‘Bachelor’ contestant goes viral for faking an Australian accent to get noticed

Jan 07, 2019

It seems one contestant on “The Bachelor” will do anything to win the competition.

What happened: A promotional clip of the show showed a woman speaking with the bachelor Colton Underwood in an Australian accent. But it turns out the accent is fake.

• “You’ve got a nice accent. Where are you from?” Underwood asks.

• The woman responds, “The accent, it’s Australian, I was hoping that you’re kind of a sucker for accents.”

• Underwood says he loves accents.

• But then the clip cuts to a moment where the woman, named Bri, admits she’s faking her accent, saying, “You have to do what you can to stand out.”

See the clip below.

Is this lie going to take her down (under)? #TheBachelor pic.twitter.com/OrHrathRYJ

— The Bachelor (@BachelorABC) January 3, 2019

More lies: According to The Huffington Post, Bri’s bio on the website doesn’t offer anything about her living in Australia. She does admit to having a fear of “farting too loudly on dates,” though.

• “Whether any of that is true is undetermined, because right now we believe NOTHING Bri says or does. Not a great basis for a love affair, Bri, but you do you,” Jenna Amatulli wrote for HuffPost.

Controversy: The fake Australian accent isn’t the only controversy popping up on this season of the show, according to People magazine.

• Twitter users found tweets from 2010 from contestant Tracy Shapoff, who fat-shamed women in her tweets.

• Underwood said he shouldn’t decide if the casting process should change, according to People magazine.

• “That’s not up for me to decide, obviously, but as the ‘Bachelor,’ it’s a good opportunity for me to really get to know these women and form my own opinions of them without really seeing that,” he said.

• “While that is a gift and a curse at times, and while I don’t believe in whatever Tracy liked and tweeted at the time, I think that it’s a growing thing,” he added. “And as far as the process goes, social media is making it a challenge for every workplace. I mean, you’re seeing it all over the world and in our society, things coming up. Everybody has differences in this world. But the bottom line is, that’s not up to me, that’s not my department or anything I need to have an opinion on.”