor Pad's filming -- to publicly proclaim her his girlfriend, a proclamation Jesse wanted no part of.

"I've known Elizabeth for probably three months.  Yeah, we've hooked up a little bit, here and there, [but] I just see us as friends and I'm kind of getting the impression that she thinks of us as more and wants more than I'm willing to let happen," Jesse said.  "Right now in my life, money is more important than love and I have to concentrate on trying to win this because this is a competition.  This is not for me about love."

"I think there's no benefit to closing yourself off to the other girls.  Take Natalie and Jesse, they're together all the time and being with one girl, it's not going to be beneficial," he added later, referring to Natalie and former sixth-season The Bachelorette bachelor Jesse Beck, who had quickly formed a Bachelor Pad connection. 

"All the other girls are going to be 'Okay, well they're together and that's that, so let's vote him off because we have no use for him.'"


The next morning, On the Wings of Love runner-up Tenley Molzahn told the other contestants she had seen Michelle hooking up with Craig in an apparent attempt to convince him to select her for the upcoming date and then give her the immunity rose. 

However Michelle eventually found out about Tenley's claims, causing her to track Tenley down in the bathroom, lock the door and yell at her about them later that night.  Tenley then tearfully told the rest of the contestants about her confrontation with Michelle, resulting in some of them becoming even more concerned about Michelle, who already had a reputation as an unstable personality based on her prior The Bachelor participation.

In the meantime, Craig selected Elizabeth, second-season The Bachelor bachelorette Gwen Gioia and On the Wings of Love bachelorette Jessie Sulidis to join him on the date and then gave Jessie -- the Twister game's runner-up -- the immunity rose that would prevent her from being voted off at the competition's first elimination vote.
 
Afterward, Elizabeth continued pressuring Jesse -- who tried to tell her didn't want to be "off limits" to the other women for gameplay purposes -- to agree they were in a committed relationship and he was also in love with her and threatened that the bachelorettes might vote him off otherwise.

"Okay, Jesse, listen, here's how it's going to work out," she said.  "There are some girls that like me, so the girls that like me get that you and I have our thing -- they like it, they support it.  But if you treat me poorly, it could have negative consequences on you, quite possibly."

"Are you threatening me?" he asked.


"It's going to really suck," Elizabeth replied with a shrug.

After another conversation with Elizabeth the next day, Jesse appeared to resign himself to his new forced boyfriend status.

"I thought I had a strategy and I realized it was a terrible idea.  Elizabeth is constantly talking with these girls, they discuss who they are going to vote off, and I feel like my back's against the wall," he said.

Meanwhile, Juan made an attempt to reconcile with Nikki.

"I know that I was insensitive and I know that I did not consider your feelings back when everything went crazy and I want to apologize for not doing those things... I do feel bad, I didn't communicate well and I could probably have avoided a lot of this stuff if I had stepped up and was more clear from the beginning," he told Nikki, who wasn't very receptive to the overture. 


"I don't accept Juan's apology because it didn't seem sincere, it didn't seem genuine," she said afterwards.  "I was humiliated because I let my guard down and I put my heart out there, and I don't do that.  I don't."

In addition, seventh-season The Bachelor runner-up Krisily Kennedy became one of the bachelors potential vote targets when told the women they should target physically strong men like Jesse and fellow fifth-season The Bachelorette bachelor David Good and Natalie -- a friend of David's -- promptly relayed the information back to him.

However in the end, Jesse and Krisily both survived Bachelor Pad's first vote and Juan and Michelle were voted off instead.

"Yeah, I mean I'm shocked [and] disappointed.  My strategy was to deal with the Nikki situation before it got out of hand.  I guess maybe I failed at that," Juan said afterwards.  "Sounds like this is really at the hands of Nikki, at this point.  Everybody said goodbye and that good stuff [but] Nikki didn't, Nikki's like the only person out of the whole group who didn't come up and say, 'Hey, I'm sorry that you got to go.'  I have to take that personally.  So I guess she gets the last laugh."

"I don't deserve to be treated this way at all.  It's not easy, you know?" Michelle said.  "It's upsetting because Tenley just started a rumor that I did something with Craig, that made me very upset.  I think Tenley could have turned all the guys against me, and I feel that because of that rumor, it ruined my chances of winning the money."






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