A former Bachelor contestant has revealed what we long suspected to be true – that winning couples are paid to stay together for a period of time after the show, to keep the publicity machine churning over and the fantasy of true love alive.
Last week, Frazer Neate and Elly Miles announced their split – which is to say, Elly announced it in a tearful video to social media while Frazer did fuck all and still hasn’t addressed it, which is hilariously on-brand for him and I kind of love it.
On a recent call to the So Dramatic! Podcast, Frazer’s ‘secret girlfriend’ Shyanne said that he finished filming his season on September 6 and called her immediately on September 7, and those dates got Bachelor nerds’ attention.
Frazer and Elly’s breakup announcement came three months to the day after the end of filming, which fits with a popular fan theory that winners are contractually obligated to at lease pretend that they’re together for this length of time, even if their relationship is a sham.
All signs pointed to the fact that the couple had been broken up for weeks at that point – the one and only activity they ever did together was a sad skydiving date, while Frazer booked a gig as a “topless disco dream boy” at a Darwin club, which kinda screams single.
While we don’t have definitive proof that Bachie couples are paid to pretend they’re still together, a former contestant called in to this week’s episode of the podcast, and told host Megan Pustetto that she heard all about it from a mate of a mate in the Bachelor mansion.
Talking about the suspicious timing of Frazer and Elly’s breakup, the former contestant said that Paradise couple Sam Cochrane and Tara Pavlovic were given a cash inducement to stick it out a few more months:
“It’s not the first time Warner has done that contract stuff – when I was in the house, Nathan Favro was good friends with Davey Lloyd, and Davey knew Tara Pavlovic well. He said she was being paid to stay with Sam. Nathan said he was mates with Davey who was close to Tara, and she told him it the house that she’d been paid $10,000 to stay together for appearances for six month after the fact. What Nathan said absolutely blew my mind – I had no idea that this shit went on, I was a naive MOFO who didn’t know that type of stuff happened. As far as Elly and Frazer goes, I think you’re on the money, pun intended.”
So to sum it up, the Bachelor franchise is lying to us and most of these people are only in it for the money and attention. My mind is BLOWN by this revelation and I think I need to lie down for a bit.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2Vmp5EM3Vlr7eKpN2w74ys
