Bachelor in Paradise is only two weeks in but there have already been several controversies to come from that Mexican beach filled with sexy singles who sometimes do the wrong thing while looking for love. Last week, Demi Burnett finally came clean to her beach boyfriend Derek Peth about two very important things. First, Demi considers herself bisexual; and second, she had been seeing a woman back home before coming to Paradise. While Derek took each bit of news well, Season 2 Bachelor in Paradise contestant Tanner Tolbert compared Demi to Jed Wyatt for going on the show while attached to someone at home.
Now, one of Demi's current Bachelor in Paradise co-stars, Mike Johnson, has spoken out on the feud and the idea that Demi is just as bad as Jed. And, he's pointing out a critical difference with the two Bachelor alums.
She was upfront. I think that Jed didn't reveal that he had someone back home until the very end, and I think that Demi revealed that she had feelings and she had been dating someone and told that to Derek [Peth] in the beginning. So, it's different. If I could talk to Tanner, I'd be like, 'Homie, it's 2019. People have cell phones. People DM each other and text each other and slide into each other's DMs.'
I'm not going to say that Big Mike is always right, but he has certainly made some good points here with regards to the differences between Demi and Jed. In case you're fuzzy on this whole situation, let's rewind a few weeks to Hannah Brown's season of The Bachelorette and review what happened with her and "there for the wrong reasons" Jed.
As Hannah's season was airing, and as we were watching her fall more and more in love with a guitar-wielding Jed, a woman came forward and offered up some impressive evidence that she and Jed were not only actively dating until the night he left to become one of Hannah's suitors on The Bachelorette, but the fact that he also asked her to wait for him while he was on the show, because he was just going there to promote his music career. Ouch
Because each season films several weeks before the episodes begin to air, (and the cast members are cut off from social media, friends and family during filming and immediately after) Hannah didn't know any of this while she was allowing Jed to court her in front of millions. Well, Hannah ended up actually choosing Jed in the end, he proposed and they got engaged. But once they were out of their Bachelorette bubble, all the reports trickled to Hannah, and when she confronted Jed about them, he wasn't able to give her a satisfying answer and she had to end their engagement, and the relationship as a whole.
Tanner's complaints against Demi focus on two things; the fact that she was already in a relationship, and the idea that he's heard that she went on Bachelor in Paradise hoping they'd bring her hometown lover on so that she could get engaged to her in front of the whole country. Tanner called Demi "fully hypocritical" for the move, because she made a point of calling out one of Hannah's suitors early on for coming in with a girlfriend still waiting at home.
Some of Bachelor Nation did agree with Tanner's assessment of Demi's behavior, but many others, including her friend and former Bachelorette Hannah Brown, and Mike Johnson, are on Demi's side. One notable difference is that, after only a few days of dating on Paradise, Demi did come to clean to Derek about her hometown romance, and she made it clear to Derek that she came on the show open to whatever happened there; ostensibly with no plan to play a love 'em and leave 'em game with someone's heart while in Mexico.
Demi has denied Tanner's claims that she had a prior plan to get engaged to her girlfriend on Paradise, so with this he said / she said situation we may never know which claim is accurate there. But, Mike brings up an aspect of modern dating life that was no where near as prevalent back when Tanner was on the show. It is quite common now for someone to see a person on TV, who also happens to have a public Twitter or Instagram profile, and just sliiiiiiide right on into that newly famous person's direct messages on social media.
I think Mike brought this up in his chat with Entertainment Tonight because it just shows how easy it is now to develop relationships with people you wouldn't have had any reason to know before, even if you had gone on a nationally televised dating show. Now it's possible to flirt with a dozen hot and sexy singles (My, oh, my. I hope it's not more than a dozen or so people. How will you have time to work or post thirst traps on IG otherwise?!) around the country, and maybe even develop feelings for them, without ever having met them.
So, I feel like Mike is trying to say it would be pretty easy to go into Bachelor in Paradise with several people hanging on your rose-filled dating string, but that doesn't automatically make you dishonest when you start seeing someone on the show, especially if you come clean to that person early on in the romance.
What do you think? Is Demi as bad as Jed? Should she have told Derek immediately about her lady back home or did she do it in the right time? Should she have skipped Paradise altogether and stayed booed up in private? Let us know in the poll below!
Bachelor in Paradise is all new on Mondays and Tuesdays on ABC at 8 p.m. EST, so you can stay up to date on all the sexy shenanigans when the show airs, and you can refresh your memory of what happened previously by watching our weekly Bachelor in Paradise recaps! And, if you're already looking ahead to fall, you can make note of all the coming premieres by checking out our 2019 fall premiere guide!
This poll is no longer available.
