The Biggest Bombshells Revealed in ‘Bachelor’ Memoirs Over the Years

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The Biggest Bombshells Revealed in ‘Bachelor’ Memoirs Over the Years

Not all seasons of the Bachelor and Bachelorette have a happy ending, but some result in juicy tell-all memoirs. Amanda Stanton, Andi Dorfman and more members of Bachelor Nation have written about the franchise over the years. “In [the audition] rooms, producers gave us background tests and STD screenings, had us talk to a therapist, and so on — all within a very busy day of shuttling from room to room,” Stanton wrote in her 2019 book, Now Accepting Roses: Finding Myself While Searching for the One … and Other Lessons I Learned from The Bachelor. Dorfman, for her part, did not hold back while writing about her exes Nick Viall and Josh Murray in her first book, It’s Not Okay: Heartbreak into Happily Never After. "It's not my favorite book,” Viall quipped to E! News in 2016 after the memoir hit shelves. “I’m familiar with the book, I'm in it a little bit. I don't know Andi to be the most honest person. What Andi does is she has a tendency of omitting information … That being said, the things that are written about me, as far as, like, the events that happened and things that were said, a large part of it did happen, right? So I can't say that it's a fictional book. It might be missing some information, but a lot of the things she wrote about did happen. I think Josh would want you to believe that it's a totally fictional book, and it's hard for me knowing what's written about me and what happened that it is fictional.” [jwplayer 7VF9vPbU-l3ahXupL] (Murray, who Dorfman alleged was emotionally abusive in New York Times bestseller, did indeed call the memoir a “fictional story” at the time.) Colton Underwood, meanwhile, is the latest member of Bachelor Nation to tell his story. While the season 23 Bachelor tested positive for coronavirus shortly before the book was set to released on March 31, 2020, the tell-all, The First Time: Finding Myself and Looking for Love on Reality TV, was published as planned. Scroll through to revisit the biggest revelations from Bachelor Nation books over the years: [podcast_block]

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The Biggest Bombshells Revealed in ‘Bachelor’ Memoirs Over the Years

Not all seasons of the Bachelor and Bachelorette have a happy ending, but some result in juicy tell-all memoirs. Amanda Stanton, Andi Dorfman and more members of Bachelor Nation have written about the franchise over the years. “In [the audition] rooms, producers gave us background tests and STD screenings, had us talk to a therapist, and so on — all within a very busy day of shuttling from room to room,” Stanton wrote in her 2019 book, Now Accepting Roses: Finding Myself While Searching for the One … and Other Lessons I Learned from The Bachelor. Dorfman, for her part, did not hold back while writing about her exes Nick Viall and Josh Murray in her first book, It’s Not Okay: Heartbreak into Happily Never After. "It's not my favorite book,” Viall quipped to E! News in 2016 after the memoir hit shelves. “I’m familiar with the book, I'm in it a little bit. I don't know Andi to be the most honest person. What Andi does is she has a tendency of omitting information … That being said, the things that are written about me, as far as, like, the events that happened and things that were said, a large part of it did happen, right? So I can't say that it's a fictional book. It might be missing some information, but a lot of the things she wrote about did happen. I think Josh would want you to believe that it's a totally fictional book, and it's hard for me knowing what's written about me and what happened that it is fictional.” [jwplayer 7VF9vPbU-l3ahXupL] (Murray, who Dorfman alleged was emotionally abusive in New York Times bestseller, did indeed call the memoir a “fictional story” at the time.) Colton Underwood, meanwhile, is the latest member of Bachelor Nation to tell his story. While the season 23 Bachelor tested positive for coronavirus shortly before the book was set to released on March 31, 2020, the tell-all, The First Time: Finding Myself and Looking for Love on Reality TV, was published as planned. Scroll through to revisit the biggest revelations from Bachelor Nation books over the years: [podcast_block]

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Hannah Brown's Secret Hookup With Peter Weber

The season 15 Bachelorette instantly made headlines when she dropped her first memoir, God Bless This Mess, in November 2021, revealing that she had sex with her third place contestant, Peter Weber, while his season of The Bachelor was airing in early 2020. At the time, Weber had just split from Hannah Ann Sluss and Brown "heard that they were having troubles" in their relationship. (The duo split in January and Brown and Weber slept together the following month.)

