The real estate broker gets candid on his emotional, dramatic season finale of the dating competition show.
Arie Luyendyk Jr. says he feels "100 percent" betrayed by how his breakup with Becca Kufrin went down on The Bachelor.
In a new interview with GQ, the reality star gets candid about the season 22 finale, in which he proposed to Kufrin, but called off the engagement a few weeks after filming wrapped to be with his runner-up and now-fiancée, Lauren Burnham.
Recalling what happened just a few hours before the finale was filmed, the Bachelor alum says he thought he was making the right decision at the time by choosing Kufrin over Burnham.
"My [last] date with Becca ended at three in the morning, and then production woke me up at seven in the morning, and they were like, 'OK, who is it?'" he says. "I felt like I was trying to be logical. I tried to think like, 'OK, I know who Becca is, and she's a great person. In the moment, I felt like I was making the right choice."
Luyendyk Jr. says he privately contacted Burnham over Instagram on New Year's Eve, asking if they could talk. "As soon as I heard her voice, I knew that I had to end things with Becca," he reveals.
The real estate broker tells GQ he then went to producers to explain his change of heart, and claims they suggested capturing his breakup with Kufrin. According to Luyendyk Jr., producers said to him, "Then we can show you going back to Lauren, and people are going to rally behind you because you took this big risk and you did it for love. At the end of the day, people will just want to see you happy."
And although Bachelor previously billed the finale as "unedited," Luyendyk Jr. claims it was "completely edited."
"I was told to stay on that couch [at Becca's house]," he says. "I tried to leave, and then production was like, 'You need to go back inside. She's finally calming down. I feel like you owe it to her to have this conversation.' So then I went back in the house."
"I left, came back. I stepped away from the couch, I went back to the couch," he adds. "They cut out, obviously, production talking to me from 10 feet away. [It] was super unfair to me."
Looking back on his season and everything that went down, Luyendyk Jr. says it's the producers jobs "to make it entertaining for people."
"Everyone makes me out to be the bad guy for filming it," he exclaims. "I think if you look back at it now, it was positive for everyone. Everyone ended up getting closure and also an opportunity to be with the person that they were really meant to be with."
"I don't understand why I'm the fall guy for filming the breakup on a television show which we all signed up to be on," he continues.
ET reached out to ABC and Warner Bros., who had no comment.
Hear more on what life has been like for Luyendyk Jr., Burnham and Kufrin after the drama-filled season in the video below.
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