“The Bachelor” trusted his last minute heart call and thus changed his decision, leaving his fiancée stunned and the viewers flabbergasted.

 

Jason Mesnick, who is a 32-year-old single father, proposed to Melissa Rycroft during Monday night’s season finale of the popular ABC reality dating program. However, in the following “After the Final Rose” special, recorded only six weeks after Jason Mesnick’s romantic marriage proposal, the bachelor told Melissa Rycroft that she was not the one. Therefore, he left Melissa heartbroken in an attempt to get together with the runner-up, Molly Malaney, for whom he said he still had deep feelings.

 

As part of an angry outburst, Melissa Rycroft told the man she had accepted to tie the knot with not to call her and “don’t talk to me.” In addition, she explained that she wanted to be left alone.

 

In spite of the fact that Jason Mesnick said he despised himself for what he had done, Melissa Rycroft gave him her engagement ring back and left the stage, making room for Molly Malaney, who agreed to give the bachelor another chance.

 

Although every season of the reality show promises to offer “the most dramatic” scenes ever, the unexpected turn the Jason Mesnick love triangle took is stirring ardent debate on Internet message boards, as well as online forums.

 

For instance, a post-finale recap posted on Entertainment Weekly’s Web site calls the bachelor “an even bigger jackass than we thought.” Furthermore, over 1,700 comments have arrived in response, many of which are criticizing the Seattle account executive for dumping Melissa Rycroft in such a ruthless manner. The so-called contestant, who is a 25-year-old sales representative from Dallas, had expressed her love for Jason Mesnick and had explained that she was very excited with the fact that she would become the stepmom of the bachelor’s 3-year-old son, Ty, from a previous marriage.

Jason Mesnick even pushed away one of his best known supporters, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who passed judgment on him and the ABC show during Tuesday’s episode of “The View.”

 

“I really thought he was a good guy and he had his act together. ...I am DONE with ‘The Bachelor’!” said Elisabeth Hasselbeck, mourning the “three hours of my life I will never get back.”

 

Jason Mesnick said on Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show on Monday that his romantic relationship with Melissa Rycroft started shaking when production was brought to a standstill and they had to face reality. He explained that the chemistry between them disappeared and that Melissa was aware of “what was going on” before her dismissal at the “After the Final Rose” taping.

 

Nevertheless, despite all the drama, ABC’s highly anticipated finale of “The Bachelor” led the primetime ratings on Monday, as the two-hour show was watched by 15.5 million viewers, while the special was seen by over 17.5 million people.