by Gina Scarpa

 

You can like him or hate him for it, but when Nick decided to keep the entire $250,000 grand prize for himself on the season finale of Bachelor Pad this week, it was a moment that would go down in the show's history. Everyone, from viewers to Chris Harrison himself, was in total shock that Nick would choose to keep the winnings for himself, especially after Rachel was embarrassed by Michael saying he had no intention of having a relationship with her outside of the show. Nick talked to RealityWanted and reporters after the finale aired to talk more about his controversial decision in a press conference call.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Did you watch the finale?
A. Nick: We did. We watched it. Chris is opening up a new restaurant soon and there, at one of the partnership restaurants, we watched live.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: At the end of the finale, I laughed as they ran the clips of everybody talking crap about you all season long, kind of justifying why you made the decision that you did. They obviously were not supporting you at all.
A. Nick: No, not at all, and I think it did. It kind of built my case and, you know, they never were on my side. One thing I'm tired of hearing is, "Nick who, Nick who? We don't even know who this guy is. He doesn't deserve to be here," and all this stuff. I don't know where people like Jaclyn have room to say I don't deserve to be there. I don't understand. So I'm glad that they showed all those things and it just made my decision look better.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: One point that you made was that you didn't have a solid partner throughout the game; that you were working on your own. If you had your choice of the girls in the house, who would you have liked to work with from beginning to end?
A. Nick: Strategically? That's a good question. I don't - honestly, I don't know. A lot of people played a different game. Some of the girls were just there looking for, you know, love. And, I feel like Lindzi was there and she met Kalon and that was pretty much it. Her ballgame was over. She was there just to be with Kalon and that's great. That's cool. Jaclyn was a little bit more hardcore, Blakeley was... I knew that she was eliminated and the whole situation with her and Chris. But she was a great competitor, great in the competition. She's strategic. She's a powerful player in the game. That's what you want in a partner. I didn't have that from the start so I had to go a different route and pretty much, you know, stay under the radar. So not saying that my strategy would work for everybody on Bachelor Pad next year but it worked for me.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Rachel had obviously such a strong reaction to your decision but she ultimately supported your plan to vote Jaclyn and Ed out and Jaclyn - it's her good friend. A lot of people are saying that it's a little bit of karma. What do you think of what happened to Rachel?
A. Nick: Honestly, it was my decision. And I had to really talk her into it. Jaclyn and Ed have zero room to say complain. They didn't take the final competition seriously at all, you know? And had they taken that seriously and won that, they probably would have won the whole entire show. They would have had the decision on who they could take to the finale. It could have been us that they'd taken and they probably still would have won. If they were smart and they would have taken Chris and Sarah, and they definitely would have won. You know, so they have zero room to say anything. I was the voice of reason. And I had to step in and say, "We have to take Chris and Sarah out." You know, so it wasn't like she was stabbing her friend in the back. That was my decision. And I needed her to see that we're here to win money now. And she just didn't see that. She was playing with her emotions too much. I just felt that she wasn't in it to win it with me and so that's why I didn't feel like I owed her anything.

 

Q. What's the status of your relationship with Rachel now? Did you guys end up talking things out and becoming friends again or do you kind of have no intention to fix things?
A. Nick: We haven't talked at all. And would I like to? Yes, absolutely. But I figured I'd let it settle down a little bit for a while because I know especially with the finale airing, she's going to be bombarded with a lot of questions. She's going to stand up for herself, I'm sure, and I would assume she's not going to say some nice things about me. So I'm going to let it settle down for a little while and then hopefully, maybe we can patch things up.

 

Q. In Chris Harrison's blog this week, he said that nobody what anybody thinks of your decision, you do have to feel bad for Rachel. However, you just didn't seem to feel any guilt or remorse for not sharing the money with her during the finale. So you could you talk about that a little bit?
A. Nick: Well, I honestly was going into it planning on sharing. My intentions were to share. We talked about it leading up to the finale. And then I saw the next two episodes before we filmed the finale so we had to see them and I saw everything she said about me. She didn't want to be my partner. She'd said she was backed into the partnership, she just wanted to be with Michael; she tried to get us voted off just so she could go see Michael. I didn't know any of that was going on. I was completely invested in it and she wanted nothing to do with me. So you know what? I've already done all this myself. Let's finish it myself. I don't owe her anything. She didn't want to be my partner. She didn't want to be my partner and all of the sudden at the end, oh now we need to be partners because money's involved.

 

Q. How sure were you that Rachel was going to pick share? It was a pretty big risk to even choose keep.
A. Nick: It is. It's very risky. But we had talked about it leading up to the finale. We agreed upon it. I thought, "We'll definitely share this. There's no reason not to." And then like I said, in the last second I get to see these episodes and it's, like, "Wow, really? I can't believe you said all those things and you really didn't want to be partners." I was pretty sure but I wasn't 100 percent going into that room to pick the sign.

 

Q. I just want to know how you felt about the public reaction and also about Chris Harrison calling the finale disturbing.
A. Nick: I didn't understand the disturbing. I don't think the wording was right there. I think maybe they were looking for a different word other than most dramatic, you know. They needed something different this year. I don't think it was disturbing. I haven't seen a lot of the public reaction yet, aside from the feedback I've gotten on Twitter. Of course a lot of the people responding to me are probably following me because they like me so most of it was positive, you know, a lot of positive. Of course, from my friends and family it's all been positive as well. But of course, there are people out there that aren't happy with the decision and maybe they just don't see my side of it.

 

Q. So no change of heart at all after seeing the finale and the reaction?
A. Nick: No. I mean, no. I was there and was it tough sitting next to her crying? Yes. But at the same time, you know, after the way she made me look and what she did to me, no, I didn't really feel that bad.

 

(Image courtesy of ABC)

 

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