Chris Lambton says he passed on the chance to star on The Bachelor because he wasn't happy with his The Bachelorette portrayal and wanted to meet the right woman away from the spectacle of reality television.

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The Bachelor producers had initially targeted Lambton -- who was rejected by Ali Fedotowsky during the finale of the summer's The Bachelorette edition -- as the star of the show's upcoming edition this past summer, however the 33-year-old landscaper and former teacher from Dennis, MA was immediately hesitant to accept the role.

"Honestly, it's something that I'll have to think long and hard about because it was hard watching, you know, so much of my personal life and intimate details of like dating and love on TV," Lambton told reporters following The Bachelorette's August finale broadcast. 

"It's definitely something that I'll have to, you know, really, really think about. I'm not really sure if I want to share all that again."

However Lambton told The Boston Globe in a recent interview that after taking more than three months to come to his decision, he finally decided to turn down the offer in September.

According to Lambton, The Bachelor's producers and ABC executives were surprised by his initial hesitation and weren't quick to give up on the idea of having him as the show's next star.  In addition to increasing its initial salary offer to what an insider told the Globe was a mid six-figure level, the network also attempted to sway Lambton with promises to host his family nearby during the show's filming and allow him to decide the location of its vacation dates.

ABC told the Globe it had no comment on the report.

Fedotowsky's The Bachelorette edition portrayed Lambton as an ultra-sweet great guy who was all too often recognized for losing his mother Marjorie -- who died from multiple system atrophy, a neurological disorder similar to ALS in 2008.

However Lambton told the Globe his believed the portrayal was an inaccurate depiction of his true self and he was frustrated the show failed to focus on other important aspects of his personality -- including his strong sense of humor and years of teaching experience.  

"I'm not a one-dimensional person," Lambton said. "I know they were like, 'Go ask him about his mom again.' They didn't talk about my teaching. They didn't talk about anything else. It was good editing."

ABC finally resorted to casting Brad Womack -- a man notoriously disliked for rejecting both of his final two women during the show's eleventh-season's finale -- as the star of The Bachelor's fifteenth edition, which will premiere Monday, January 3 at 8PM ET/PT.

However Lambton still ended up finding love through the reality dating franchise, albeit indirectly.  While he asked the Globe to not identify her by name, Lambton has been dating a "tall, blond woman from Texas" -- Peyton Wright, who was a bachelorette on Andy Baldwin's The Bachelor edition and also competed on the show's Bachelor Pad spinoff this summer -- for several months.

"I don't want to put my love life out there," Lambton said. "People from 6-96 watch this show. The extent of it blows me away."

Like Lambton, Wright -- who the former The Bachelorettte bachelor planned to visit in Texas for a few weeks over the holidays -- "now has similar feelings about the reality game," according to the Globe.

Lambton also noted it wasn't his idea to originally apply for The Bachelorette, as it was one of his clients -- who was surprised that her landscaper was single -- who convinced him to let her submit him for the show even though he had never watched it.

In addition, Lambton's brother Erik told the Globe that while his brother has appreciated receiving fan mail, he hasn't been so thrilled about being acknowledged in public so often.

"They would just come up talking to him like he's there for their amusement," Erik said, recalling a specific incident in which he and Lambton were mobbed by beachgoers during a morning swim at a local beach.

"It was like there's a dead seal on the beach or something," his brother Mark added.

"Next thing I knew, people are coming up to me with babies," Lambton laughed. "They were handing me babies."

Whether Lambton comes to regret his decision to participate in The Bachelor or not, he admitted he may watch the upcoming season out of curiosity that some of the women selected may have been initially cast for him.

"One of those women could have been my wife," he told the Globe skeptically.
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

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