What is love? Former Bachelorette Ali Fedotowsky took to her blog on Tuesday, February 23, to discuss the latest hometown dates on Bachelor Ben Higgins‘ season, and advised the season 20 lead and his remaining three girls — JoJo, Caila and Lauren B. — to be cautious about saying “I love you.”
“You guys probably noticed this episode that the girls had a really hard time telling Ben ‘I love you,'” Fedotowsky, the season 6 Bachelorette, wrote on her lifestyle blog. “They just couldn’t get the words out. The reason these girls can’t tell him ‘I love you’ is because they aren’t really in love yet. Can I be 100 percent certain they aren’t in love? Well no, of course not.”
Take it from Fedotowsky — and other members of Bachelor nation. “I can say that EVERY person I’ve ever talked to on the show has told me that they weren’t really in love on the show, they just thought they were in the moment,” Fedotowsky wrote. “They were in lust! Heck, even the married couples from the show say that. Ask Jason and Molly or Ashley and JP. I bet they would say that they didn’t really know the person on the show, and they truly fell in love AFTER the show.”
Fedotowsky, 31, said that even when the girls utter those three little words, it won’t reflect their true feelings. “They’ll say it, but it will feel awkward,” she continued. “After the show is over they will even say they loved him, but ask them six months from now and the answer is always the same with every contestant – they’ll say they weren’t REALLY in love. Not yet at least. And this isn’t meant as a dig at the show. The show is amazing and the feelings they express at the time are real!”
(Fedotowsky and her final pick, Roberto Martinez, ended their relationship a year after filming the series. She eventually found true love and got engaged to TV and radio host Kevin Manno in September 2015. They’re currently expecting their first child.)
The former Bachelorette went on to elaborate: “I’m just saying, when on the show you tend to believe your feelings are stronger than they actually are because of the circumstance you are in. Which is totally OK. Jojo’s brother put it perfectly – they’ve only been in two 1-on-1 dates at this point – can you really know someone at that point? And I believe in ‘lust-love’ at first site but I STRONGLY believe that to KNOW someone is to love someone.”
Fedotowsky ended her post with some thoughts about each of the three finalists and who she believes will get the final rose. “Ben was asked how he felt about each girl by their families. He said he ‘cares’ for Jojo to her family, told Caila’s family he could fall for ‘someone’ and flat out broke down in tears to Lauren B’s family,” she wrote. “I think it’s pretty obvious who he’s falling for. Man I hope I am right or I am going to owe Ben and his new fiancee a big apology after this. Ha!”
The Bachelor airs on ABC on Mondays at 8 p.m. EST.
