Here's why the Bachelor never offers a shivering 'lady' his jacket
This week’s episode of The Bachelor was frustrating for a variety of reasons, rose lovers. For one thing, Victoria F. is still around. For another, Madison — a woman who voluntarily signed up for The Bachelor — got very upset with Pilot Pete for doing what Bachelors tend to do in the Fantasy Suite.
But there’s something else that’s been bugging me about Monday’s installment, and it happened right at the very beginning. After the rose ceremony (which was held in an airplane hangar because Peter Weber is a pilot, IN CASE YOU MOMENTARILY FORGOT THAT FACT), Madison asked the Bachelor if they could have a quick chat outside. It was nighttime, and she was clearly chilly.
And yet… throughout the whole conversation, Peter kept his damn jacket on rather than offering it to the freezing woman at his side. “Give her your coat!” I screamed at my TV. “Is The Bachelor where chivalry goes to die?”
Actually, no. Rose lovers, I can now exclusively report that there is a reason we rarely (if ever) see a Bachelor drape his coat over his date’s shoulders. “The Bachelor nearly always offers his jacket to every shivering woman sitting in front of him,” explains a producer. “But [we] tell him not to, because it looks so damn silly.” Rather than having shot after shot of the Bachelor talking to “a small woman draped in an enormous blazer,” says the producer, the show keeps a stock of pashminas on hand for any woman who wants one.
This explanation jells with what I witnessed back on the first day of filming Colton’s season of The Bachelor in 2018. Shortly before midnight, he was chatting with a woman outside the mansion. When she started shivering, Colton began to take off his jacket, but a producer stopped him. “I love freezing,” noted the woman good-naturedly. “Freezing’s great.”
Let this serve as a warning to any “lady” planning to audition for future seasons of The Bachelor: If you make the cut, be sure to pack a variety of long-sleeved attire.
The Bachelor airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
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