For the Right Reasons

© 2015 by Sean Lowe

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Nelson Books, an imprint of Thomas Nelson. Nelson Books and Thomas Nelson are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

Published in association with Stéphanie Abou, Foundry Literary+Media, 33 West 17th Street, PH, New York, NY 10011.

Interior designed by Mallory Perkins.

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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the
Holy Bible
, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, IL 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from THE ENGLISH STANDARD VERSION. © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.

The names and identifying characteristics of some individuals have been changed to protect their privacy.

ISBN 978-0-7180-1881-8 (eBook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lowe, Sean, 1983-

For the right reasons : America’s favorite bachelor on faith, love, marriage, and why nice guys finish first / Sean Lowe with Nancy French.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Lowe, Sean, 1983- 2. Bachelor (Television program) 3. Television personalities--United States--Biography. I. French, Nancy. II. Title.

PN1992.4.L72A3 2014

791.4502’8092--dc23

[B]

2014023723

15 16 17 18 19 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my beautiful wife, Catherine:
Your love, encouragement, and friendship inspire me to be better than I am.

CONTENTS

Prologue

1. The Guy with Potential

2. Answering the Call

3. What a Way to Make a Living

4. A Not-So-Memorable First Impression

5. The Big Baby

6. Getting on My Soapbox

7. The
L
Word

8. The One Where I Got My Heart Broken

9. Newfound Notoriety

10. The Driver’s Seat

11. Moving Out of the Friend Zone

12. One Step at a Time

13. Warning Signals

14. The Decision

15. Down on One Knee

16. Trying to Dance with the Stars

17. The Big Day

18. Bachelor No More

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Notes

About the Authors

Photos

PROLOGUE

I’d been kidnapped.

I was stuck in the back of the Suburban, and my heart was about to pound out of my chest. Several emotions swirled inside me—anger, embarrassment, hurt. But mostly, I felt shock.

I’d just been dumped.

Of course, everyone experiences heartbreak in life. If I had been back home in Texas, I would’ve gone to the gym, grabbed some weights, and worked my way through it. When I get angry or upset, I need some space.

But I was hardly alone.

I was in a vehicle with a driver, cameramen, and two producers—all of them watching my every move. And they weren’t going to let me out of there without talking.

To make matters worse, this moment would soon be broadcast to millions of viewers across the nation as they tuned in for season 8 of
The Bachelorette
. The show is a spin-off of ABC’s dating game show,
The Bachelor
, which debuted in 2002. It goes like this: one pretty, available woman dates twenty-five eligible bachelors—sometimes on group dates, sometimes on one-on-one dates, and sometimes on the dreaded two-on-one dates. Will her future husband be in that group? The people at home watch eagerly as she gets to know the men and sends them home, one by one. As the weeks progress, the choices get harder. Eventually, she meets the parents of the remaining few bachelors on hometown dates, chooses whether to get even more acquainted with them on overnight dates, and—if all goes as planned—gets engaged on the show.

My sister and brother-in-law were the ones who encouraged me to get in to all this. They submitted my name to the show, helped me make my audition video, and even bought me a tailored suit. (The guys on
The Bachelorette
have to buy their own clothes, and I definitely didn’t have the funds to splurge on an expensive suit.)

People come from all walks of life, and it’s interesting to see how everybody gets along in the house. Of course, the ultimate criticism of contestants is that they didn’t come on the show “for the right reasons.” For example, in season 5 of
The Bachelorette
, the “singing cowboy” Wes Hayden made it to the final four even though it was said he had a girlfriend back home. Apparently, it took Jillian Harris awhile to figure out he was there to promote his music career. In season 6, there was the infamous wrestler who had a girlfriend back home. In fact, it was rumored he had two! Then, in season 7, episode 3, a guy named Bentley admitted to the camera he fantasized about a different bachelorette and then called his season’s potential wife an “ugly duckling.”

Presumably the only “right reason” for going on
The Bachelorette
is to find true love. As terrible as the lies and deception in the above examples are, I guess I might as well admit it now: I didn’t go on the show “for the right reasons” either.

I went on the show to meet fun people, travel to interesting places, and then get on with my life back in Dallas with a few good stories to tell. And, in fact, I did travel. I proclaimed my love for Emily Maynard in London’s Hyde Park, I ran through the streets of Prague to get a few extra minutes with her, and I ended up on the island of Curaçao, located in the southern Caribbean Sea just off the coast of Venezuela.

No, I didn’t go on the show to get married.

But before you judge me, wouldn’t it be a little crazy to think your path to the altar might go through a reality TV show?

I was as surprised as anyone that I fell so hard for Emily and made it all the way to the last rose ceremony. It came down to me and two other guys: bad-boy, racecar driver Arie Luyendyk and entrepreneurial do-gooder Jef Holm. Even though I had stiff competition, I was convinced Emily would choose me.

There was something about the show’s atmosphere that fostered romance: candlelight, exotic locales, and producers telling me there was an obvious connection between us. Plus, I wasn’t able to communicate with friends and family back home after the producers made us give up our cell phones, tablets, and laptops. (I heard on set that former bachelor Brad Womack somehow got a phone toward the end of filming his season, contacted his old girlfriend, and convinced her to give him another chance. That season ended up without a proposal for either of the final contestants.) Because I had no contact with the outside world, I was either
with
Emily or
thinking about
Emily. I had already considered what I’d say when I was down on one knee. I would think about my life with her and wonder what it would be like to become an instant dad to her daughter. Never, in all my daydreaming, did it cross my mind she’d send me home.

But on that night, in a picturesque Caribbean locale, she did just that. I was riding away from Emily for a final time.

It’s sometimes called “the limo ride of shame,” but I was in a black Suburban. This is the time after every rose ceremony when the rejected bachelor gets to react to the news of his elimination. It’s usually a desperate moment, with crying and blame. But this felt different from every other ride I’d witnessed from the comfort of home, and not just because it was happening to me.

First, I wasn’t the only person who thought Emily and I would end up together. The producer assigned to me, Scott Westerman, was supposed to ask me probing questions on the ride. But he was completely choked up. So was another producer with whom I’d grown close, Jonah Quinn. He may have had a glass of wine too many, but he was also bawling.

Second, the ride was unusually long. Getting to my hotel should’ve taken about ten minutes, but we were still rolling after half an hour. That’s when I realized the producers intended to drive until they got good footage. After all, we were making a reality television show. It might have felt like a breakup to me, but my heartbreak was ratings gold.

“Sure is a long way to the hotel,” I joked when I realized they had effectively kidnapped me. In spite of it all, everyone laughed. I definitely wasn’t mad at them. They had made my time on
The Bachelorette
a real pleasure. I was touched everyone seemed to be taking it so hard. It sort of made my heartache seem justified. I hadn’t imagined the connection between Emily and me, had I? No, I could tell by my cameraman’s face that we’d all gotten blindsided.