Look, I know that everyone isn’t exactly clamoring for more Arie Luyendyk, Jr. content. Not surprisingly, he seems to be every bit as schmaltzy after the final rose as he seemed in the show. In a new, puzzling GQ profile, he’s referred to as the “Most Hated Bachelor in America,” and that’s putting it lightly. Luyendyk received his fair share of social media hate for dumping Becca Kufrin in perhaps the most gut-wrenching way — by allowing the cameras to film the action, then airing it on television. That 40-minute long breakup episode was a cringfest of the highest order.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
Still, Luyendyk would like you to know that despite that scene being touted as completely unedited, it was, of course, actually edited. Cue no one being surprised. But he describes how the producers goaded him into staying on the set while Kufrin was begging him to leave her alone. "I was told to stay on that couch. I tried to leave, and then production was like, 'You need to go back inside. She's finally calming down. I feel like you owe it to her to have this conversation.' So then I went back in the house,” he said, which, fine, does explain that painfully drawn-out couch moment. It was so bad it was even lambasted on Saturday Night Live.
It “was super unfair to me,” Luyendyk said, which is rich coming from a man who agreed to dump his fiancee on television. He counters by explaining that the producers assured him everyone would come out looking like angels and, while I commend his trusting nature (illustrated by him curiously offering the GQ reporter access to his home and car), but common sense tells us all that no one looks like an angel on reality TV.
Luyendyk’s feeble excuse for filming that breakup is that he knew it would allow Kufrin the chance to become the newest Bachelorette. But was that really necessary? Given how loathed he was before the horrible breakup, his runner-up may have always been in the running anyway. I didn’t need to see their breakup in order to root for Kufrin — and I would have loved to see Luyendyk simply apologize, move on, and stay quiet on social media.
Okay, so the breakup was edited and crafted by the producers. Does that excuse what Luyendyk, Jr. did? Nope. Does it serve to make him seem more sympathetic? Possibly — but that feeling quickly dissolves at the end of the GQ profile when, unfortunately, he does away with any goodwill he’s earned by canceling the rest of the interview because the reporter made his fiancé Lauren Burnham cry. He even scrapped plans for a photoshoot to accompany the story. If there is one thing that is made excruciatingly obvious about Luyendyk, it’s the ease with which he can discard people in his life. Bachelor Nation doesn’t hate him because he dumped Kufrin for Burnham — he is despised because he tosses people away like candy wrappers on the street. That fact appears to be lost on him.