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Contestant Expected 'Bachelor' Rejection

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By WALT BELCHER, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 8, 2007

TAMPA - Erin Gardner has no regrets about her two weeks on 'The Bachelor.'

'It was an adventure - that's the word I used a lot to describe it,' says the 25-year-old former Miss Tampa.

Gardner, a Tampa native, made it into the 15 finalists on the ABC reality show. But she was one of three women who didn't get a rose on last week's episode.

The program was taped earlier this year so she has had time to reflect on what happened.

In a telephone interview Thursday, Gardner said she had a good time, but she and bachelor Brad Womack, a bar owner from Austin, Texas, didn't connect.

'I wasn't falling in love with him like some of the others,' she says. 'He is a very good-looking guy, and they are marketing him as the sexiest bachelor ever. I had a little crush on him at first. ...He was fun and seemed nice - and that Southern accent always kind of equals charm. But we didn't hit it off.'

Gardner, who works in sales and marketing for a college textbook company, was born in Tampa. Her father was in the Air Force, and the family moved out of state when she was young. She says she returned to Tampa and went to Gaither High School and the University of South Florida. She was crowned Miss Tampa in 2004. She also is a former director of business development for the Tampa Bay Sports Commission.

She says she was surprised when a casting director from 'The Bachelor' called and asked her whether she wanted to audition for the show. 'I thought it was a joke or he had the wrong number,' she says.

Gardner says she learned that one of her friends had submitted her name and a photograph. 'I was flattered,' she says. 'But my first thought was that this was crazy and there was no way I would do it.'

However, after the producers asked her to come to Los Angeles for an interview, her competitive nature kicked in. 'That's when I started saying it could be fun and exciting,' she says.

She became one of 25 women who attended a three-hour party in a Malibu mansion, where the 34-year-old Womack mixed and mingled.

Some of the women went to extremes to get noticed. Some made missteps. Melissa and Tanni, for example drank too much alcohol and got silly. Tanni wiggled her behind in Brad's face. Another, Juli, twisted her body into a pretzel shape. Another sang an off-key rendition of 'Yellow Rose of Texas.' A woman named Mallory slipped into a bikini and jumped in the pool.

Gardner says she tried to be herself. 'I didn't do anything that would make me cringe when I looked at it,' she says. 'After the first episode, my parents, who live in North Carolina, called to say they were proud of the way I presented myself.'

At first, she was taken aback by some of the behavior of the other women. 'I thought it was crazy, but then there were 25 different women from different places and with different personalities,' she says.

On that first night, Gardner spent a little time with Womack, but she never had time alone with him. 'There were always other women around,' she says, recalling that he asked questions about sports during their first meeting.

Viewers saw only a snippet of a conversation in which Gardner told him about having her face broken twice. She says she is active in Tampa Bay Club Sport, and her jaw was fractured by a foul ball in a softball game. Later in the year, she was elbowed in the face during a flag football game.

They talked about other things, but the broken face was what got on television.

On the second episode, Gardner and five other women went on a 'date' with Womack. 'I hated that, and I'd never do that again,' she says. Again, there was no one-on-one time with the bachelor.

'I don't know if we would have eventually connected if we had spent more time together,' she says.

But by that second episode, she was beginning to have doubts about whether he could be Mr. Right.

'I felt that I would be going home,' she says. 'Brad is awesome, and some of the girls were falling in love, but I wasn't at that level.'

She says a reality show 'might not be the proper source' for someone like her to find a mate. But she came away feeling optimistic about her future and eventually finding romance.

'I had been engaged once,' she says. 'I caught him cheating and called off the wedding. Then I had another relationship that didn't work out. And that was a setback. I doubted whether there was a guy out there. But now I very much want to find true love and the fairy-tale ending.'

Reporter Walt Belcher can be reached at (813 259-7654 or wbelcher @tampatrib.com.

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