Pieper James is speaking out. The 24-year-old model took to her Instagram Story on Tuesday, after she drew criticism for her actions on Bachelor in Paradise the night before.
Pieper arrived to the beach with her sole focus on Brendan Morais, whom she was linked to pre-Paradise. While Brendan assured Natasha Parker, his BiP love interest, that things were “casual” with Pieper before arriving in Mexico, that story fell apart when Pieper showed up.
“Just a gentle reminder that reality tv isn’t real,” Pieper wrote in part. “An edited, produced, and cut down show isn’t going to show you every single thing said and done. An edited and produced show can’t show you conversations that happened before filming between friends.”
Before the episode aired on Monday, both Pieper and Brendan took to Instagram to lean into their apparent villain roles. Brendan shared a shirtless pool selfie, which he captioned, “here for the wrong reasons,” while Pieper danced to Lizzo’s track, “Rumors,” on her Instagram Story, and wrote “all’s fair in love and war” in a post on her feed. On Twitter, Natasha retweeted a message that called out the pair for “the disrespect” of their posts.
“I make light of this show because it’s a light hearted show,” Pieper wrote, seemingly in reference to her pre-BiP posts. “I don’t believe in pitting women against each other. I don’t believe men are prizes to be won at the expense of someone’s feelings. I believe in open communication to get answers, not name calling on the internet.”
“At the end of the day it’s a tv show,” she added. “We the viewers are shown what makes the best television, just as any show. And folk [sic] what we have here is a very successful show.”
Upon her arrival to Paradise, Pieper was quick to ask Brendan on a date without talking to any other men — something that Natasha found “fishy” — and the pair’s Paradise plans soon came to light.
“There are certain things that had to be done and certain ways I had to navigate this to bring us to this particular moment,” Brendan told Pieper on their date, alluding to his time with Natasha. “I can’t have a girlfriend entering this journey… It’s just not a good look. So if I tell everyone, ‘Pieper might be coming, so no one talk to me,’ I’d just be sitting, tanning, and what would happen is I would go home. And then you’d be here [without me]. So I was navigating this in a way to allow myself to potentially, hopefully, be here while you’re here.”
Pieper responded by thanking Brendan for “playing the game.”
“Trust me and trust what we’ve built prior to this. No matter how you feel in certain moments, the optics of it might look weird and awkward… Trust me,” Brendan said. “We have to have each other’s back. It has to be you and me first and foremost before anyone else… That’s the only way we’re going to get through this being in the position we want to be in, utilizing this time here and taking advantage of what Paradise would promote together.”
Pieper went on to refer to Brendan as her “boyfriend,” while he defended his actions with Natasha by saying that she had “zero other prospects” on the beach.
Natasha called Brendan “a liar,” but he appeared unaffected. In fact, Brendan and Pieper ended the episode discussing their then-growing follower counts on social media. As of Tuesday morning, Brendan has lost more than 30,000 Instagram followers, while Pieper has lost more than 3,000.
Bachelor in Paradise‘s second episode of the week will air Tuesday, Sept. 7, on ABC. Check out all of ET’s coverage for the latest drama on the beach.
Source: Read Full Article