Enquirer, we are glad you ran the story.  Better late than never.

Let’s get started by watching a few clips that make yet another strong case for heavy editing in the show.  This is an interview given right before Ashley is proposed to by both JP and Ben (this is just one clip clarifying the time of the interview as right before the final rose).  Now this second clip is from the Japan show of Ashley supposedly “figuring Bentley out” and telling Bentley off. Notice anything similar?  They are the EXACT SAME INTERVIEW happening on the same day, check out Ashley’s outfits, makeup, hair, and background.  This girl has never been in the same outfit on this show in two episodes.  What does this mean?  The complete tell off of Bentley supposedly happening weeks earlier was completely fabricated.

Two time bachelor Brad Womack is quite possibly the only man alive that could lose a game that he is completely set up to win–twice!  In his first Bachelor appearance, Brad slept with multiple women and then decided to not choose one in the last show.  This was completely humiliating for the woman and outraged viewers because of his flippant attitude towards copulation and relationships.  Producers seeking drama and ratings re-casted him as a Bachelor where he slept with Chantal, and then chose the one girl with standards high enough to know not to spend the night with Brad—Emily.  Now Emily, realizing that Brad Womack is a tool, has decided to end her relationship with him.  I guess this might be expected from Stephen Bradley Pickelsimer (his name before he changed it to Womack) with a criminal record including forgery, public intoxication and for passing a bad check.

Two things we learn from this:

1) Ladies, please have some class.  If you put out the nookie like a street walker, a man will treat you like one.

2) Brad Womack is possibly the biggest loser we have ever seen on a game show

Anyway, we have further proof.  When Ashley left Ames twisting in the wind without a rose on Monday night, his reactions were anything but human.  First, the dumbfounded look on his face didn’t say anything as clearly as, “Does not compute! Does not compute!”  So, he may be a robot visitor from another planet, kind of like a Predator drone sent to spy on us. Second, he actually winked at Ashley.  We’re not sure what to say about this.  What can be said?  If there were a list of utterly inappropriate gestures at that moment in time, surely winking would top the list.

Let’s reiterate that Ames is one of our favorite non-Bentley contestants and obviously leads a great life (on any planet).  But clearly he’s not from around here.  Just sayin’.

Emily, join the ranks of wishing for a “dot dot dot” with Bentley.  They are the same ranks that wish Ashley had never been on the show.

We realize that wanting to run off to live with Bentley after only 2 group dates and a whiff of his pheromones is a carnal reaction most women have. Does Ashley expect this from every guy?  There is only one Bentley and we think Ashley might be using an unreachable standard when evaluating “romance”.

As possibly the biggest blow to Guy Smiley’s ego, Smiley now realizes now that unlike Bentley and Glambert he was the first to be shown the door–instead of looking for it–before a date was over (Big League Chew left before his date started only because the show’s true villain—William sabotaged him).  Bentley Apologists are big fans of Big League Chew and Guy Smiley, whenever they talked about Ashley—it was like hearing Ashley talk about Bentley.  Watching Ashley talk about relationships and what feels right on this show is a bit similar to watching Casey Anthony talk about parenting.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Hasn’t there been another contestant recently that bravely remained true to his heart, despite the immense pressure of a hateful public and the powerful publicity machine of ABC?

Yes, there has been. Bentley. This blog has covered Bentley’s truthfulness and honesty extensively, and has quite rightly lauded him for it. Why is everyone supporting Emily for doing the same thing they criticized Bentley for? Maybe it just reflects our society’s double standard. Women are allowed to be honest with their feelings but men aren’t. In any case, one thing is certain. Bentley will be greatly missed, and the show just isn’t the same without him.

Since Bentley’s departure, the Bachelorette is definitely getting a little old. Sometimes the show seems down right prehistoric. We are also having a hard time seeing exactly what Ashley’s “type” is. For the remaining contestants, she kept a dilettante alien, Ned Flanders, two short grizzled dudes, and the Geico cavemen. What, if anything, do these guys have in common (besides playing second fiddle to Bentley)?

