Chris Harrison says there's no truth to former The Bachelor bachelorette Bettina Bell's claim that Brad Womack dated and dumped her before returning to star in the show's currently-airing fifteenth edition.
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Bell -- who was one of Womack's final three bachelorettes when he starred in The Bachelor's eleventh season in 2007 but was eliminated before the final episode -- made the allegations as part of a "Bachelor Dirty Secrets" cover story in this week's issue of Life & Style, but Harrison says they are false.
"I can tell you the deal about Bettina is not true. And I promise you, if that were true, don't you think we would have brought her on in Episode 2 [of this season of The Bachelor] as a surprise for great television?" Harrison told reporters during a Thursday conference call.
"If he had had this relationship and we had known about it -- and obviously we do -- man, we would have absolutely brought her on and given them a chance to work because she's been on the show before. I know Bettina, and she's a great girl, but no, that absolutely was not true."
Bell claims she put the past behind her and attempted to start fresh with Womack in 2009, but was reportedly left broken-hearted again when he suddenly dumped her last summer after nine months of dating.
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"It was so strange," the bachelorette told Life & Style about Womack, who told reporters he only went on "maybe four or five dates over [the] three-year span" between his The Bachelor editions last month.
"He was pursuing me like crazy, and then out of nowhere he went MIA."
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