The Bachelorette's Ben Smith is always ready to bare it all.
The fitness instructor, who is currently vying for Tayshia Adams' heart on the ABC dating competition, got candid with Wondery's Bachelor Happy Hour hosts Becca Kufrin and Rachel Lindsay about why he decided to go sans clothes on the Dec. 1 group date.
Though Ben joked that even his own mother would consider him an "exhibitionist," it was seeing the other Bachelorette contestants strip down that inspired his behavior.
"I was jealous that I didn't get to play strip dodgeball," he said of the show's controversial group date activity. "Later on they play speedo basketball, and I'm like holy s--t, when do I get my chance to take my clothes off? I had like nakedness envy."
But another major reason Ben decided to remove his clothes was to show Tayshia his more vulnerable side.
"Taking my clothes off was a literal and figurative dropping of my guard," the reality star added. "And maybe [Tayshia] caught a glimpse of me or maybe she didn't, I don't know. But it wasn't about being naked, it was about removing this barrier that I had up."
The former military man may have shown skin, however, he also let his guard down later in the episode by sharing a difficult part of his personal history with Tayshia: his history with eating disorders.
"I found out what girls were when I was 15, I realized they don't like the fat kid," Ben explained. "So, I stopped eating, I started working out all the time, lost like, 70 pounds, and had bulimia for, like, 10 years when I was in my 20s. It's hard to hide something for so long. I kept it from everybody."
The honest moment was enough for Tayshia to give Ben the date rose—and it seems that Ben's naked truth put him one step closer to winning Tayshia's heart.