And, because he’s just such a charmer, we believed him. Until he was spotted accessorising his double-breasted suit with an earpiece on Wednesday night.
Eagle-eyed viewers spotted the earpiece before the ceremony had even begun, calling into question whether Matty J chooses which girls to evict or whether he is drip-fed names as he goes.
Channel 10 has addressed the issue with a statement, telling the Daily Mail that their Bachelor is “occasionally required to be connected to the director if there are technical difficulties with cameras, audio and lighting.” They insisted Matty never wears an earpiece on dates or at the cocktail parties.
A few weeks ago, Matty made an impassioned plea to his suitors: “I just want to say to you ladies that I’m not some puppet that’s just being told what to do. When I pick someone for a single date, that’s because I picked them myself. I decide who goes on those dates.”
It’s not the first earpiece-related drama on The Bachelor – in 2015, an Australian contestant told the Courier Mail that she could hear the producers’ instructions during rose ceremonies. “You can hear the Bachelor’s earpiece… literally, you can hear them say, for example, ‘Sally in 3, 2,1,’ and then he says ‘Sally’,” she claimed. “I was standing there, trying not to laugh, looking around at all the girls thinking, ‘can you not hear this?’”
