Robertson - I didnt come here to make friends: confessions of a reality show villain

For my hero, my dad, the one man whos never let me down

I d been staring out the window at the majestic Matterhorn in Switzerland for at least ten minutes, a camera hovering mere inches from my face. I was filled with anxiety but tried as hard as I could to look both calm and pensive. I pushed aside thoughts of the camera filming me to focus on the man I was here for, the man I hoped was about to ask me to marry him. By the third take I felt on the brink of tears, but we needed these contemplative shots for the finale episode. I wanted to get it right quicklyand avoid having America witness the high-stakes drama of a very public meltdown. On his proposal day, former Bachelor Jason Mesnik felt an irresistible urge to run to his balcony and wail like an old Italian woman at a funeral. When I watched it on TV, I thought he looked ridiculous, but now, as I sat in his place, I understood why he was moved to man-tears.

It didnt help that I kept catching glimpses of my face in the window reflection. Ugh, I didnt look pensive. I looked like a loser! I cursed myself for not practicing in the mirror last night. I remembered from past modeling jobs that if I looked straight ahead at this exact angle, the camera would only catch the whites of my eyes and Id look like a zombie. On national television. Perfect. So I shifted my glance away from the Matterhorn toward the camera a tiny bit. At least now I couldnt see my goofy reflection. And I wouldnt get snow blindness.

What else was running through my head besides avoiding bad angles? Ben Flajnik. My love. My soul mate. My future husbandif he proposed today. Id know in just a few hours whether this would be the happiest, or the most humiliating, day of my life.

Im not the kind of person who normally gets nervous, but on this morning I was wracked with nerves, my stomach twisted in knots. I thought about our first date in Switzerland, when we flew around the very mountain I was staring at in a helicopter. It was so romantic, but also pretty scary. While safety is a must, to win the Bachelors heart you have to do more than look hot in a bikini. You have to be able to participate in an extreme sporting eventin a bikini. Lets be real. Nobody ever says, No, I absolutely will not swim with sharks, because it pegs you as totally boring, high maintenance, and unable to handle adversity in a relationship. Its an automatic ticket home in Bachelor-land.

But I wanted to go home that minute. With Ben as my fianc. I was truly in love with him. Wasnt I? A few nights ago, someone had given me a strange warning. Courtney, Bens a snob, she proclaimed. Why would she say that? Id never seen that side of Ben. He did use the word lovely a lot, and not ironically. And when I met his mom, Barbara, a few days earlier at Bens chalet, the first question she asked me was, Why didnt you go to college? which made me feel totally inadequate.

Okay, we got it, the crew announced, and, finally, my Matterhorn selfies were over. Thank God. Id been doing interviews all day, every day for almost three months and I felt like a caged animal. This suite at the Grand Hotel Zermatterhof in Switzerland was a total mind fuck, too. It wasnt relaxing or soothing at all. The room was creepy and old and depressing, like a haunted house. A bell tower across from my bedroom went off every thirty minutes. Since I didnt have a cell phone, computer, television, or music, it was the only sound I heard. The bell was not only deafening, it was driving me insane.

At this point, I was also getting totally paranoid. It was so hard not to start bawling just thinking about the possibility of Ben and Lindzi ending up together. The whole time I was on The Bachelor, twelve long weeks, I rarely broke down on-camera. I held everything in until I was in the only truly private place available to contestantsthe shower. Finally alone, I would weep like Jason Mesnik. Never let them see you sweat was my motto. But thinking about Ben proposing to Lindzi had me on edge, prepared to lose it at any given moment.

As I got ready that morning, I tried not to think about Lindzi and her super cheesy jokes. She had a weird habit of talking in the third person, starting every sentence with Cox believes or Cox loves I think she enjoyed shocking people with her last name and even threw her dad, Mr. Cox, into many conversations for good measure. I didnt want to think about Lindzi. Instead I thought about Ben and hiscox. Wed had sex three times in the Fantasy Suite at a hillside chalet in the beautiful Swiss town of Interlaken, so I couldnt wait to be with him again.

My stomach dropped for what seemed like the five hundredth time. What the heck would I do if he didnt propose to me? I couldnt imagine it not happening. I deserved a fairy-tale ending. I had started to seriously think of Ben as my boyfriend after Id introduced him to my family in Arizona on our Hometown Date, and I was convinced we were together. If he broke up with me, it would be the ultimate betrayal, especially since he secretly told me on our Fantasy Suite date that he was madly in love with me. I knew I was head over heels in love with him, but could he possibly have been lying to me? It had crossed my mind a few times that maybe Ben was only doing the show to promote his winery in Sonoma.

I tried to push the thought out of my brain, but that night I prepared myself for the worst-case scenariohaving my heart smashed into a million pieces. In my mind, I forced myself to rehearse my answer if he dumped me or said he just wanted to keep dating casually. I couldnt just stand there, mouth hanging open. I decided that I would simply say, Never contact me. Then Id walk off in silence and completely ignore him.

The uncertainty of what was going to happen kept me up all night long. I tossed and turned, only getting a measly few hours of sleep. I didnt want to be out of it or groggy on the potential day of my very public engagement, but I just couldnt fall asleep.

Honestly, I probably could have taken horse tranquilizers and it wouldnt have affected me. Though my eyes were burning from a restless night, when the cameras swooped in at 6:00 A.M. to film me getting out of bed, I was wide awake and already pumping with adrenaline. Luckily, I was warned about the ambush, so Id borrowed a floral, booby-revealing nightie, since I usually wear old T-shirts and sweats to bed. A few minutes before the crew came in, I sprang out of bed, brushed my teeth and hair, and splashed cold water on my face. (Id wished I had an ice cube to rub all over my face. Its the oldest trick in the book on modeling shoots to not look puffy and like you just woke up.) Then I crawled back into bed, and waited for everyone to come in and surprise me.

After shooting me getting out of bedand gazing with concern at the Matterhorn (again!)they started to film me putting on makeup and my proposal dress. After a few interviews, I took the dress off and didnt put it on again until three hours later so it wouldnt get wrinkled. I hated that dress. I had picked it out three days earlier with the fabulous Cary Fetman, stylist for The Bachelor. Both Lindzi and I had to choose from the same eight dresses. I was so disappointed. I thought Id be wowedinstead, as I walked around reviewing my choices, I thought, Is this it? This cant be it. I knew immediately that Lindzi would pick the really girly, poufy, navy blue tube dress with feathers. I ended up with a black dress with sequins, long black gloves, and a white cape. Yes, a white cape.