"The chemistry just wasn't there," Brown wrote of her hookup with the pilot. "It just sucked. And then, I found out he had another girl [runner-up Madison Prewett] on his mind. It was all so bizarre."

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Colton Underwood Thought He Was Gay

Underwood shared details of his sexuality struggles in The First Time.

“[My dad] called up the history of recent Google searches, which included gay porn sites and a variety of questions: Am I gay? How do you know if you’re gay? Why don’t I like having sex with my girlfriend?” he wrote. “At first, I denied responsibility. Then I owned up to having been curious. He asked if I wanted to talk about it. I said no, explaining that I’d figured things out on my own. … Sometimes I wonder if my life would have been much easier if I had been gay. Maybe it would’ve helped me to know myself better and sooner. Maybe I wouldn’t have stayed a virgin.”

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Colton Underwood Spills on Hannah Brown

The season 23 Bachelor detailed Brown’s feud with Caelynn Miller-Keyes in his 2020 memoir, The First Time. “From what they told me off camera, their problem had to do with a tasteless joke about a serious matter related to one of their family members,” he revealed. “I won’t say anything more. The tension of being on the show together opened this old wound and cast a dark cloud over the entire week.”

Underwood also revealed that the former Miss Alabama crashed his hometown date with Hannah Godwin, but the scene never aired. “She was still stewing about not getting a rose and wanted more clarity from me,” he wrote. “In reality, it seemed she wanted to lash out and vent. She went off on the remaining four girls and told me they didn’t have the qualities that made her so amazing. It was the beast in her, roaring and raging.”

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Colton Underwood’s Behind-the-Scenes Secrets

Underwood felt betrayed by producers when they invited frontrunner Cassie Randolph’s dad to Thailand.

“It was all clear and perfect and everything a parent should do. I’m sure that’s why my old pal, supervising producer Ruby Taylor, had called Matt in the first place,” he wrote in The First Time. “She’d contacted him several days earlier and told him that Cassie was really struggling with her feelings and could use him as a sounding board. … It made me feel like production was working against me and trying to help Cassie break up with me.”

Underwood’s tell-all also shared behind-the-scenes secrets — including how the lead hides their boners on the show. “They weren’t on TV, but boners are a real, regular, and unavoidable part of the show,” he confessed. “The producers are sensitive to guys who find themselves in a hard situation. I didn’t know this until I was in the ocean with Cassie in Thailand and production said they needed me for an interview. I wasn’t ready to get out of the water. … Poor Cass waited patiently while I splashed, yawned, swam, and waited for low tide.”

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Sean Lowe on Struggles With Catherine Giudici

The season 17 Bachelor that revealed his relationship with winner Catherine Giudici almost didn’t last.

“I really liked Catherine, but she was a Birkenstock-wearing, vegan food blogger from Seattle,” he wrote in his 2015 book, For the Right Reasons: America's Favorite Bachelor on Faith, Love, Marriage, and Why Nice Guys Finish First. “I was a meat eater who'd worked in the oil and gas industry. She came from a Filipino culture. My family was a bunch of Texans. How could that possibly work out?”

Their relationship was tested when he booked Dancing With the Stars.

“’We just got out of a hard time of life. Remember? The Bachelor? That wasn't easy either,’ Catherine said one day,” Lowe wrote. “’We kept saying that once it was over, we could live like normal people. Well, this isn't normal!’” 

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Courtney Robertson’s Puerto Rico Tryst

Robertson confirmed in her 2014 book, I Didn't Come Here to Make Friends: Confessions of a Reality Show Villain, that she and Bachelor Ben Flajnik had sex in the ocean in Puerto Rico during season 16.

“Ben and I may have made sweet (succinct) love but we also took advantage of not being miked up and had a heartfelt, though brief, conversation that night in the ocean,” she wrote. “He told me he was listening to ‘our song’ — ‘Sleepwalking’ by Mariachi El Bronx — over and over and that he thought about me all the time. ‘I can’t believe I feel this way already, so soon,’ he said.” 

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Courtney Robertson on the Fantasy Suites

“Ten minutes after we were in the cottage, the camera crews, handlers, and producers scrammed, and we were completely alone for the first time ever,” Robertson wrote about being in the fantasy suite with Flajnik. “We immediately ripped each other’s clothes off and had intense, passionate sex on the couch in front of the fire. Producers had left a cell phone for us in case of emergency, but they did not leave us any condoms.”

