Sonoma bachelor gets brushoff on ‘The Bachelorette’
By CATHY BUSSEWITZ
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
In living rooms around Sonoma, excitement and hope turned to sympathy Monday night as television viewers watched hometown bachelor
Sonoma winemaker Ben Flajnik picks out an engagement ring for reality show 'Bachelorette' Ashley Hebert, only to be turned down. (ABC PHOTO)
Ben Flajnik finish in a heartbreaking second place on the season finale of “The Bachelorette.”
It was not exactly a graceful exit from ABC’s popular reality series.
The beginning of Flajnik’s final scene with Ashley Hebert was romantic enough: He strode off a seaplane on Vomo Island in Fiji with a confident smile, met Hebert with a hug, got down on one knee to present the ring he selected and asked for her hand.
“This is the best feeling that I have had about a woman ever,” Flajnik said to the cameras. “I’ve never felt even remotely close to proposing before. And I guess when you know, you know.”
When Hebert tried to interrupt Flajnik, he continued with his proposal. But then she delivered the painful verdict.
“I’m sorry,” Hebert said. “I know that this was unexpected, and I want you to know that this is the hardest thing that I’ve done here.”
Afterward, the normally cool and relaxed Flajnik was anything but.
He walked off, and when Hebert tried to talk through her decision with him, he wasn’t having it.
“What I don’t need you to do is sugar coat it,” Flajnik said. “You can’t leave something like this on good terms … Right now I’m in utter shock and disbelief. So, good things don’t end unless they end badly.”
Flajnik, who declined to be interviewed Monday, watched the final episode with a small group of close friends in San Francisco, said his business partner Mike Benziger of Evolve Winery in Sonoma Valley.
See photos of Ben on ‘The Bachelorette.’
“It was tough to watch your friend go through something like this, but I think at the end of the day he’s a better person for it,” said Danny Fay, also a part of Evolve Winery who watched the show with Flajnik.
For weeks, loyal viewers, bloggers and tabloid writers predicted that Hebert would pick finalist J.P. Rosenbaum as the man whose marriage proposal she would accept. But in a dramatic twist in what might otherwise have been a predictable episode, when Hebert sought her family’s approval of each of the men, her sister let it be known that she was not fond of Rosenbaum.
Hebert’s family did, however, really like Flajnik, which set a good tone for the couple’s final date. Hebert and Flajnik set off in a helicopter and landed at a healing mud bath.
“Ready to strip?” Hebert asked. “Yes ma’am,” Flajnik answered, and the couple waded into the mud in their bathing suits.
“When you’re lubing each other up with mud, it’s really quite erotic,” Flajnik said.
Later that night, when the couple were alone in a bedroom, Flajnik told Hebert he had fallen in love with her.
“It’s a really big deal for me to tell someone I love them,” Flajnik said to the cameras. “When I say it, I mean it.”
“You read fairy tales, you never think you’re going to be a part of one,” Flajnik said before his devastating departure.
In the end, it didn’t work out. But his second-place finish and the feverish fan appreciation of Sonoma’s single winemaker has fueled speculation that he could secure a place for himself as the lead on the next season of “The Bachelor.” After all, that’s how Hebert landed her gig on the Bachelorette.
And that surely would be welcome news to the “Ben F.” fans in Sonoma and beyond, not to mention his wine brand.
“Ben is an awesome guy, so I hope the best for him,” said Hailey Reeser, wine buyer at Sunflower Caffe in Sonoma. “Their wine is selling like crazy … they’ve been busy boys ever since this started.”
Benziger said Flajnik is doing well since the show concluded, and has been hard at work. “Our brand has always sold well in California, but with the show we’ve started to get a lot of interest internationally and nationally,” he said.
Benziger said Flajnik is open to dating, and has been getting recognized a lot more when he’s out and about. “He’s in a very good place in his life right now,” Benziger said.
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Good going Ben, may you find someone better and more suitable to you, whose feelings for you are for you, not because of your winery or money.
Keep the faith Ben, you have a lot of fans out here and I know you will find your true love…. *sigh* I’m a huge fan of yours btw… My heart broke right along with yours… wish I could help you mend it
Ben you dodged a bullet last night. That relationship isn’t going to last. Her sister would have made a better bachelorette than Ashley. She couldn’t see through Bentley with that stupid dot dot dot crap when she was warned before the show started that he wasn’t into her. In the mean time she let alot of more deserving men go home. I’ll be waiting to hear of the breakup. And to the producers, you had to really dig deep to this last Bachelorette. Try to kick it up a notch next time.
HAH! Those broads are all gold diggers! Good riddance to them.
Ben just consider yourself lucky. That little tart was not worth you wasting your time on. They will never get married, because old J.P. is a control freak!! Her tattoed sister was a lot smarter that Ashley was.
You appear to be a reserved gentleman, and we were pulling for you. But after she let you get down on your knee and propose was the complete lowest thing she could have done! Wow what class she has!!!!!!
You will find yourself a true lady!!!
No offense….Ben you are too good for this girl. You deserve something better, and I am sure you will find a super lady someday.
Besides I don’t think she would fit too well in your family.
You are a true gentleman.
Word from TMZ is that Ben is a real “mean” person. Didn’t watch the crummy show, never have, never will, but that’s the word, “Ben’s a mean man.”