The Bachelor fans were left reeling this week after one of the show’s contestants claimed Locky Gilbert is a “puppet” being manipulated by Channel 10 producers, purely for ratings and drama.
WATCH: Matty J reveals why Matt Agnew and Chelsie split after The Bachelor
Contestant Nadine Kodsi, who was one of the first who women eliminated this season, claimed Locky was fed lines by Channel 10 producers via an earpiece and said the entire show was “rehearsed”.
“He’s a puppet and I saw that from the first five minutes,” Nadine said on the So Dramatic podcast.
She claimed that during her first meeting with Locky, she could see his earpiece and hear producers telling him to “tell her she’s beautiful, ask her what does she do, how does she feel”.
“I actually said to [Locky], ‘can you not speak for yourself? Do you have to listen to what they’re saying to you?’” Nadine said, adding that she believes calling out Locky’s behaviour was the reason she got booted off the show so soon.
“They were like, ‘Nadine, you can’t talk about production, do it again!’” she claimed. “It’s literally all rehearsed.”
But now Matty J, who was Australia’s Bachelor in 2017, has shut down Nadine’s claims and defended Locky, who is a close friend, and explained what really goes on behind the scenes on the show.
“You’re not fed lines! You do have an earpiece when you have things like the rose ceremony, but that’s only because you need to have contact with the director,” Matty revealed on his podcast The Babble.
“It’s literally like if something happens, and say there’s a camera on a dolly and that dolly’s stuffed and it can’t work, then they’ll say ‘Oh sorry, we’re just fixing this, hold for ten minutes’.
“They try to never talk to you unless it’s critical, because they don’t want to have any impeding effect on it being free-flowing.”
Directly addressing Nadine’s claim that production step in and ask contestants to recreate certain scenes or interactions, Matty said production “never step in”.
“Production would have never stepped in like that because it’s not gonna make the edit, so they’re not going to make you re-do it because it makes it more awkward! Production never step in,” he said.
Matty also went on to say that viewers often assume producers have a huge say in which contestants receive a rose and who gets to go on the single and group dates, but he says this decision is “entirely in the hands” of the Bachelor himself.
“Probably the most common question that I get asked about The Bachelor is ‘Do you actually get to pick which girls you send home and you go on dates with?’. That decision is entirely at the hands of the Bachelor!
“Like, you get to pick exactly which two girls you go on dates with and who stays and who goes home. Even the order of the rose ceremony it is up to you. I would never lie to you. The Bachelor, he decides everything, it’s all up to him.”
As for Nadine’s explosive claims that frontrunner contestant Bella Valeris and Locky entered into a secret agreement before filming began, to ensure she would be picked as the winner, Matty says a similar narrative was created around him and now fiancée Laura Byrne during their season.
“I remember back when I was on the show and somebody had asked ‘Surely you guys [Matty and Laura] must have crossed paths?’,” Matty said.
“And I said ‘Yeah we actually realised that we did on one occasion before the show’. I was at down at Icebergs [in Sydney’s Bondi] in the sauna, she was there and nobody else is in the sauna. I was with a friend, and you know when you walk in and give a nod and a smile? ‘I remember thinking that girl’s really pretty’ and that was it.
“Nothing more, we never had a conversation, I swear on my life!”
Matty and Laura now have a daughter together, Marlie-Mae, and got engaged last year while on holiday, when Laura was pregnant.
Bella and fellow contestant Irena Srbinovska are currently the fan-favourites tipped to win The Bachelor in 2020.
According to betting agency Sportsbet, Irena’s odds at slightly ahead of Bella’s at $1.65, compared to Bella’s $2.75.
The Bachelor continues on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7.30pm on Ten.
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