There’s been a lot of talk about Glenn Richards’ behaviour on The Bachelorette NZ.
The 28-year-old personal trainer from Auckland, who is one of 22 men cast to try and win the hearts of bachelorettes Lesina Nakhid-Schuster and Lily McManus, has referred to the two women as a ‘two-for-one special’, repeatedly asked them if they’re ‘just friends’ and indicated he’d be happy to date either bachelorette – or both at the same time.
But this week Lesina took charge, making it clear that she’d had enough of his antics.
On Wednesday night’s show Glenn made a big show of interrupting Lesina’s time with the other bachelors, pulling her away from the group of men she was talking to and claiming ‘If you really want something you gotta go get it’.
Lesina was far from impressed.
“Here Glenn is trying to again force time with us,” she told the cameras, referencing the fact that Glenn had pulled this same move on Lily the night before.
Lily hadn’t been bowled over either, saying, “I didn’t have any intentions of chatting to Glenn tonight. But Glenn had intentions of chatting with me.”
So when he took Lesina by both hands and launched into a smooth-talking spiel, Lesina wasted no time in stopping him.
Watch Lesina Shuts Glenn Down, Article continues below:
“Glenn this is all like super interesting, like all the hand stuff and all the affection” Lesina began while breaking free from Glenn’s grasp.
“But it’s also just a bit odd isn’t it? To be like kinda jumping from person to the other?” she asked.
“I just want to like, talk to both of you. I just want to see where both of you are at so I can select who is the best one suited for me,” Glenn tried to explain.
In a week where both Lesina and Lily have said in media interviews that they set out to make the focus of the show about empowering women, it’s been incredibly frustrating to watch Glenn’s behaviour.
Sure, everyone says things they regret. Half baked thoughts can slip out of your mouth in the heat of the moment be it through anger, excitement or nervousness, and you instantly wish you could take your words back.
But Glenn has done little more than pass off his offensive comments as misinterpreted jokes.
When Marc is offended that Glenn said the other contestants needed his permission to kiss Lesina, Glenn said he was sorry that Marc thought he was being serious.
This week Glenn again tried to laugh off his behaviour on the show.
After Lily said his comments about her entering The Bachelorette being his chance for a threesome were ‘disgusting’, Glenn suggested his comments were being misconstrued.
“I’m a light-hearted kind of guy and I love a bit of banter, and that’s obviously not coming through on the show unfortunately,” he told Stuff.
Lesina was unimpressed with the letter Glenn sent her earlier in the season.
You could certainly argue that editing plays a part in Glenn’s depiction on the show. Contestants on reality tv often say that they’ve received “the villain edit”.
But at the end of the day, whether he said it because he knew it’d cause a fuss and get him more air time or because it was what he actually believes, those words did come out of Glenn’s mouth and he needs to own that.
To his credit, neither the bachelorettes nor his fellow contestants seem to want to write Glenn off completely despite what he’s said.
On air Liam grappled with his friend’s multi-faceted personality saying “Glenn’s the type of guy bro, if you’re walking down the street and you’re cold he’d take his shirt off his back for you bro, but in saying that he’d also give you lemons bro!”
“Really, really, really good intentions, just weird.” he reckoned.
Forthright Lily seemed to think Glenn had a case of ill-judged bravado that got the better of him, telling Now To Love, “We [Lesina and I] are different people so I don’t think he could be romantically into both of us. For him to be… it was kind of like, you’re full of sh*t mate.”
Lesina said she hoped the public’s reactions could be a teachable moment for Glenn.
“I don’t’ think there’s a negative to doing it [appearing on a reality TV show], even for people like Glenn who it may look a bit negative for at the moment. I’m sure he’ll learn something about himself as well.”
The Bachelorette New Zealand airs Monday – Wednesday at 7:30pm and Sunday 7pm on TVNZ 2
Video by Lana Byrne. For more great videos check out our Youtube channel
