Arie Now Claims There’s More To His Controversial ‘Bachelor’ Breakup Than Viewers Thought

Unless you've been actively avoiding the internet and prime time television for the past year, you've likely heard at least whispers of the drama surrounding Arie and Becca's Bachelor breakup. During last season's live reunion finale, the excruciating breakup was aired, supposedly in its entirety. Host Chris Harrison hailed it as a unique, unedited, uncut scene, the likes of which reality TV had never seen before. But in a new interview with GQ, Arie claims the breakup with Becca was edited, after all. Bustle reached out to ABC and Warner Bros. for comment on Arie’s claims, but did not receive an immediate response.

During the breakup footage, Arie blindsides Becca, whom he'd proposed to at the end of the competition. She thinks the show's cameras are around for a happy check-in with the future husband and wife, but in reality, they're there to film her heartbreak. Even after she knows what's happening, Arie won't leave Becca alone as she cries in the bathroom and repeatedly asks him to go. It's a horribly cringe-worthy scene that had people everywhere screaming at their TVs for him to leave her alone, but according to Arie, Bachelor producers made him stay, and those moments were cut out of the scene.

"It was completely edited," Arie told GQ's Rebecca Nelson. "I was told to stay on that couch. 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," Arie continued. "They cut out, obviously, production talking to me from 10 feet away." He also added that for the show to flaunt the scene as unedited "was super unfair to me."

Honestly, it would explain a lot if Arie's allegations proved to be true. It was downright baffling to watch him continue pestering Becca when she obviously wanted nothing other than to be away from him and the cameras. Arie handled this season incredibly poorly — in addition to telling multiple women he was in love with them and then dumping Becca, he also was apparently corresponding with runner-up Lauren while still engaged, as he mentions in the same interview. He's now set to marry Lauren in January. But even for him, the unrelenting confrontation featured in the finale was a lot. Still, Arie emerged from this situation looking pretty bad, so there's always the possibility he's trying to save face by claiming he had no choice.

The question still remains why he called the cameras to film the breakup at all, or why he proposed to a woman he wasn't absolutely sure about. Arie told GQ that he felt like the show required a proposal, but Harrison recently said to The Hollywood Reporter that the show "asks nothing" of the sort from its subjects. Even further removed from the situation, it would appear that Arie still remains convinced that he didn't do anything that wrong.

"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," Arie told GQ. "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." I don't really know if I'd call last season's jumble of nationally televised rejections, heartbreaks and surprises a "positive for everyone," but OK, Arie. He is right about one thing, though. Becca is happy now — she revealed to People magazine that she's engaged to whoever stole her heart on her season of The Bachelorette, which premieres May 28.

Viewers may never know just how The Bachelor franchise truly functions behind the scenes, but by now, they should know to take everything with a grain of salt. Even after how weird and uncomfortable things got last season, especially in that breakup scene, Becca came out on top, regardless of the questions still surrounding Arie's handling of the process.