The last minute switch-up The Bachelor producers pulled on Luke Pell has left him feeling bitter about the show, and honestly, we can’t blame him. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, he said that he has no plans to ever go back to the franchise.
“At this point, I really don’t want to go back into working on and in this franchise,” Pell said. “If I was asked to do Paradise, I don’t think that that’s something I would be interested in. If I was asked to be on The Bachelor, I really wouldn’t be interested at this point.”
As he explained, the way producers treated him has left “a bitter taste in [his] mouth about the whole process.” In an interview with E! News, he explained, “I don’t have a problem with it if they think that they have a better candidate for the show, that’s fine. But it’s the way that it was handled. Asking me to be genuine and authentic and open and vulnerable … and then I don’t get genuine and authentic in return from the organization.”
It doesn’t help that this isn’t the first time he’s been blindsided by the show. When Bachelorette JoJo Fletcher sent him home after their hometown date, it was the last thing he expected. “I had finally got to the point where I thought, ‘This is going to happen,'” he said to ET. “I didn’t have to worry about the rug being pulled out underneath me … there was just all those preparations I had made mentally, that I had made emotionally, and just had really, you know, decided to put my life on hold to fully engage back in this process and be in it 100 percent. I was willing and happy to do [that].”
And of course, it didn’t happen that way.
“I almost have the same shock—you know, feeling like I’m getting hit by a freight train and blindsided,” he added, comparing his departure from The Bachelorette to his sudden cut from The Bachelor.
The worst part is, Pell had to find out who the new star of The Bachelor would be with the rest of us. “Yeah, I heard along with the rest of America that Nick was chosen when he was introduced on the show,” he said. “It was a very dramatic start to this past week, for sure.”
He’s staying optimistic about love, though. “I’m happy to be back in control of my own destiny, and kind of in the driver’s seat for what’s next,” Pell told ET. “I’m excited about who I’m going to meet, and who I’ll end up with. I know that there is the right person out there for me, and I’m so excited about what that future might be and I can’t wait to get started!”
Trust us, Luke—there are plenty of us who’d give anything to be your person.