The fallout from the way The Bachelor 2012’s leading man Ben Flajnik has handled his business with the network is really intense. Show producers are being heavily criticized for casting the sustainable agriculture enthusiast who was dumped by the dancing dental student Ashley Hebert on The Bachelorette in 2011. Now, Ben has been accused of keeping model Courtney Robertson on the show all the way to the end in exchange for her giving away sexual favors. Because of it, there has allegedly been trouble in paradise between the network with him, because the reality TV star seems to have partnered up with his fake fiancee so he could promote his winery and she could get more famous.
The Bachelor 2012 has been one of the most controversial and damaging seasons in the reality television show’s history. Apparently, there was no love lost during The Bachelor season because there were no real feelings there between him and any of the women (including his final rose ceremony love interest). While he’s been busy playing the part of the sincere and gallant knight in shining armor on a quest to find love and his princess, Courtney Robertson has been pretending she is a soap opera actress. Neither of them truly seem to care about one another aside from him putting her on the spot to knock knees. Most viewers have watched him romance the evil brunette with essentially the same compulsive need humans seem to have to turn their head and look when they drive past a car wreck.
California wine maker Ben Flajnik (a jilted competitor on The Bachelorette in 2011) seemed to con his way into the hearts of several of the contestants by being charming and reassuring to them. Each girl who was sent home was flabbergasted and felt played by him — but it was not until the Women’s Tell-All taping that many of them realized the truth about Ben.
He was not on the show to find true love — the wine maker from Sonoma was there strictly to promote his career and improve sales of wines produced in his vineyards. That was why the only girl he ultimately kept around was the one who was giving him the most sex — model Courtney Robertson. The two reality stars seem to have hatched a plan early on to keep her on the show so she could get modeling contracts, for then to date to win the money, and to keep his name in the spotlight so he could promote his winery and wine brands.
If case you missed a few episodes because the series was awful, Ben (the dippy guy with the bad hair) and Courtney have been an item the entire season. You know, the brunette who gave wicked tongue lashings to all the women when she was not busy giving a tongue bath to not-so-gentle Ben or skinny dipping with him while they schtupped on cam? The video clip segments showing Courtney acting badly have been run ad nauseum all season long as commercials. The feeling you get in the pit of your stomach makes you long for the show’s promo commercial when all you hear is Jenna crying. The banshee ad made you feel less sad, bad, mad, insert any adjective but glad.
Now look. I’m a guy and I have to watch this reality television show stuff for several reasons (one of which is my girlfriend, the other of which is for my job as an entertainment news writer, and the rest of which is so I can talk about this nonsense intelligently with the women I love and admire who enjoy the show like my mother and my sisters), but it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that Ben was all about knocking knees with whichever girl would irritate his ex-girlfriend Ashley Hebert the most. Ashley was short, sweet, and to the point. If she was nice, she was being nice, If she had a problem or a concern, she’d come tell a person right to their face. And, she fell very much in love with straight shooter JP even though up until the overnight date she thoughts she and Ben F had some pretty great chemistry.
When Ben F failed to *ahem* measure up during their little sexcapade, she nixed the idea of marrying him and instead went for stud monkey construction worker guy JP. Real dudes who watched the show with their blushing brides cheered because (quite frankly) Ben was whiny. But more than that, he seemed to be one of those trust fund babies with an arrogant and passive aggressive streak. Ashley, for all her quirky behavior, needed a man who could emotionally protect her and physically care for her. She was finishing dental school so she’d have plenty of her own money eventually — so she would not need Ben to be her Patron.
Courtney Robertson, on the other hand, is a model. She spends 100% of her time using her looks and the power of her super cosmic vajayjay tractor beam to find “patrons” that will buy her gifts, pay her way, and give her money for her time, photos, and company perks.
Nothing about Courtney Robertson is what it seems — except what aired in the early footage on The Bachelor 2012. The split personality of the Bride of Frankenstein was as close to her true character as the general public will ever see. Why? Because when she realized she was caught she started back peddling and apologizing to Ben for making the dating process hard on him. She never cared about the women she hurt or even about hurting him. All that mattered to her was winning for fame and fortune. That prize money would certainly pay for a dandy shopping spree.
