"Jilted" Bachelors speak out after the show

From today's Austin newspaper, the Austin Statesman:

Bachelorette Men Reunite in Austin

By Claudia Grisales Tuesday, August 11, 2009, 12:31 PM

Several men from this season’s “The Bachelorette” said Monday that show winner Ed Swiderski had an extraordinary advantage: access to a computer and cell phone during filming.
The men, in Austin on Monday night for a mini-reunion appearance, said they were all banned from having the items during filming, but somehow Swiderski had access. They now say reports that Swiderski was in relationships with two more women during filming are pretty damning.
“I think I saw it coming,” said David Good, the Ohio transportation business exec who was portrayed as angry and often drunk on the show. He just missed the cut for the final 10.
Good — who joined Austinite Wes Hayden, Dallas resident Tanner Pope, New Yorker Mike Stagliano and winemaker Jesse Kovacs at downtown hotspot Ranch 616 - met Austin fans and reminisced about the past season of the ABC show, and subsequent fallout. The event was in part the brainchild of Austin publicist Pam Blanton, a fan of the series who helped get the men together in Austin.

Reached Tuesday, Warner Horizon, the show’s production company, had no comment about what the men said during the reunion.

In recent weeks, reports have surfaced that Swiderski, who proposed to Bachelorette Jillian Harris on national television this summer, was involved in relationships with two Chicago women during and after the filming of the show. This week, celebrity mag US Weekly detailed timelines and e-mails and text messages exchanged between Swiderski and the women, even after the proposal.

Good said only two of the men from this season’s “The Bachelorette” were actually “into Jillian”: Stagliano and Reid Rosenthal.

Good, who says he was recruited for the show, says he believed Melissa Rycroft of the preceding “Bachelor” season would be the next “Bachelorette.” But a week before filming, he learned it was Harris instead, and he was disappointed.

“If I saw Jillian in a bar, I would not approach her,” he said. “I mean, Melissa to Jillian, c’mon! That’s why I was drunk the whole time!”

The men agreed that while Hayden, the Austinite, was portrayed as a “bad guy” with a girlfriend, Swiderski was shown much more favorably, which they now question.
“The truth always comes out; you can only hide it for so long,” said Hayden, who once fended off weeks of hate mail for his appearance on the show.

Stagliano, who is now in a serious relationship with an alumna from a previous “Bachelor” season, said he went on a triple date with Harris and Swiderski and had a good time.
He said that since new details have emerged about Swiderski, he has texted the newly engaged couple with support and prayers. He heard back from Swiderski, who didn’t deny the claims, but has yet to hear from Harris, he said.

“I couldn’t say a bad thing about Ed,” he said. “He’s a blast, a good guy. But maybe he got caught up with the other girls.”
Kovacs says he was also recruited by a casting director. He says he had a genuine connection with Harris and that the Swiderski reports are disconcerting.
“Maybe Jillian trusts people too much,” he said. “Maybe Ed has some explaining to do.” Pope says he was the closest to Swiderski of all the men during taping, and yet was surprised to hear rumors about other women.

Pope said his friend was the only one who had access to a cell phone and laptop, but thought perhaps that Swiderski had negotiated the terms into his contract.
Pope said he was one of the few men to predict Swiderski would win Harris’ heart. Now, however, he says the details of the other women are disconcerting.

“It’s hard for me to dispute that,” he said. “There’s proof, e-mails. It’s hard to negate that. I feel bad for my boy Ed. …If he really had a girlfriend, I wish he was there for the right reasons.”