The Golden Bachelor star Mel Owens has admitted he wanted Peg Munson to think he was going to dump her when he knocked on her door for a pre-Rose Ceremony chat in Antigua.
When The Golden Bachelor finale aired on ABC last week, Mel was shown paying Peg a visit after Cindy Angelcyk Cullers unexpectedly quit the process and left the show.
Instead of rushing to tell Peg that she was the only bachelorette left, Mel delivered the news in a strange and drawn-out way.
Mel told Peg in Antigua, “You know how I feel about you, right? And that hasn’t changed, and it won’t change, no matter what happens. But something did change.”
“Last night, I had my date and overnight with Cindy,” he continued, “and I just want to be transparent and tell you what happened, the result and all that. But you know how I feel about you and all that, right?… Before we even had the overnight, [Cindy] decided to leave.”
During a joint appearance on the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast recently, Mel recalled that conversation with Peg and laughed about it.
“Watching it, when Mel was delivering the news in your room that Cindy was no longer part of the journey, when he started, for a second, I was like, ‘Is he breaking up with Peg too?!'” co-host Serena Pitt admitted with a laugh.
“That was the plan!” Mel quipped.
“You were kind of trying to pull one over on her a little bit?!” Serena asked.
“Yeah, I wanted to make it seem like, ‘Hey, I made a decision already. I’ll let you in on it.’ So I wanted to make sure it came across that way,” Mel explained.
“I was messing with her, for sure,” he added.
Co-host Joe Amabile confirmed that Mel’s plan worked.
“I was like, ‘I’m going to act like this is over between us,’ right? Of course I go, ‘She left,’ right? And then her whole face changed,” Mel recalled of that conversation with Peg.
Peg, who was on the podcast with Mel, recalled being “very stoic” in that moment.
“I was like, ‘Uhh,'” Peg said.
Serena said it seemed like Peg was trying to brace herself for what Mel was about to say.
“Mel, you were dragging it out and making it as long as possible,” Serena said.
Mel replied, “I was like, ‘You know how much I like you and how much you mean to me and how much fun we’ve had, and I just want to be transparent with you. And I had the overnight last night.'”
Mel said he was “building up” to the good news.
“I was shocked — shocked!” Peg exclaimed.
Peg said the only time she had doubts Mel was going to pick her was when he knocked on her door in Antigua. At the time, Peg had been sick for about 36 hours.
“He said, ‘I need to talk to you.’ And at that moment, for a split second, I was like, ‘Uh oh, here it is,'” Peg recalled.
“Because I know him now, and he has enough respect and enough respect for me and enough honesty and enough integrity that he wouldn’t have put me through that Rose Ceremony — and I know that about him now — so I thought that knock on the door was him coming to tell me, ‘Hey, look, I have a better connection with this other person.'”
On The Golden Bachelor’s Season 2 finale, Cindy quit during her Fantasy Suite date because Mel had talked about how he couldn’t see himself getting engaged to his winning bachelorette for two years.
On top of that, Mel confessed he was “torn” between his Final 2 bachelorettes and didn’t feel love for either of them yet.
Cindy, seemingly desperate for validation and vulnerability from Mel, explained how she had joined The Golden Bachelor as a leap of faith and was expecting an engagement at the Final Rose Ceremony.
“You know the saying, ‘First comes love, then comes marriage’… That’s how it works,” Mel told Cindy.
Cindy said she wanted a commitment from Mel — which she didn’t think was too much to ask for — and so it didn’t seem like he was her guy.
After Cindy left the show, Mel continued the journey with Peg, who met — and won overwhelming approval from — his two sons.
At the Final Rose Ceremony of Mel’s The Golden Bachelor season, Mel gave Peg a promise ring and said he wanted her in his future, but he didn’t say he was “in love” with her until they went public with their relationship on After the Final Rose.
Mel has faced criticism for being so guarded all season long and for not even telling Peg that he loved her at the end of his journey.
According to a production insider, Peg and Mel are already clashing and having problems in the real world.
