Chad Johnson Says Producers Used His Mother's Death For Drama

Even the most devoted Bachelorette viewers will have trouble seeing Chad Johnson as anything more than a one-dimensional bad guy, but Johnson insists that he's really not, saying that producers took advantage of his emotional state to create drama on the show.

People reports that in a preview for this week's Famously Single, Johnson explains that his appearance on The Bachelorette (he was one of the guys vying for JoJo Fletcher's affections) came just six months after his mother's death. He didn't have enough time to properly process the situation and mourn and says that the producers used that to create drama on the show and paint him as violent or hyper-masculine.

"I couldn't think about it," Johnson said of her passing and his subsequent decision to appear on the show (and later, Bachelor in Paradise). "All I could think about was 'Did I ruin my life?'"

Johnson says that his relationship with his mother was the "most important relationship" in his life, ever, and that his behavior on the show was his own way of coping with the fact that he'd lost her. He says that he never had a chance to mourn, since he was started the show so suddenly after her passing. Johnson adds that he was responsible for his own actions on the show, but noted that the activity of the show never let him process what was happening and that could have been why he wasn't able to forge relationships on air.

"I don't like letting new people in that easy because I don't want to lose someone again like that," he explained. "I know that's my mother and she was sick, but I feel like a lot of people take too many chances of being too open too easily and I don’t really do that."

Admittedly, it'll be tough for Johnson to shed his bad-boy persona, but he says that he's looking for a new relationship, even though he knows it won't be easy. Not only is he still working through his mother's death, he says that the relationship that he saw between his parents wasn't stable. He says that's the reason he's appearing on Famously Single, so he can get guidance and advice from a professional and start to build healthier emotional habits.