According to the gossip rags: “Although billed on the show as a ‘portfolio manager,’ one of his exes says he never really has real jobs. “He doesn’t really work. He just gets degrees and travels around.”

Sounds pretty good to us. Why is this supposed to be a knock against him? Like the other guys resumes are so great. Would you rather have him cut hair, make appetizers, or sell phones at a kiosk? He’s simply sampling from our planet’s rich intellectual and cultural heritage. Contrary to what this report implies, portfolio management (read: managing your family’s fortune) is a totally legitimate profession for a 30-year old aspiring alien actor. Plus, portfolios can get seriously crazy if you don’t manage them properly.

The article goes on to say that Ames is a “lady killer.” He’s charming, intellectual and good-looking, but he uses those great assets to get whatever he wants from women.”

Ah, yeah, or he uses his synthetic pheromones and wide-eye vision to attract them (which appear to be second only to Bentley’s rustic charm and rugged good-looks at attracting Ashley). He certainly Ames to please in that outfit.

While downing 60 greasy hot dogs and courting Ashley Herbert evoke similar feelings (both are likely to make you nauseous), we actually wanted to point out another similarity between the eating contest and the Bachelorette. This year Joey “Jaws” Chestnut won the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest after consuming 62 hot dogs in 10 minutes. The event played on ESPN and on televisions around the nation. But a much lesser publicized event was happening in the same city at the same time. Seven-time Champion and world record holder for eating hot dogs (among other things) Takeru “Tsunami” Kobayashi held an event on a roof top where he consumed 69 hotdogs in 10 minutes smashing Chestnut’s record. Consuming 7 more hotdogs is the eating contest equivalent of Kobayashi lapping Joey. Kobayashi was banned from the competition because he wouldn’t sign an exclusive contract with Major League Eating (yes, seriously, there is an organization trying to make eating a professional sport that wants to charge “athletes”). So Chestnut was crowned the wiener on national television by MLE president George Shea who would later call Kobayashi’s record a farce.

So what does this have to do with The Bachelorette? Just as the Nathan’s eating contest wants to find the greatest hot dog eater, The Bachelorette purports to find the best love match for Ashley. But both contests also want to make as much money as possible. So they end of squeezing more money out of the show and their contestants at the expense of “REALITY.” When Bentley was cast, Bachelorette producers were ecstatic about the ratings that would come from Bentley’s brutal honesty just as the Nathan’s contest organizers were ecstatic to have the iconic Kobyashi as their original hot dog eating champion. Yet Kobayashi and Bentley refused to play the game their handlers wanted them to play, and both of them walked. Now their respective contests are stuck trying to be the premier event while the champions sit on the sidelines. So who is the Joey Chestnut to the Bentley Kobayashi?

SPOILER ALERT (We think it’s a spoiler, but we don’t know for sure. Bentley fans believe it’s obvious given the Bentley rebound Ashley is on. Also, does it really matter to alert you when Bentley is gone?).

From what we understand, it’s the same guy who caught Ashley first off of the Bentley rebound (which she is still experiencing) – J.P. After seeing how hard Ashley fell for Bentley, it’s obvious that the love she feels for J.P. is a direct result of the Bentley rebound. At the end of the day, Joey and J.P. might get the coveted yellow belt and be crowned wieners on national television, those familiar with reality know who the real champions are: Bentley Williams and Takeru Kobayashi.

Before you make comments on this page, we want to identify that there are graphic analogies that could easily be made with a contest of consuming multiple wieners and the set up to The Bachelorette show—but we want to keep this site family friendly.

