Justice for Juan Pablo Galavis? Bachelor season 18 contestant Sharleen Joynt certainly doesn’t think the former lead deserves the hate he received in 2014 — or again in 2020 as Clare Crawley’s season of The Bachelorette is about to begin.
“There are so many [misconceptions about Juan Pablo],” the 33-year-old opera singer says on Us Weekly’s “Here for the Right Reasons” podcast. “Just the fact that he doesn’t care or didn’t care about the other women’s feelings or wasn’t curious about them, simply because that truly was the polar opposite to my experience.”
Sharleen explained: “I felt like he asked me plenty of questions. We bonded over the results of those questions. You know, we ended up having conversations based on them. And he remembered the answers to those questions. The next time I had a one-on-one date, he would refer to something I had said, like, weeks ago.”
Juan Pablo, 39, got backlash from Bachelor Nation during his season when Andi Dorfman quit after the fantasy suite dates because she didn’t feel like he cared to get to know her. After the season 10 Bachelorette, 33, told him off, Clare, his runner-up, slammed the former soccer star after he allegedly told her he didn’t love her but loved “f—king” her. ABC highlighted Juan Pablo and Clare’s explosive breakup as part of the promo for her upcoming season of The Bachelorette.
Sharleen, for her part, doesn’t understand why Clare’s relationship with Juan Pablo would be a selling point to watch the hairstylist’s season.
“The fact that she told off Juan Pablo, in no way, you know, reflects how great a Bachelorette she’ll be,” the “Dear Shandy” podcast host explains to Us. “It’s like, ‘Oh, she has the ability to tell off men,’ like I’m more interested in her traits as a woman. And what about her I can relate to or what about her is different from me. But why I would want to watch her on TV? It has nothing to do with [Juan Pablo], to me, that’s how I feel. And of course, I’m going to have a biased take on this because I don’t think he’s all that bad.”
Sharleen concludes that “it was very weird” to watch season 18 unfold after she exited during week 7 of the series.
“I went on that season like any other. You know, I was like, ‘I’m gonna be on The Bachelor. You’re not like, ‘I’m gonna be on what will turn out to be this really controversial, like, weirdly iconic in a negative way season,” she explains. “While we were filming, it’s not like everyone secretly at the house was like, ‘Oh, he’s so this or that.’ Everyone was either not talking about him out of respect for each other or they were talking about how great he was. … No one was talking about how terrible he was while we were filming. They weren’t.”
While Juan Pablo picked Nikki Ferrell over Clare during his finale, he opted not to propose and got more heat for not saying the L-word. Juan Pablo and Nikki called it quits in October 2014 after several months together.
For more from Sharleen — including her thoughts on Clare’s upcoming season, why she hasn’t set up pal Nick Viall on a date and all the details of her relationship-based podcast with husband Andy Levine, “Dear Shandy” — listen to this week’s “Here for the Right Reasons” episode.
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