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"Juan Pablo Struggled A Lot With Being the Bachelor"—Chris Harrison Reveals Why, and Previews More Heartache Ahead

Is he getting rejected again?!

By Kristin Dos Santos Feb 20, 2014 9:04 PMTags
THE BACHELOR, Juan Pablo GalavisRandy Holmes/ABC

So much hotness…and so much rejection!

If you've been watching Juan Pablo on the current season of The Bachelor, it probably comes as no surprise that some of the women are just not that into him. He changes the rules (kissing, then no kissing), he dumped a woman on her birthday and he says things he really shouldn't say (see: gay Bachelor comments..and subsequent "apology" which was just…no).

In the most recent episode, one of the women, Sharlene, decided to leave the Venezuelan soccer player because she was not intellectually attracted to him, and a source confirms to E! News that—Spoiler Alert--another woman will decide to leave Juan Pablo before the season is through.

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"From here on out, the goodbyes are brutal," host Chris Harrison reveals to E! News. "He cares deeply for all of these women…there's a lot more crying. He's an emotional man. He wears his heart on his sleeve—good, bad, ugly. The rest of these goodbyes are brutal, whether it's a woman making the decision or he's making the decisions, it's tough. This is not the Sean Lowe, just cruse right into the harbor, smooth-sailing happy ending kind of show."

Harrison believes that Juan Pablo's lack of censorship—"He has no filter!" —and cultural differences have made the Bachelor process especially rough on him. "He just doesn't understand why everbody gets so upset about things," Harrison explains. But his biggest hurdle by far? Being a dad while trying to date 25 women on TV.

"He definitely has moved the goal post in the middle of the game," Harrison says, "changing the rules and moving around. I noticed it, but I noticed where it's coming from. I think being a single dad, being single myself now, I can empathize and understand a little bit better. I would have the same problem if I were the Bachelor.. You're with this beautiful woman and you're having an intimate date and you get into that moment ad you share a kiss or you share a whatever and quickly you realize, ‘Oh crap, I have a daughter. I have a family. Everyone's watching.' It's something you don't normally have to worry about in life, but you do as the Bachelor…He's really worried about both and I think to that end he struggled a lot with being the Bachelor and it really hurt him in the long run in really giving up and allowing the women  to see how much he cares because he's also caring a lot about somebody back home. It's hard to serve those two masters and be really good at the show."

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Harrison also reveals that we are seeing much more of what used to go down behind the scenes. In early seasons, producers didn't always show it when a woman wanted to go home.  

"If we had a girl that wasn't sure," he tells me, "the Bachelor might have known she wasn't sure and at the rose ceremony, she didn't get a rose and she goes home. I guess it's a way of glossing over it and not really showing it because that's just not what the show was."

Over 12 years (and continually strong ratings), the series has evolved into what Harrison considers "100 percent" more honest. "I think it's more real-life, which I love," Harrison explains. "It's gritty …and I think it makes for much better television because the show's never been predicated on the fact that it's perfect, people are perfect; Juan Pablo is not, I'm not, you're not. Relationships are hard, they suck at times, they're great at times, we've all been there, we've all been brokenhearted and so it's just easy to empathize… I'm glad we showed [what happened with Sharlene]."

 

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Editing aside, though, is Juan Pablo a letdown?

"I don't think you can live up to [the kind of hype he had]," Harrison admits. "We've had some popular choices…there was Sean, but I don't know, there was just this fever for Juan Pablo. It really was this bizarre groundswell of support and love, so I don't know if you could ever do anything but fall a little bit short of that. But he's just been himself and he's the guy that I met on The Bachelorette and he's the guy that now is the Bachelor. He really hasn't changed much. He's been the same guy. He hasn't tried to act any different throughout the entire time."