Arie Luyendyk Jr. Says 'The Bachelor' Isn't A "Natural" Way For People To Find Love

Arie Luyendyk Jr. may have met his wife during his tenure on The Bachelor, but he's not surprised that most couples on the reality show don't make it in the long run. During a recent appearance on the Couple Things With Shawn and Andrew podcast, Arie said that the Bachelor process "barely works" for the couples and that it's not a natural way for contestants to build a lasting relationship.

The race car driver talked about his time on the reality show alongside wife Lauren during the June 10 episode of the podcast, and explained that it's "difficult" to actually find love on The Bachelor. "It’s such a difficult — I hate to call it process — but it is a difficult show. And that’s probably why you find that a lot of people don’t make it is because it’s just so taxing emotionally," Arie said, before explaining the issues with the show's format.

"It’s just, like, it’s not natural to have two people that you [have], at the end, and then have to break up with one person and get engaged to another person an hour later," he continued. "It’s just so weird. It’s, like, no wonder it barely works." Lauren agreed with her husband, explaining that it was hard for her, as a contestant, to form a connection with him on the show. "It takes time to build trust," she said, before adding that "it’s so hard to do that in such a short amount of time."

In fact, Arie revealed that he didn't actually think Lauren was particularly interested in him for most of the competition, which is part of the reason why he proposed to Becca Kufrin in the finale. "I didn’t think she was that into me the whole beginning of the show, so I kind of let other relationships develop," he recalled. "Then it got toward the end and I was like ‘Oh dang! She actually really likes me. ... Our relationship bloomed so late in that whole Bachelor world that, that’s why the ending got a little mixed up." (Arie broke up with Becca not long after proposing; he and Lauren tied the knot in January 2019.)

This is not the first time that Arie has criticized the reality show and method of helping people find love; in May, he told Us Weekly that The Bachelor's leads are "set up to fail" while defending Peter Weber. “It’s hard to comment on it because people commented on our season, but if you’re not there and not in the situation, it’s really hard to place blame or to cast judgment," Arie said.

He continued, "And I’ve got to say as a Bachelor, I feel like you’re almost set up to fail. It’s, like, a recipe for disaster. So, if there is a normal happy ending, like a Sean Lowe, Catherine [Giudici] ending, you’re almost surprised." Lauren echoed those sentiments by explaining that there's a lot of elements behind the scenes that affect the choices the Bachelor and Bachelorette make on the show.

“There’s so much that you don’t see that goes into it," she said at the time. "So even if [Peter] looks like the worst Bachelor, he probably wasn’t as bad as he seems. There’s probably things that happened that caused him to do those things." Whether or not The Bachelor works out for most of the couples on the show, at least Arie and Lauren managed to find their own happy ending.