Bachelor: Alum Jillian Anderson Reveals She Was ‘Mortified’ By Producers

The Bachelor alum Jillian Anderson is speaking out about how “mortified” she was at an edit the show gave her. It’s a poorly kept secret that contestants on The Bachelor franchise don’t always like how they’re portrayed by the show’s producers. There have been multiple instances when franchise alums have revealed that the way something happened on the show was taken out of context. A contestant from Peter Weber’s season, Victoria Fuller, implied producers treated her poorly, which is why she didn’t go on Bachelor in Paradise. Other alums probably understand where Jillian is coming from.

Blake Horstmann, who appeared on both The Bachelorette and BIP, outed producers by revealing they purchase a bunch of gifts, like jewelry, ahead of time so contestants can give them to each other on the beach. After Chasen Nick gifted Deandra Kanu a necklace on BIP season 7, Blake made sure to let fans know that the producers set up the gifts to manufacture drama. He’s also said how scary it is that the show can take anything he says and edit it together. Being in an environment where anything you say can be edited out of context can be stressful, so it makes sense that Blake would want to reveal the behind-the-scenes of how the show really works.

Jillian recently revealed her issues with the edit she got on the “She’s All Bach” podcast. Jillian, who competed on Chris Soules’ season, had a black box put over her bottom when she wore a bikini. Only, it wasn’t just when she was in a bathing suit, the running gag followed her all throughout the season. According to her, a producer told her this was going to happen before the second episode aired. “He was like, ‘Well, your butt’s a little big and sometimes things got a little cheeky, so we had to blur it out. Disney made us,’ which I don’t believe,” Jillian said (via Us Weekly). “‘Instead of doing a little blur, we did a giant black bar, really over-exaggerated it,’ and I was just mortified.” Luckily, Bachelor Nation alums Clare Crawley and Michelle Money stood up for her. Jillian also said that no one can understand “how bad it’s actually going to be” before going on the show. She claimed that she was wearing a “full bottom” bikini that “wasn’t a scandalous bikini by any means.“

Not only did Jillian feel humiliated about the black bar, but a one-on-one date between her and Chris where they played “Would You Rather” was apparently also edited. Even though it looked like she was playing, Jillian claims she was actually speaking to a producer about a joke she heard from another contestant. “If you watch that date, there is never a [two-person] shot during that conversation,” Jillian said. While she wasn’t too keen on playing into what the producers wanted that season, apparently Kaitlyn Bristowe and Ashley Iaconetti were down to play along. Jillian alleged that Ashley said, “‘Whatever the producers say, I’m just gonna do it,’” while Kaitlyn knew she had to “play ball” to stay on the show. However, she also said that Kaitlyn is the type of person to do “out-of-the-box things” without any prodding, anyway.

Even though she’s able to laugh about everything now, it’s still wrong that Jillian had to go through that humiliation. While there’s nothing wrong with contestants being willing to put themselves out there and play by the rules of the reality show, it’s still unfair to edit others in a way that will embarrass them without them knowing it will happen. Fans of The Bachelor know it’s full of drama, so it’s not too surprising that producers would be pulling strings to make the show more entertaining for the audience.

Source: Us Weekly