Original 'Bachelorette' Trista Sutter Says This Was 'Bachelor' Arie's 'Huge' Mistake (Exclusive)
She's the original Bachelorette, and her marriage is one of the Bachelor franchise's most successful love stories, so Trista Sutter knows how to make a relationship from the show work. And she thinks Arie Luyendyk Jr. has made a big mistake.
"I really like Arie," she told ET by phone. "I like the girls. I'm hopeful for everyone." But the fact that Arie said "I love you" to more than one woman on Monday night's episode? "That's a huge no-no," she says.
"You don't do that! Like, really. Don't do that. Because you know what? The girl he picks, who he is really in love with, she’s going to be pissed off. And the other [one], who you obviously aren't in love with enough to pick, is going to be heartbroken. You're going to ruin lives. So don't do it."
But he did; Luyendyk said “I love you” to both Becca and Lauren during fantasy suites. Sutter explains how she navigated the waters of her Bachelorette season: "You might be feeling it, but hold your tongue! That's what I did. I kind of regret not giving Ryan any validation that he was the one, but at the same time, I didn't want to give him hope, because if he'd told me something different about himself that was a game changer, then things would have been different. Knowing what I know now, obviously, he was my one and only choice. If I had picked Charlie [Maher], I wouldn't be happy. I wouldn't be with him right now. But I think you just have to make sure you choose your words wisely."
She also didn’t love how many women the so-called Kissing Bandit locked lips with this season. “Can we maybe just back up a bit and give some time for a relationship to develop and see if you want to kiss that person?” Sutter said. “I get it. Kissing is freaking important! I remember my mom on my season going, ‘How good of a kisser is he? That’s what’s going to tell you whether or not he’s the one!’ So I know how important kissing and chemistry is, but just as a mother I feel like I would love for a Bachelor or a Bachelorette to maybe take a step back and be like, You know what, I’m not going to kiss everyone out of the gate. I’m going to kiss the ones I truly have a significant interest in, and not just kiss them for kissing’s sake.”
Another hot topic this season has been the young age of many contestants; one was 22. But Sutter doesn’t see a problem. “ I don’t think it’s an age thing, I think it’s an individual thing,” she explains. “If people are mature enough and know who they are and know what they want I don’t think age should play as much of a factor as people put into it."
Her young children, 10-year-old son Max and 8-year-old daughter Blakesley, have never seen the episodes on which mom and dad fell for each other. "I don't think I'll promote it [to them], but I have no doubt they'll watch it at some point," she says. Would she be OK with her kids being Bachelor alumni one day? "I would be all for it," she says. "I can't treat my children any different than my friends, and I've told friends to go for it and have a great experience."
