Blake Horstmann knows a thing or two about being a Bachelor in Paradise villain and the difficult toll it can take.
With two new couples joining the list of BIP villains, Blake is speaking out and expressing his thoughts on Brendan and Pieper’s fumbled plan, and the backlash Chris and Alana received that he feels is undeserved.
Blake Horstmann suggests producers got in Pieper’s head
While speaking with the US Weekly podcast, Here for the Right Reasons, Blake shared his take on Brendan and Pieper’s poorly executed scheme, stating, “I don’t know what the plan is and whatever plan they had planned, it didn’t work, like, they muffed it.”
Having had personal experience with BIP producers, Blake noted that he feels the producers may have influenced Pieper’s questionable decision to immediately and blatantly pursue Brendan with zero subtlety.
Blake shared, “I think they maybe had a plan going in, but once you’re in that environment…these producers can get to you…The producer, over five days, could’ve somehow convinced her, like, ‘Don’t waste your time with other guys. Just go for Brendan. Don’t waste your time.’ By the fifth day, she was [probably] like, ‘That was my idea!’”
Blake also addressed the exposing conversation Brendan and Pieper had about their desire for more social media followers, which has greatly backfired.
Blake revealed, “These conversations happen, and they’re not the first people to have a conversation on the beach about followers and who has the most followers, blah, blah, blah, blah, but this is the first time they’ve ever aired anything like that, which was kind of shocking.”
It seems Blake believes the producers went all out in making Brendan a villain because Brendan thought he could outsmart the show. Blake stated, “Brendan having a girlfriend back home would have been enough, like, I think he would have been the ‘villain.’ And that’s why I think that the producers were like, ‘No, no, no, no, you try to bamboozle us, we’re going to destroy you.’”
Blake blames ‘mob mentality’ as the reason Chris and Alana were sent home
Regarding Chris and Alana’s brutal send-off, Blake said, “I think it was mob mentality. I saw it firsthand and felt it firsthand.”
Blake defended Alana and expressed the feeling that she was more innocent than initially portrayed. Blake said, “In my opinion, Alana did nothing wrong. She went down there, the man she liked was there, and then she went after him like that’s the name of the game down there. So there was just a lot of hate that I think didn’t need to be thrown at Alana — and Chris, for that matter.”
Again, Blake suggested that the producers might have allegedly persuaded the cast to hate on Chris and Alana and turn on them in an unfairly harsh fashion.
Blake noted, “If producers are getting in your ear about how bad somebody is or what they did was so bad, there’s this mob mentality. And they just wanted to get Chris, and I’ll never understand why. Chris was trying to talk to Jessenia alone, and Joe [Amabile] came over and wouldn’t let them talk. And then Riley [Christian] came over, and people were calling them ‘scum, horrible human.’ I’m like, ‘Relax, he kissed a girl in front of another girl, and yeah, that’s messed up, but it’s Paradise, like, that happens all the time.’ I think it was blown [out of proportion].”
Like many viewers, Blake questioned why Chris and Alana were getting harsher treatment than Brendan and Pieper, who appeared to be the far more calculated couple. Blake asked, “Where was that energy for Brendan and Pieper?”
According to previews for the upcoming episode of Bachelor in Paradise, it seems Brendan and Pieper will finally be in the hot seat amongst the cast and perhaps meet a similar fate as Chris and Alana.
Bachelor in Paradise airs Mondays and Tuesdays at 8/7c on ABC.