It’s funny how a show about finding love can elicit such spite. Then again, the old saying goes, “All’s fair in love and war.” They should amend that to, “All’s fair in love and war… and reality TV competitions.”
Contestants on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette have been stressed and under pressure from the romance competition, and acted out by having meltdowns, lying, manipulating, taking their tops off, and fighting with the other contestants (not all at the same time, though that might be entertaining). So, who are the biggest villains of the Bachelor franchise?
10. Kelsey Poe
Ooooh … all of these years later, and I still remember this one: her youthful beauty, her calm demeanor, her bonkers claim that her husband’s death was “amazing” and a great story for reality TV…
Poe was on Chris Soules’ season, and she notably went on a tense 2-on-1 date with fan favorite Ashley Iaconetti Haibon. Viewers found her behavior to be cold and creepy. In the end, Soules did not give her a rose and she slithered on home.
9. Arie Luyendyk Jr.
The Bachelor Universe promotes its leads as attractive potential brides and grooms with high morals. So, when a lead misbehaves, it’s a little embarrassing for everyone involved.
Luyendyk initially chose Becca Kufrin. Two months later, he brought along a whole camera crew to film him blindsiding Kufrin by dumping her for Lauren Burnham. Ladies, there was one more rose left: Luyendyk next proposed to Burnham live on air at the reunion. What a villainous bachelor!
8. Michelle Money
How rare that someone’s name corresponds to their character. This contestant seemed very interested in Brad Womack’s earning potential and not much else. She made mean comments deriding the other contestants in her confessionals, and fans criticized Money for being too aggressive. She was objectively gorgeous, though, so Womack of course kept her on because he was starting to feel a connection. In fact, when they first met after Money exited the limo, Womack told her, “You are stunning.”
Ultimately, her attractiveness was not enough as she turned her aggression on Womack and their relationship became tense, so she was sent home, rose-less and alone.
7. Jake Pavelka
Jake Pavelka was a villainous Bachelor who proposed to villainous contestant Vienna Girardi. The two villains only lasted a few weeks together. After their breakup, Pavelka and Girardi trashed each other in the tabloids. This drummed up a lot of interest and ABC brought the unhappy ex-couple back on TV for a special segment. Viewers were shocked by the barbs thrown back and forth between the former flames.
While neither one came away from the encounter looking good, Pavelka was slammed by viewers as being especially cruel. While outwardly calm, he smirked and insulted his ex as she sobbed during their interview. Bad Bachelor!
6. Corinne Olympios
By the very first episode of Nick Viall’s season, Corinne Olympios was already ruffling feathers.
While some viewers enjoyed her moxie, the contestants were annoyed after she gloated to them about repeatedly kissing Bachelor Viall. Olympios next removed her top in the pool and told Viall to grab her breasts in full view of her fellow contestants; she was clearly not there to make friends!
She called fellow competitor Taylor Nolan nasty names, but she was most famous for her love of naps. Olympios famously napped right through a rose ceremony (a huge faux pas in the Bachelor Universe!) and later hilariously explained it away by claiming that Abraham Lincoln also took naps.
5. Juan Pablo Galavis
Oh boy, this one’s dark. Galavis was very rude and dismissive to the women vying for his attention, to the point where some say he’s the most disliked Bachelor in the franchise so far (you never know – things can always get worse).
Galavis shockingly told one of his finalists for the final rose, “I love [blanking] you, but I don’t know you.” That goes far beyond bluntness and well into audacity territory!
It gets even worse: off camera, Pavelka showed himself to be a homophobe when he stated that a gay Bachelor wouldn’t be, “A good example for kids.”
4. Trish Schneider
This Gloria Steinem of the Jesse Palmer Bachelor season flew her feminist flag high when she showed up wearing a t-shirt that said, “Gold Digger: Like hooker… just smarter.” The other contestants warned Palmer about Scheider’s untrustworthiness, but he felt she was there for the right reasons.
Even Palmer’s best friend — who posed as a contestant on the show to report back on the women — advised him to drop her, but he still didn’t listen. Eventually, he did eliminate Schneider, only for her to return and offer herself sexually to Palmer (he refused).
3. Yosef Aborady
This contestant on Clare Crawley’s season of The Bachelorette has been denounced by many as a massive jerk. What did he do to deserve that judgement? Well, he was exceptionally unkind to the lead, a big no-no in The Bachelor Universe. Aborady made it amply clear that he did not admire Crawley, or in fact, respect her.
For playing a game of strip dodgeball on a date, Claire was called “classless” by Aborady and “not fit to be a mother.” He could honestly NOT see his wife in this room.
2. Courtney Robertson
This beautiful model was so villainous that she set the bar for all female villains that followed. She even authored the book, I Didn’t Come Here to Make Friends: Confessions of a Reality Show Villain.
And she didn’t! No friends were made on Ben Flajnik’s season of The Bachelor.
Robertson’s catty treatment of the other contestants bit her in the butt when then-fiance Flajnik watched their season play out as it aired and he observed that she behaved differently with him than with the other women.
After her broken engagement, Robertson dated another Bachelor villain: Arie Luyendyk Jr.
1. Bentley Williams
Class … kindness … respect … all concepts that missed Bentley Williams by about a mile on Ashley Herbert’s season of The Bachelorette. Before the season began, Emily Maynard was being considered as the Bachelorette. Williams came on the show expecting to date Maynard and when it was revealed that Herbert was the Bachelorette instead, he showed his disappointment in various rude ways.
Instead of politely bowing out of the competition, Williams stuck around to deliver these statements on camera: that Herbert was, “an ugly duckling” and he would rather, “swim in pee” than be her husband. Quite the brute, he was! And, the ultimate villain.
