Playing the game...
Bachelor Nation got to know Sean McLaughlin on Season 20 of “The Bachelorette” and again on Seasons 9 and 10 of “Bachelor in Paradise.”
This week, fans saw Sean and his partner Allyshia Gupta self-eliminate during the Rose Ceremony after trying to create a “Parliament of Paradise” and vote off other couples.
Now, he has joined the “Bachelor Happy Hour” podcast to spill why he wanted to “control the game” on “BIP.”
In explaining why he and Allyshia self-eliminated, Sean also revealed that he had more strategies up his sleeve.
“We were gonna be gone the next week anyways, after this there’s no way we were staying,” he said. “We would’ve had to win a competition and I had some great ideas if we won. Believe me, the strategy element.”
Sean then went on and shared how he would’ve controlled certain elements of “the game” in “Paradise.”
He admitted, “People have come to me afterwards like, ‘I probably should’ve listened to you a little bit more’ like towards the end because obviously we don’t know how it ends. But I wanted to be able to control the game in a way. And there were certain elements to it where you could have an impact in the voting just yourself.”
He continued, saying, “For example, like the way it was worded, when you won a competition, you got to hand out the first rose. In my mind, and this is how deep I was going. I was like, ‘What if I hand it out to another guy?’ Like, everyone’s voting for Brian. What if I hand it to out Brian and then he gives it to Parisa and everyone thinks, ‘We’re safe, they’re not voting for us.’ Now you’ve got another rose at the end, and you can kind of manipulate the vote that way and get people out. That’s how deep we’re talking about, guys.”
Sean also admitted what he would’ve done differently now looking back on his time on the beach.
“I wish I would’ve been a little more aware of where people’s alliances were,” he said. “I probably should’ve shut up once in a while and played in the shadows a little bit more. But that was a part of the strategy too. Because if it got down to the end and I’m open about it and I’m not stabbing my friends in the back, which I wouldn’t have, then you might be able to win a vote.“
Hear the rest of Sean’s conversation in the full episode of “Bachelor Happy Hour” below!
