Before Bachelor in Paradise‘s beachy bliss and bonkers drama captivated Bachelor Nation in 2014, Bachelor Pad held its time slot as the franchise’s summer special. The show is an interesting piece of the Bachelor franchise’s history, in that it was basically a hybrid of The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and Big Brother, where men and women of Bachelor Nation gathered under the same roof to fall in love and compete for a cash prize by voting two people — a man and a woman — out of the house each week.
In 2013, ABC abruptly canceled the show after three seasons, and while ratings did fall between the second and third seasons from an average viewership of between five and six million to four million, per Inquisitr, there’s a juicer reason why the competition could no longer continue. Chris Bukowski, the person with the most combined appearances on any Bachelor spinoff, proudly claims the blame.
Chris Bukowski basically broke the game that was Bachelor Pad
In 2012, Bukowski competed on season 8 of The Bachelorette led by Emily Maynard. He went on to become a controversial staple on Bachelor Pad, where he kind of rigged the competition, thanks to a curveball new rule thrown in by host Chris Harrison. According to Life & Style, the rule said that instead of voting out two people, the cast would only vote on a woman, who would then choose a man to leave with her.
The group’s grand plan, led by Michael Stagliano, was to axe Erica Rose all while convincing her that Bukowski, who was not well-liked in the house, was the one who turned them all against her in hopes that she’d eliminate him, too. But Bukowski was onto them. When voting time came around, he pulled Rose into the voting room to physically prove to her that he didn’t plot her demise. That changed everything — Rose was still ousted, but she chose to take Stagliano down with her instead.
Because Bukowski was bold enough to break the rules, he may have ruined the show for everyone. “I’m a gamer and that was so much fun. It was scary… it literally changed the game,” he told Life & Style. “Do I regret [pulling Erica into the voting room]? No. Absolutely not. It was the best decision ever. Bachelor Pad can’t even happen now, they’d have to make a whole new show.” Enter: BiP, without a voting room in sight.
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