Bachelor Secrets Revealed

Season 9 of The Bachelorette is underway, and more than 20 men are still competing for the hand of 27-year-old Desiree Hartstock in the ABC reality series.

But does anyone actually believe you can find true love on TV? Melissa Rycroft thought she’d found it in Season 13 of the Bachelor, when Jason Mesnick proposed to her. By the season finale, he’d changed his mind, dumping her on live TV for that season’s runner-up, Molly.

Watch: New Relationship? Don't Do This For 30 Days

Ali asked Melissa (now happily married with a young daughter) to talk about what’s really going on in the minds of the shows’ participants. “You’re secluded…all you have to focus on is this person. You have no TV, radio, newspapers,” she explained. “You consume yourself with the process, and it almost becomes a, ‘I just don’t wanna be rejected now.’”

Watch: Five Big Relationship Mistakes

What’s more fascinating is that, the day they got engaged, Melissa had only been on three one-on-one dates with the man she’d agreed to spend the rest of her life with. “I remember the day after we got engaged, I was sitting there looking at Jason and we were like, 'Well what did we just do? What kind of pickle did we just get ourselves in?' I didn’t even know what he did for a living.”

 Watch: The Laws of Dating

To hear more about what goes on behind the scenes with the contestants, and Melissa’s red flags the Bachelorette should watch out for, check out today’s Daily Shot!