Courtney Robertson says Ben Flajnik made her turn down 'Dancing with the Stars,' would criticize her constantly

Courtney Robertson says she turned down many offers to do more reality TV after her stint on The Bachelor because ex-fiance Ben Flajnik, who was allegedly very critical and unsupportive, forced her.


Two days after The Bachelor's sixteenth-season finale aired in early 2012, during which Robertson and Flajnik got engaged, Robertson booked a flight to Flajnik's hometown in San Francisco to spend some time with him and hopefully begin a normal relationship. Flajnik had picked her up at the airport.

"On the drive, I told Ben I had a big surprise I'd been holding off telling him until we were together in person. I had a secret meeting with the producers of Dancing with the Stars and they wanted me as an alternate, just in case anyone got hurt. The payday was incredible: $125,000 just to show up and $30,000 for every week I made it through. Cha-ching!" Robertson wrote in her upcoming memoir, I Didn't Come Here to Make Friends -- Confessions of a Reality Show Villain Courtney Robertson.

"'They offered it to you?' he asked incredulously. I noted a tinge of jealousy. I hadn't even thought about this kind of stuff yet and how it would affect our relationship. I was just excited the opportunity was there."

"'If you do it,' he added coldly, 'you won't have a fiance.'"


"I felt like I'd been punched in the gut," Robertson wrote in an advance copy of the memoir obtained by Reality TV World.

"I can't believe you'd even bring it up,' Ben growled, even more pissed off."

"This was not a good start," the former bachelorette continued.

"I dropped the conversation and ultimately dropped out of the potential Dancing with the Stars casting, even though we could have bought our first house together with that money. Instead we spent the first three months of our public engagement staying in his frat house of an apartment when I'd visit."

Flajnik called his apartment a "temporary living situation," according to Robertson, in which his two winery business partners crashed there as well.


"So, Ben wouldn't 'let' me do Dancing with the Stars, and didn't want to do any press..." -- although Robertson said the pair had "honeymooned" in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where they were asked to promote the resort.

"A telling sign, right? I thought we were just going on vacation, but the first day we were there, Ben informed me that we had to take a few pictures and then we could have the rest of the time to ourselves. Did he make money from this setup? To this day I don't know," the model said in the memoir.

"In the beginning of our relationship, the offers to make money were rolling in. I turned down a lucrative opportunity to endorse a diet pill company, because I thought it sent a bad message to young girls. Without telling Ben, I turned down $50,000 each for us to appear on VH1's Couples Therapy because I knew he'd never agree to it."

While Flajnik allegedly took Dancing with the Stars off the table and intimidated Robertson enough that she didn't even want to suggest the Couples Therapy opportunity, Flajnik was actually working on a reality show of his own.

"Ben had several secret meetings about doing a reality show about the wine business called Young Sonoma and signed on without telling me. Only after he agreed to do it did he ask me to be on it. I felt blindsided. Already bitter about his Dancing with the Stars ban, I told him I didn't want to be on it. I told him that I thought it would create problems in our relationship," Robertson wrote.


Robertson then rattled off her issues with dating Flajnik, including how critical he had been of her and how he always wanted to spend their precious time together surrounded by other couples or just "his" friends and family. The former reality TV star claimed Flajnik even criticized how she cut tomatoes.

"Before, my main concern had been the tabloids judging me, but now, I often felt like Ben was the one cutting me down... Ben almost never complimented me and anytime I said I wanted to do something out of the norm, he'd poo-poo it and give me five reasons why I couldn't. I told him I wanted to do a vegan cookbook and he laughed," she wrote.

"I told him I wanted to write a memoir and he said, 'Don't you think you're a little young to write a memoir? They'll never let you write a book.' Ben also didn't respect my modeling career, which was hanging by a thread after the show."

Robertson went on to explain that Flajnik was resentful of how she spent her free time, made her feel bad about her financial situation, and didn't have enough sex with her -- nor did he allegedly show much affection unless other former The Bachelor contestants were around to watch. She was also convinced he had cheated on her when they agreed to a very brief break.

In their year-long engagement, Robertson said Flajnik only visited her in Los Angeles three times, and all three times were for paid events or business meetings. The former The Bachelor star, who was allegedly spending a lot of money on multiple cars and trips for himself, also apparently never offered to pay Robertson's plane fare when she was traveling just to see him.


The model explained she felt she had gotten "the raw end of the deal" in her "made-for-TV relationship."

Robertson and Flajnik split in October 2012.

I Didn't Come Here to Make Friends -- Confessions of a Reality Show Villain  Courtney Robertson will be released by HarperCollins on June 24 and is available for pre-order on Amazon. 






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski