It's Time To Cut 'Bachelor' Star Olivia Some Slack

Was there a bigger villain on this season of The Bachelor than Olivia? No, but she also wasn't the biggest villain in the history of The Bachelor franchise. Villains gotta vil', but say what you will about Olivia, she was more focused on her relationship with Ben than vil'-ing. However, that didn't stop the other contestants — specifically Emily, Haley, and Amanda — from confronting the season's villain on The Women Tell All. In response, Olivia apologized for her behavior on The Bachelor and acknowledged that she wasn't the easiest person to get along with.

I'll admit that I'm not the biggest fan of the way Olivia chose to develop her relationship with Ben or pull him away as fast as she possibly could at the beginning of group dates. Plus, her Teen Mom comment to Amanda was insensitive and her remarks about not sharing many interests with the other women in the house leaned a little too much toward the kind of "I'm not like other women" talk that implies she might think she's better than those other ladies. Still, Olivia standing up — or, sitting down talking to Chris Harrison — and owning that her behavior was flawed definitely earned her brownie points in my book.

Olivia spoke about her own experiences with bullying, and called out some of the other women in the house for making fun of her body, before directly apologizing to Amanda for the Teen Mom comment. Plus, Olivia has a point that there's no right way to go about dating on The Bachelor. Did her plan to get as much time with Ben as often as possible no matter whose feeling she hurt in the process wind up hurting her in the end as she suggests? Maybe, but at least she admits that may not have been the best plan since it did hurt the other ladies.

At the end of the day, Olivia says she learned something about herself through the process of being on The Bachelor. So, since she didn't end up with Ben, that's probably the best conclusion to her time on the show any of us could imagine. Now we can all accept Olivia as a villain-no-more!

Images: Kelsey McNeal/ABC