So where do the Apologists go from here? Bentley was our horse in the Bachelorette race, and even although he’s gone for good, we don’t plan to pick another one. Especially if we have that many fans of the site.  Instead, we are going to act exactly like Ashley. For the rest of the season, we’re going to keep tabs on all the second fiddles [contestants still in the race who are clear second choices to Bentley], while still pining for Bentley and continuing to talk incessantly about him. Hope you’ll join us.

Bentley obsession runs deep on the Bachelorette this season. Indeed, we’ve already seen how fixated Ashley is on him [to the detriment of herself and the other contestants], but now new clues are emerging that suggest that Ashley was not the only person on the show who had strong feelings for Bentley, which may explain why the producers continued to push the Bentley storyline on viewers. Click on the video above. You can see Ashley’s usual blabbering on and on about Bentley (she mentions him 18 times during one part of an episode). But keep watching until the end of the video when Bachelorette host Chris Harrison finally admits that he too, fell in love with Bentley. Do you think he meant love for Bentley based on his ability to bring ratings or real romantic love? We’re betting the latter. Bentley’s irresistibility knows no bounds.

To find out, we gathered TV ratings from Zap2It for the show and compiled them into a graph. The graph covers the last four weeks of the show including Bentley’s departure (episode 3), The Bentley Hangover where Ashley talked about him incessantly (episode 4), Bentley’s full absence from the show (episode 5), and King Bentley’s triumphant return (episode 6). As you can plainly see, Bentley’s full absence constituted the show’s nadir during the period [despite the shameless attempt to attract viewers with shirtless Bachelorette contestants engaged in Muay Thai fighting for Ashley’s affection]. Moreover, we see a massive spike in viewers when he returns to the show. That’s right; Bentley’s 5 minutes back on camera led to an increase of roughly half a million viewers. That’s an extra 100,000 viewers for every minute on the show. Are you listening ABC and Chris Harrison? Do you really think nice guys JP or Ben F. can generate that kind of viewer interest? It’s an understatement to say that “Bentley is good for ratings.” Bentley is ratings!

People have criticized Bentley relentlessly for his “wreckless and meanspirited” comments about Ashley. We at the Apologists have argued that while entertaining, these comments are mostly overblown, taken out of context, or are simply examples of Bentley’s forthrightness. Let’s face it folks, Bentley calls them as he sees them. So, we found it amusing that some enterprising soul managed to pull together “every a**hole-ish thing The Bachelorette’s Bentley has said about Ashley.” While it may seen counterproductive for an apologist site to post something that could further damage our man’s reputation, we think it important enough to risk it for several reasons. First, it shows you what we are up against. Someone spent an awful lot of time splicing these clips together to convince viewers that Bentley really is a bad guy. Could producers be behind this? Second, Bentley’s entire affront to humanity comprises a grand total of 4 minutes and 34 seconds. That’s right, several weeks in a house with every move and statement being videotaped and recorded, and the most they could dig up was 4 minutes and 34 seconds. For all we know, he was an absolute model contestant who spent every other minute gushing about how great Ashley was. We have lots of evidence that everyone in the house seemed to like him. So Bentley said some things. So what. If anything, this video actually exonerates him, and reminds us why we were so blessed to have Bentley for those wonderful 2.5 episodes this season.

The now defunct website jumptheshark.com explained the concept as follows: “It’s a moment.  A defining moment when you know that your favorite television program has reached its peak. That instant that you know from now on…it’s all downhill. Some call it the climax. We call it ‘Jumping the Shark.’ From that moment on, the program will simply never be the same.”

With Bentley leaving the Bachelorette, the show has jumped the shark.  The producers have been locked in to selecting Bachelors and Bachelorettes from previous series so audiences can connect better with the main contestant.  Unfortunately, after making Ashley look insecure and ignorant and having Bentley and other contestants look like villains—no contestant worth watching wants to be on the show.  ABC now is known for trashing contestants and lying to audiences to get ratings.  The series is scraping the bottom of the barrel of people willing to be on the show (Brad Womack was on it twice?!).  The show has now ended up with an emotional insecure girl that is every man’s worst nightmare.  As the show continues to select from this low quality pool of single contestants willing to sign away their life the show is now on decline.  Bentley was the shows pinnacle of drama and entertainment.  We might have just witnessed a new idiom for reality tv similar to Jumping The Shark—Casting Bentley.

