Former Bachelor producer Julie LaPlaca opens up about her relationship with Peter Weber in her new book, The Love Producer, but her story seemingly didn’t sit so well with the pilot.
“I think he reacted from a place of fear, understandably so,” Julie, 41, tells Us Weekly exclusively, revealing she reached out to Peter, 34, about her memoir. “At the time, I offered to let him read a copy, and instead he panicked, and you know … that’s OK. I just wish him the best, and I hope when he reads it, he sees that it’s coming from the heart.”
Julie emphasized that she’s “not out to get” the season 24 Bachelor in any way. “I’m just sharing my truth and my story, and he was a big catalyst for me, like, leaving and embarking on my own healing journey, and diving deeper into understanding my patterns with men, you know, why did I always go for Peter Pans, if you will. And so, I’m super grateful for him.”
During her time working behind the scenes on the Bachelor franchise, Julie became a confidant for many leads on their journeys to find love, including Peter. The pair formed a close friendship, eventually hooking up after Peter’s splits from Hannah Ann Sluss and Madi Prewett.
Several years after Peter’s season, Julie confessed her feelings in an emotional phone call.
“I absolutely did [get closure],” she tells Us. “There’s this quote … that says, ‘It is the imagination that is responsible for love, not the other person,’ and I think sometimes when you’re removed from someone you start to just create and write the stories in your head and you hold on to the what ifs. I think in many ways I was almost still trying to write that ending, and in my head, I was, like, still almost living in that Bachelor world, and wanting it for myself, and really all it took was one phone call, and it gave me the clarity I needed. I felt really so much freer after that.”
She continues, “It’s important to have a vulnerable conversation, and I think oftentimes we just hold on [and] hold so much inside, and we’re scared to have those uncomfortable conversations. … We get in our own way.”
Peter, meanwhile, spoke out about the book in an Instagram comment on Tuesday, June 30, as fellow Bachelor Nation alum Nick Viall discussed the pair’s history.
“I’ve moved on from this period of my life and I’m ultimately responsible for my choices,” he wrote. “What I’ll say is this: I asked Julie on multiple occasions to please keep private, intimate details, private. This wasn’t about a tv show anymore.”
He went on to add, “Curious though if she mentions in the book about my last one on one with Hannah Ann, and how in the middle of our dinner conversation during one on one producer interviews, Julie tells me ‘you will look like the biggest idiot in the world to America if you give her your rose.’ I find it wrong to mess with a person’s headspace like that and then go on to write a book about them.”
For Julie, however, the purpose of her memoir was to move beyond the “shame” she felt from her time within the franchise.
“It was a long journey to get here, you know?” she tells Us, reflecting on the “cathartic” process of writing the book. “I’m really glad that, through the writing process, and through sharing my words and my truth with the world, that everyone will know my story, and that I could just put that chapter behind me and step into this new chapter.”
The Love Producer hits shelves Tuesday, July 7.