During the Women Tell All episode, something interesting happened. An unapologetic Ben Flajnik — who had seen all the episodes of how Courtney acted behind his back — showed up to tell Chris Harrison, “Welcome to my nightmare!” He stated it as if his decision to pick Courtney was never hard at all — but dealing with the women who had a bone to pick with her was some sort of hellish problem.
Shirking off all moral responsibility to apologize to the girls about what they had been subjected to and suffered through because they would do almost anything to be able to spend a few more moments alone to get to know him, that D-Bag cork screw screwed the pooch. Instead of recognizing there was a problem and acting like a gentleman, the spoiled trust fund frat boy came out in him.
In that moment, people across America who has previously felt sorry for the poor duped boy started waking up. As JoAnn Poole-Lowe (a long time show fan) said, “I’m done watching The Batchelor [sic]. The jilted women tried to tell Ben about Courtney and he wouldn’t listen. I also cannot believe he went on The Batchelor [sic] to advertise his wine instead of finding true love. And add to all of this the fact that he cheated with three women after proposing to Courtney. Ben, you are ONE BIG JERK!”
Eco-friendly or not, this gentleman writer agrees that Ms. Poole has come to what seems to be a reasonable [albeit poetic] assessment of the situation — Ben Flajnik has not acted honorably.
With that realization in mind, hind sight is (as they say) 20/20. America and The Bachelor producers were duped by this stud-dud. Not only was Courtney Robertson the female equivalent to The Bachelorette show villain Bentley Williams (the jerky boy Ashley H obsessed over before settling down with JP), this Ben character has pulled the wool over the eyes of all the viewers by making himself sound sincere early on with the help of the production and marketing team.
Since the show’s ratings are in the toilet now anyhow, another casting blunder of this sort of epic proportion is the fastest way for the show’s creators to get their reality series kicked off major TV networks and moved to cable.
Watching Ben and Courtney was less inspiring than seeing Bret Michaels search for booty on Rock of Love — and believing this couple’s relationship will last longer than Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries marriage did once the cameras stop rolling and the fame fades is highly unlikely. After all, he’s Ben and she’s Courtney — and both are people that now give most kind-hearted, honorable folks the skeevies.
What’s worse, several sources who claim to have spent time with Ben say in private he’s always been very clear that he has no interest in getting married or settling down. In fact they say he boasts about duping the show producers and has only played both reality TV games to up web hits on his winery’s website and to sell more wine because his real interest is in making money.
So, since Ben is not opening up about his life’s ambitions honestly, all people can do is look at the facts about what they have seen him do in the past and what his behavior is from this point forward.
That’s hard — because how he handled the Women’s Tell-All show was a huge indicator about his real character. And, since he says he wants to bring more people to his website the hits are spiking now. But that might prove to be as much of a publicity nightmare as his appearance on the shows are starting to be for ABC. Why? Because even his wine company motto is fake sounding and creepy.
Read closely on the first page, think about what you’ve seen and heard on The Bachelor this season, reflect on his lack of caring and her fake apology, and you can almost hear the voice of Courtney Robertson speaking.
He and his partners boast, “Our team’s focus at Envolve is ultimately to educate and create honest, sustainable friendships with our customers, just as we have created within our own team.” Oh really… With their sales pitch being, “Pop a cork and start a friendship…” it certainly sounds like Ben knows what it takes to be fake and charming to sell more bottles of wine. But will his whine about having to deal with other human beings he has no use for turn out to be his personal and professional undoing after acting so appalling during the 2012 taping?
Time will tell… as all these opinions about truth and character of the celebrity couple involved in the scandal are predominately based on TV viewers opinions and rumor mills’ allegations. But in the meantime, while we’re waiting, my sweetheart and I will be buying eco-friendly wines from other companies who are more sincere about making wine to sell the product without lying to people they feel might be influential or help them professionally.
It is this writer’s opinion that Courtney and Ben deserve each other, exponentially. I also secretly wish I was single so I could pursue a few of those other sweet ladies like Kacie B, Nicky, and Emily (but don’t worry… I’d tell my wife). I just want to console them because I am embarrassed that so few men seem capable of being sincere or man enough to appreciate a real lady. I promise I just want to buy them a drink — anything but wine — and to tell them they will meet the right guy at another time.