The producers convinced Bentley to fly to Hong Kong instead of calling because they wanted more live Bentley drama. Bentley came out and essentially said, “I kind of like you, but if I’m at home and you are here to find love, the fact that I am home should signal our relationship status.” (Keep in mind we are only privy to a few seconds of what was likely an hour-long conversation, which is the shortest the producers would need to be able to edit).

While there was clearly more to the conversation that we don’t see, we can probably assume that what we did see was the worst of it.Didn’t Ashley’s response seem a bit extreme given how much information SHE had (not what the viewers had) going into the reunion with Bentley? She has been pining for him from the moment he left, and now she’s telling him off and cussing at him? We agree with Reality Steve’s conclusion that the remainder of this monologue was shot long after Hong Kong and was not in the moment. This was the producers trying to save Ashley from further ridicule for being the worst bachelorette.

In his blog today, Chris Harrison tried to connect the dots and reduce viewer confusion. He did his best to “give Ashley the ammunition she needed for her encounter with Bentley.” We’re not buying this. If Ashley was so loaded up with ammo, why did she greet Bentley with a hug and a kiss when she saw him? It was definitely not an F***-you-I-know-that-you-played-me-because-Chris-Harrison-told-me kiss. Rather, it was an ‘I missed you’ hug and kiss.

Ashley’s tone also suddenly changes at the beginning with Bentley.  “Why did you come all the way out here?”  Ashley, you asked the producers to bring Bentley back—he is here because you asked for him.  The producers got Bentley to fly out instead of calling because they wanted more drama.  The interaction is a bit choppy at this point.  The “I’m not fishing” dialog seems to be new video and audio footage as it includes no response or interaction with Bentley recognizing her comments directly and seems very unnatural.  Sure Bentley could have been confounded by her, but keep in mind that this is Ashley we are talking about.  We believe producers reshot the footage and edited Bentley into it to legitimize Ashley to viewers who can’t stand her as the Bachelorette.

All the comments that make her appear strong (which everyone knows she is not), they all have different lighting on her face.  Her hair is also noticeably different between shots. Also notice that we don’t really get to see their goodbye.  It probably would have been some seriously awkward footage of her leaving. Why don’t we see her confidently getting up from the couch and leaving after telling him off?  That would have been great, except it did not happen.

Because the entire Bentley “tell-off” was staged AFTER THE SHOW ENDED. They got Ashley to wear the same clothes possibly even go to the same hotel and reshot her (supposedly) telling Bentley off. But they could not get it perfect, and if you watch the video and keep in mind the social context of the relationship—it’s clear as day that the “you should have called” dialog was put in.

Realizing that they made their heroine Ashley look like a fool, producers tried to salvage what they could. A weak indecisive bachelorette makes for a bad show. The producers realize that this is the most bizarre season in the history of the Bachelorette and are trying to edit their way to fixing it. When Chris Harrison says they almost shut down production, he may have been telling the truth.

On this week’s episode, Ashley finally spills the beans to the other guys about her feelings for Bentley. It doesn’t quite go as planned. While some of the guys take the news well, most are furious about having to play second fiddle to a guy that left the show several weeks prior [simply awesome]. The dentist and the chef are especially upset, and Glambert – always the drama queen – gets so pissed that he storms off the set and leaves the show. This is simply unbelievable. Bentley, a contestant that was on the show for only two weeks, manages to capture the heart of the Bachelorette, pushes one of the best looking guys to leave the show early, and completely shatters the confidence of the remaining contestants. Beautiful Bentley truly is a one-man show wrecker.