Is Reality TV Love for Real?
N E W Y O R K, Feb. 21 -- Were Charlie Maher and Helene Eksterowicz hoodwinked into believing their TV romances were the real thing?
No one was more surprised about the outcome of The Bachelorette than Charlie Maher.
After he spent six weeks believing he was the one for Trista Rehn, the star of ABC's romantic reality TV series, she gave him the boot.
Spurned by the Bachelorette
"Unfortunately, my heart has led me in a different direction," Rehn told Maher during the final episode, which was taped late last year and aired Wednesday night.
Maher's smiling face slowly revealed his confusion and shock as he took in the surprising news: Rehn had chosen his rival, firefighter Ryan Sutter.
"I thought I read this thing right the entire time," Maher told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America today. "I wanted the opportunity to be with Trista outside this process," he said.
Maher says he's not mad at Rehn for leading him on because it was all part of the show. "She had to act like she was interested in all of them or the show doesn't work. Maybe I led myself to believe I was still in the game," he said.
Dumped by the Bachelor
Meanwhile, as Maher's heart began healing, Helene Eksterowicz's heart was breaking.
On last year's The Bachelor, Eksterowicz, a 28-year-old grade-school psychologist from Gloucester City, N.J., told the show's star Aaron Buerge that she would marry him.
In the show's final episode, which was taped in September and aired on Nov. 20, Buerge, a 28-year-old banker from Springfield, Mo., proposed to Eksterowicz and slid a Harry Winston diamond ring onto her finger.
But everything changed when the spotlight was gone.
According to Eksterowicz, she was dropping Buerge off at the airport after a wonderful visit at her home in New Jersey in December, when he suddenly told her he had lost his feelings for her and was breaking off the engagement.
Eksterowicz says she still has no idea what went wrong.
"I was misled for awhile," she said on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "He actually told me twice that he loved me the night before he broke up with me, and then he woke up and dropped this bomb on me," she said.
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