The Bachelor couple Juan Pablo Galavis and girlfriend Nikki Ferrell admit all the negative criticism and tabloid reports out there have been difficult to bare.
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"I read them all to see if there is something true, honestly. They're crap. It's funny. One magazine said I would take [ex-girlfriends] to okay but not fancy restaurants and buy them wine. I haven't bought a bottle of wine in my life. I don't drink," Galavis told People in its latest issue.
"I feel misunderstood. What you see on TV, it's not me. I'm not the character of The Bachelor. I don't know what a good Bachelor or a bad Bachelor is. I just want people to get to know me. Sometimes people say I'm rude, but it's just because I'm very honest... I stayed 100 percent true to myself. Maybe that wasn't a good thing."
Ferrell, who received Galavis' final rose at the conclusion of The Bachelor's eighteenth season but without a proposal or even an "I love you," said listening to people bash Galavis has been tough.
"It's been a struggle not to be able to defend him as a girlfriend should. It's been hard, but I'm here to support him," she told People.
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"If you're looking for someone, and I was, I'm going to tell somebody right away how I feel, because I'm not going to waste their time or my time. I was just being myself. If I don't feel it, I don't, and I'm going to send you home," Galavis, 32, said.
At the season's Women Tell All special, most of the bachelorettes chewed Galavis apart for being selfish, uncaring and motivated by something other than finding love or a future wife.
"There were some things that took me off guard. It was so long ago, and people were bringing things up," Galavis explained.
"Why didn't you say it to me on the show? When I was on [Desiree Hartsock]'s season of The Bachelorette, I did The Men Tell All, and all I had to say was, 'She didn't like me, she decided to send me home, and that's fine.' Why couldn't the girls say THAT about me?"
"Some things just didn't need to be talked about. Sour grapes," Ferrell, 27, added.
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"It was fun doing the show, but it wasn't fun waiting, and it wasn't fun watching. I lived a good experience but didn't always see a good experience," Galavis noted.
In fact, the show's season was so difficult to watch, Galavis barely tuned into ABC on Monday nights.
"No, we don't. I can't!" Galavis told People of watching his The Bachelor edition.
"He feels bad," Ferrell explained. "If we were together when it was airing, he would go somewhere else and watch it. And I actually don't watch most of the episodes, I just watch my parts with him. There's no benefit in watching other people's relationships with him."
And Galavis still stands by his decision not to propose to Ferrell, while she insists she's perfectly fine with that.
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"Those feelings that I had on the show were very real, and they're still very real. I want him to propose when he's ready. But I also realize, looking back, that to just meet somebody and all of a sudden you're getting engaged? That's kind of crazy," Ferrell told the magazine.
"[Being engaged] wouldn't stop us from breaking up if we weren't right for each other. All it would do is take being engaged for the first time away from me and away from him."
"You go on the show thinking if there's the connection, you propose and get married. But I don't feel the need to propose to somebody if I don't feel it 100 percent," Galavis said.
"I didn't know Nikki [well enough]. I don't know if she holds her silverware well!... There are good examples of [The Bachelor engagements], but some don't last. And I'm taking my time [because] of my daughter."
Galavis has a five-year-old daughter named Camila from a previous relationship.
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski