God Bless This Mess(43)
I said “Yes!”
As the world would find out that September, the producers did choose Colton to be the next Bachelor. I found out for sure it was Colton just before we started shooting the show in LA.
It felt like fate. I could hardly believe it. It felt like everything was falling into place in a way that I couldn’t have arranged if I’d tried. I kept praying about it, asking, “Is this really how you want me to find a husband? I mean, why else is this all falling into place the way it is?”
I didn’t hear God’s voice like I did in church nearly three years earlier. But everything in my heart said “Yes!”
So I signed on the dotted line, and I scrambled to get myself ready.
The show didn’t provide wardrobe for the women, just for the “leads” on the shows. And I didn’t get paid anything to go compete for Colton’s affections for all those weeks, either. So Sherri Hill, who designed my dress for Miss USA, let me take some prom dresses from her collection to wear for the rose ceremonies. We tailored some of my old Miss Alabama USA dresses, too, and I packed up some other clothes from my closet. There are girls who spend thousands of dollars on dresses before going on these shows. But I couldn’t do that.
When I left for LA, I had $70 in my bank account.
It was a total leap of faith for me to take that trip. It all happened so fast, I didn’t really think about what the consequences might be.
Taking a leap of faith and doing something spontaneous in life can be really fun. But you have to ask yourself: Is this leap going to be worth the potential fall?
Maybe that’s something I should have spent a little more time thinking about before I put myself on national television.
Chapter 14
Welcome to Bachelor Nation
Moving into the Bachelor mansion in Agoura Hills outside Los Angeles was not unlike moving into the dorms for the Miss Alabama pageants. Only the girls here weren’t competing for a crown. They were competing for a husband.
Just like in the pageant world, I could see that everybody was comparing themselves to everybody else. We were checking out the outfits we’d brought, and the evening gowns we’d brought, and the fancy shoes everybody had. And when girls are put in tight quarters in a competitive environment, it sure is easy for all of that surface stuff to get into your head.
After everything I had been through, I wasn’t interested in any of the drama—and, ironically, that caused me a lot of drama. I chose to stay in my room reading or writing in my journal when other girls were socializing, which made some of them think I was kind of stand-offish. I went on camera without wearing makeup, which made some of the girls think I must be nuts, but it was only because I was trying to get my face to clear up.
This wasn’t a competition for me. I really thought being put on this show was a new path for me to find a husband. I mean, why wouldn’t it be? Stranger things than this had happened in my life. So I took it seriously. I was there to get to know Colton. Not to make friends, not to make enemies, and not to make a career for myself on TV.
Also? I had nothing to lose. Truly, nothing.
As a result, I apparently did a lot of things people don’t usually do in front of the cameras. I was there to have fun, so I had fun. I made the crew laugh. I was silly. I goofed around. Just being me and letting loose a little bit caught the attention of the cameramen, and people on the crew kept saying, “That was great!”
I was the first one to eat a bug on camera, because why not? If they were going to challenge us, I wasn’t gonna let anybody show me up. I wanted to prove to Colton that I was up for any adventure. I had never been out of the country, and the first flight they put us on was a flight to Singapore—which I think is the longest flight you can take from the US. And I loved it!
It was like I’d won the lottery or something, getting to do all these adventurous things.
It felt like my whole life had changed, literally overnight.
In my one-on-one interviews in front of the cameras, I opened up my heart like a busted old river dam. It was like therapy to me. I shared stories from my past, and talked about my faith, and at one point I even told them about the murder of my aunt and cousins. Not all of it aired, and it wasn’t up to me which parts aired and which didn’t, but as you know if you watched the show, nothing about that part of my family history aired on TV.
Once again, it seemed to me as if that story was just too much for people to hear.
Once again, I put my story away. I hid it. I stuffed it all back down inside of me. But the feeling of that trauma was like lava down deep in a volcano, and it was starting to bubble. Those feelings needed to get out. And they would.
Rejection, fear, heartbreak—all of these emotions that I kept stuffing down inside me—would need to get unpacked eventually. And the thing I’ve learned since is that you either unpack them yourself, or the baggage is going to explode into every relationship and every experience you have. I know now how unhealthy this was for me, both emotionally and physically.
It scared me to think how much of my baggage had already exploded into every corner of my life, from past boyfriends, to my decision-making, to my fears, to friendships, to my relationship with God.
But maybe it’s a good thing that it never aired. A camera is not a therapist. Neither is a social-media account. Pouring your heart out on TV or on social isn’t necessarily going to help anyone feel better about themselves. In reality, I should have thought a lot more about what I did and said in a public setting. I should have thought of going on camera like somebody had read me my Miranda rights, like the detectives do on Law & Order: “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.” Only the court in this case was the court of public opinion, and anything I said or did could be used against me in ways I couldn’t even imagine at that time.