Bachelor interview falls short
Harrison’s interview with Olympios falls flat
Before this season of Bachelor in Paradise debuted, ABC assured viewers they would learn what really happened during the biggest controversy in the franchise’s history, when Paradise suspended production earlier this summer.
It’s true that the show has exhaustively covered the scandal, culminating Tuesday night in an interview with Corinne Olympios.
In the première, viewers saw Olympios and DeMario Jackson hit it off. Though the show didn’t show what happened next, a producer filed a complaint after witnessing an incident in the pool between the two, with Olympios possibly “too drunk to consent” according to reports. So the show shut down while production company Warner Bros. investigated.
In the meantime, the media frenzy increased when Olympios hired a lawyer and released a statement: “I am a victim and have spent the last week trying to make sense of what happened ... Although I have little memory of that night, something bad obviously took place … As a woman, this is my worst nightmare and it has now become my reality.” Jackson denied any wrongdoing.
Then suddenly, Warner Bros. announced it found no misconduct had taken place, and production would resume. Just as quickly, Olympios confirmed her team’s independent investigation was completed to her satisfaction. So Paradise continued, on track for its August première date, though Olympios and Jackson weren’t invited back.
Paradise has devoted segments in four episodes to what happened. Last week, host Chris Harrison interviewed Jackson, who reiterated he did nothing wrong. In Tuesday’s interview, Olympios said she can’t remember anything from the night because she accidentally mixed alcohol with medication. She said she doesn’t blame Jackson.
“I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault. I just think that it was just, again, an unfortunate, annoying situation,” Olympios said.
Harrison never asked one important question on viewers’ minds: Why did Olympios’s statement refer to herself as a victim?
Curiously, except for Harrison’s interview with Olympios herself, the question keeps coming up.
(In a followup statement after the investigation was complete, Olympios clarified: “I felt victimized by the fact that others were judging me through conflicting and unsubstantiated reports, while I myself had no recollection of the events that transpired.”)
Still, during a discussion about the incident with the cast in episode 2, Harrison asked them for their thoughts.
“In Corinne’s statement, she referred to herself as a victim,” Harrison said. “Why do you think she did that?”
“Maybe she wanted to try and save face,” said Danielle Maltby. “That was what I took from it.”
“It was a very vague statement, and it was left to interpretation by design,” Alex Woytkiw said. “And it’s unfortunate.”
If this question was deemed important enough to ask cast members, why not ask Olympios? Not giving her the chance to respond seemed odd.
Earlier Tuesday, Olympios was on Good Morning America, where co-anchor Amy Robach asked her the same query Harrison posed to the cast.
“When production shut down you released a statement using the words, ‘I am victim,’” Robach said. “How are you a victim?”
“I was a victim of just being blown into the media and having people make these crazy assumptions and judgments about what happened that day. I was really a victim of the media,” Olympios said. “All of a sudden people became an expert on the situation and on what happened and it’s like, well, I’m still trying to figure out exactly what happened. It was just horrible to deal with.”
Olympios doubled down on this point in People magazine, which has a partnership with The Bachelor franchise.
“At that point in time, I saw myself as a victim of having something this serious happen to you and have the media paint you a certain way that you know you aren’t, and having all these people make their judgments and comments and they don’t even know what happened,” she said.
“That’s what I’m a victim of. I never meant that I was a victim of DeMario.”
While it’s helpful for viewers to hear Olympios answer the question, she should have been given the opportunity to answer in front of millions who watch Bachelor in Paradise — the show where the controversy started.