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Courtney Robertson’s Hookups With Arie Luyendyk Jr.

After her split from Flajnik, Robertson dated Arie Luyendyk Jr. on and off. She detailed her connection in her book. 

“Though he is an expert at lip locking, known among fans of the show as the ‘kissing bandit,’ I was getting hot and bothered and needed more. ‘Arie, I feel like I’m in high school. I can’t just keep making out with you.’ He was hesitant for a millisecond, but then we headed into my childhood bedroom, into my canopy bed, for what can only be described as the best sex I’ve ever had,” she wrote. “Why was it so good you ask? Arie’s incredibly passionate and utilizes his entire body in his lovemaking. And he knows exactly what positions make a woman feel comfortable and satisfied.”

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Emily Maynard Disses Brad Womack

The Southern Belle may have won season 15 of The Bachelor, but her and lead Brad Womack didn’t last long. In her 2015 book, I Said Yes: My Story of Heartbreak, Redemption, and True Love, Maynard admitted their engagement wasn’t quite as romantic as it looked on TV. "After I said yes," she wrote. "Brad scooped me up in his arms and said, 'Wow, Em! You're a lot heavier than you look.'" 

After the show wrapped, the twosome were on and off before calling it quits for good in June 2011. “A few weeks after we filmed the last show, Brad sent an email, copying me, to the producers saying, ‘Sorry but things didn’t work out with Emily and I. It wasn’t the fairy tale I thought it would be,’” she wrote. “That was the first of a hundred breakups. While I wasn’t surprised by what Brad wrote — I mean, really, he was right — I was surprised to hear this from him via a CC on a email.” 

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Emily Maynard Regretted Her Engagement

While Maynard accepted a proposal from Jef Holm during the season 8 finale, she instantly regretted saying yes after she saw her daughter, Ricki.

"The second I saw my sweet daughter, her long ponytail flapping in the wind,” she wrote. “I knew I shouldn't have gotten engaged.”

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Andi Dorfman Slams Juan Pablo

According to Dorfman’s 2016 book, It’s Not Okay, which was named after Juan Pablo Galavis’ infamous quote on season 18 of The Bachelor, the twosome did not hook up in the fantasy suite. 

"He blasted Ray J and R. Kelly all night long and showed me dozens of videos of his old soccer highlights on YouTube," she wrote. "All there was was the realization that I was nothing more than a pretty object he had no intentions of liking, let alone loving, and thus no amount of free travel was enticing enough to stay any longer."

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Andi Dorfman on Sex With Nick Viall

The season 10 Bachelorette referred to her overnight date with runner-up Viall as a “ladyboner-killing, awkward sexual encounter.”

“We’re finally doing the deed, I’m trying to make the scenario less embarrassing by leading him toward romance, and all he can ask is would I rather f—k or make love?” she wrote. “This is sex, dammit … kiss me, love on me, and if you can’t talk without making an utter fool of yourself, then stay silent.”

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Andi Dorfman Gets Real About Josh Murray

Dorfman detailed her winner Murray’s allegedly emotionally abusive behavior in the 2016 memoir. She also claimed that Murray often threw her moment with Viall in the fantasy suite in her face. 

“He was devastated, angry and hurt, badly. I apologized profusely for lying,” she wrote about Murray finding out about Viall. “He seemed to struggle over whether he was more upset by the fact that I had lied or that I’d had sex with another man. Several more apologies later, it became clear the issue was about my having sex with someone else. That one sexual escapade would become a power play used by my fiancé to justify his mistrust in me. It would be an excuse to call me a whore. And it would eventually lead to the demise of my engagement.”

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Amanda Stanton’s Take on Josh Murray

Stanton was briefly also engaged to Murray after meeting on Bachelor in Paradise season 3. She wrote about Murray’s alleged behavior in her 2019 book, Now Accepting Roses. 

“Josh didn’t want a fiancée, he wanted a robot he could program and control,” she wrote, which Murray denied. “After all his sweet talk about wanting to watch the girls while I got manicures with my friends, the reality was he didn’t even like me texting or talking to anyone, let alone seeing them in person,” she claimed. “One time I met two girls, friends of mine since first grade, for dinner. Josh was so jealous and furious he bombarded me with texts to say he was packing his things and leaving. My attention had to be on Josh and only Josh at all times. I’d have to call my mom from the gym to avoid an issue.”