The Bachelorette sleuths who noticed sixth-season bachelor Justin Rego's cast had mysteriously switched from his left to right foot during a recent episode are correct -- however the show's producers claims it was because they flopped the shot during editing, not because his injury is fake.
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"Justin definitely had a broken left foot for the duration of the filming of The Bachelorette," producers told Entertainment Weekly in a Tuesday statement.
"For the geographic clarity of Justin's journey to find Ali, we thought it best to 'flop' a shot. 'Flopping' a shot creates a mirrored version of the image. The unintentional consequence was that Justin's cast in the mirrored version appears to be on his right leg rather than the left."
The incident occurred during The Bachelorette's June 7 episode when the 26-year-old entertainment wrestler from Toronto, Canada decided to walk from the bachelor's Malibu mansion to Ali Fedotowsky's mansion -- which was roughly a mile up a steep canyon road.
Just before Rego reached his destination, five seconds of footage showed the cast on his right root rather than his left.
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"Our editing department -- and you never notice this unless a guy has a cast on his leg -- but sometimes they will flip a shot just to make it look prettier," The Bachelorette host Chris Harrison said during a Wednesday appearance on Ryan Seacrest's KIIS-FM radio show.
"I know it messes up continuity of the show and all that... but it looks better in the show. So they flip the shot and gave the mirror image of Justin walking, which then would flip the cast on his leg."
Rego stated during The Bachelorette's sixth-season premiere that he suffered the broken ankle while wrestling two weeks before production began.
"He was doing it to impress us," Harrison told Seacrest.
"The day before we got to his hometown to shoot video, he was working on these cool wrestling moves because he wanted to do something cool on screen. That's when he broke his leg. Unfortunately, we don't even have that on video. But he hurt his leg the day before we got there. He really is hurt."
About The Author: Christopher Rocchio