Well, March Madness gets underway today, and college basketball fans all over the country are hoping their team will survive to compete in the Final Four.
But the citizens of Bachelor Nation have a different final four on their minds, thanks to new rumors about the quartet of women who made it to Zach Shallcross’ Hometown Round.
If you watched Monday night’s episode, you know that Zach sent Charity Lawson home during the rose ceremony, despite the fact that he seemed to have hit it off with her family during his visit to Columbus, Georgia.
Fortunately, the very next night, the newly-single Lawson received a gem of a consolation prize:
During the live Women Tell All episode, Charity was named the next Bachelorette.
Host Jesse Lawson “surprised” Charity with the news, but it couldn’t have come as a total shock.
After all, if you’ve been reading our Bachelor spoilers all season, then you know the news of Charity’s new gig leaked several weeks ago.
Of course, a little bit of theatricality is expected when it comes to shows like the The Bachelor and The Bachelorette.
But a new report from UK tabloid The Sun has fans fearful that the whole franchise is more scripted than professional wrestling.
A production insider claims that producers were so overwhelmed by Charity’s charisma that they decided she’d be the next Bachelorette before she even started shooting Zach’s season.
In order to for that plan to come off, of course, producers would need Charity to stick around long enough for fans to get to know her, but not so long that she would receive Zach’s final rose.
They allegedly informed Shallcross of this agenda and instructed him to play along.
“Charity was set up by producers to be the next Bachelorette from the beginning,” a source revealed to The Sun.
Fortunately, along the way, Zach “developed feelings for her,” which made it easier for him to go along with the plan.
The insider insists, however, that “producers definitely played a part in keeping her there for a while.”
The source claims that other contestants sensed Charity was a favorite among producers, with one saying she “had a feeling from night one” that Lawson was going to stick around.
The insider alleges that the fix was in from the very beginning, as Zach was “told by producers to steal time with her” during their first night in the mansion.
“Zach walked into the room and stole Charity from the other girls surrounding her as instructed to do so by producers,” the insider claimed.
“He avoided eye contact with the other girls, who were begging for his attention, and grabbed Charity to talk to her,” the source continued.
“It was a totally staged moment.”
The insider went on to claim that Charity also received the season’s most favorable edit, so that fans would be geared up for her to become the Bachelorette.
“She had a lot of shining moments this season, and a lot of screen time. It was purposely orchestrated like that by producers,” the insider claimed.
We’re sure some people will receive this news badly.
But it shouldn’t come as much of a shock that reality TV is rarely reflective of reality.
Zach Shallcross: Forced By Bachelor Producers to Keep Charity Lawson Until the Final Four? was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.