Surprise? ABC executive Rob Mills was surprised when he found out that The Bachelor’s Arie Luyendyk Jr. and Lauren Burnham had passed on a televised wedding.
“Honestly, I didn’t know about this until I watched [them announce their wedding date] on The View myself,” ABC Entertainment’s senior vice president of alternative series, specials and late-night programming told Variety in an interview published on Tuesday, May 29.
Luyendyk, 36, and Burnham, 26, announced on the May 23 episode of The View that they are set to tie the knot at Haiku Mill in Maui, Hawaii, on January 12, 2019. “It’s a private wedding, so not on TV,” he said on the ABC morning show. “Just a close group of friends. Probably 100 guests.”
Mills believes that the couple opted for a less flashy ceremony due to their controversial engagement. (Luyendyk initially proposed to Becca Kufrin, only to break up with her and rekindle his relationship with season 22 runner-up Burnham. Kufrin, 28, is now the lead of The Bachelorette’s 14th season, which premiered on Monday, May 28.)
“My suspicion is they probably want a measure of privacy,” the network exec said. “I don’t think they’ve been a couple that people have been particularly kind to, so they probably didn’t want a bunch of people hate-watching their wedding. For us, we’re just thrilled that they did find love. They went through this really painful experience and are going [to] get married. So we’re happy for them.”
Still, Mills would like to highlight the pair’s big day in the future. “I’m sure we’ll include the wedding in some way in the show, and we’ll have Arie and Lauren on one of our specials,” he told Variety. “You can never leave the Bachelor family.”
The Bachelorette airs on ABC Mondays at 8 p.m. ET.
