The Bachelor jinx is alive and well.
Brad Womack, the latest leading hunk on the ABC reality dating series, nixed a future romance with either of his final femmes during Monday night's climactic episode.
Apparently, neither DeAnna Pappas nor Jenni Croft tugged at his heartstrings enough to warrant a rose, less a proposal, with the 34-year-old Texas entrepreneur providing a show-ending shocker by declaring he didn't really love either one of them.
So, he sent them both packing, much to their surprise, considering that one episode earlier he had picked out an engagement ring and took both ladies home to meet his parents. "I never in a million years thought it'd be this tough," he said in the penultimate episode. "But I know exactly what I'm going to do today, and I am so confident in that decision. I have to follow my heart."
Apparently, his heart wasn't with either Croft, a 27-year-old Phoenix Suns cheerleader, or Pappas, a 25-year-old real-estate agent, who got the final kiss-off when Womack said, "I can't give you a promise that I can't keep. I refuse to do that, so I have to tell you goodbye."
Needless to say, neither woman was particularly pleased with the turn of the events, the first time in the franchise's 11 cycles that no match was made.
"I honestly don't know what went wrong. My dad told me before I came here, ‘There's one person in this life for you and you'll find him,' " Croft sobbed when she got the bad news and decamped from the scene.
"To be so hurt and mad. Half of me is looking at him like I don't give a f--k what he says, then the other half just could not understand," said Pappas, when she was unceremoniously returned to her loser's limo. "I definitely didn't think he'd be the next person to break my heart. Stupid me."
Indeed, betting on happiness hasn't been a brilliant proposition for most of the contenders on the the singleton-pairing show. Other than the marriage of Bachelorette Trista Renn (herself a Bachelor reject) to firefighter Ryan Sutter, every pairing has either ended in breakups or broken engagements.
As for Womack's unlucky ladies, they will likely get some licks in on Tuesday's 10 p.m. special, where they will be grilling him about his final decision.