We’re only approaching Week 3 on The Bachelorette, and single dad Ben from Texas has already ruffled a few (well, a lot) of feathers. There are two ways of looking at him bringing his son on to the show: he was being manipulative, trying to win over Desiree with an adorable kid or him just bringing the kid to show a part of him to her.
Ben addressed his intent and more in a conference call. Because he’s still on the show in our eyes, he couldn’t reveal certain things, but check out what he was able to say about the show so far:
On Bringing His Son to the Show:
For the record, Ben did run it by his son’s mother and got her 100 percent approval. Just like his view on interrupting other guys as they have their alone time with Desiree, Ben doesn’t care what other people think because he’s not there for them. He admits that he possibly could have approached the situations differently, but it was with zero malice.
“Everybody’s going to have their own opinion on why they believe I brought my son. I know exactly why I brought him, and it was a big risk because it could’ve gone two ways: Desiree could’ve loved it or decided ‘I’m not ready for the situation this guy’s in with already having a kid,’ ” Ben said.
“It never once occurred to me what is everybody else going to think. It just occurred to me how is this going to affect Desiree and also, is my son’s mother going to be with okay with this? In the end, it really didn’t matter what everyone else thought, it just mattered– how was this going to affect me and Des.”
On Getting Along with the Other Men in the House:
Although right now it may not seem so, Ben makes strong friendships in the house. However, some guys were not okay with the way he handled getting alone time with Des, that is, interrupting them so he could have that time.
“It was never about doing things in front of them [then] doing something else behind their backs. I 100 percent wanted to be friends with the guys in the house, and I did have a lot of friends in the house,” Ben said.
“I never wanted to hurt anybody. My intentions were never in the wrong place. Just in the moment, you’re still pretty nervous, you’re in a situation that you’re not necessarily used to so I made the decisions I made and that’s pretty much all I can say about that. In the end, we were there for Des so that was my main concentration.”
As a whole, Ben said the guys were great. During his off time when not on dates, Ben said that time was spent cultivating friendships with the guys he did get along with. He specifically mentioned Brad, Zack K, Robert and Brooks on the guys he had a connection with.
“We had a great group of guys and a lot of us thought this was one of the best seasons when it comes to candidates. It was just a fun group of guys, and we had a lot of fun together. You throw a girl into the mix and things change. Especially a girl like Des.”
On Michael G.:
Michael is a federal prosecutor from New York, so it’s not a surprise that he right away confronted Ben when his time with Des was cut short during a moment when Michael was confiding with Desiree about having diabetes. Will there be more where that came from?
“Michael wears his heart on his sleeve. He’s a great guy and what happened between us was unfortunate timing. You saw that when he had an issue with what happened, he confronted me,” Ben said.
“He’s not afraid to confront someone when he has any type of issue. So unfortunately that’s what happened between us, and I think you’re going to see some things like this may continue to happen.”
On Next Week’s Episode, Where It’s Shown That One of the Guys Might Have a Girlfriend:
“That scene’s going to be something to watch, and it’s definitely going to be interesting to the viewers. It’s definitely going to be a big part of the next episode for reasons we all know. The guy was pretty vocal on exactly what he thought of the situation,” Ben said.
What do you think? Do you believe Ben when he says he didn’t want to hurt anybody?
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(Image courtesy of ABC)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
