Former 'The Bachelor' producer Julie LaPlaca denies grooming Peter Weber and defends her actions

Former The Bachelor producer Julie LaPlaca has denied Nick Viall's claim that she groomed Peter Weber while filming his season, insisting she also doesn't believe she made a mistake by hooking up with him.


Both Nick, who starred on The Bachelor's 21st season, and Peter -- who filmed The Bachelor's 24th season under Julie's direction and guidance in late 2019 -- have slammed Julie in the media for exposing personal details about her professional-turned-intimate relationship with Peter in her new book, The Love Producer.

RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS) 

Peter said Julie's actions are "unforgivable" and extremely disappointing, and Nick said Julie's decision to write about her history with the pilot was manipulative, "sinister" and "gross" since she was in a position of power and had great influence over Peter's love story.

"You do not get to seduce this person and exploit that story for your own benefit. It's so f-cking wrong," Nick recently vented on his "The Viall Files" podcast.


Nick accused Julie of "coercing" Peter into wanting to be with her when he was already so confused about his feelings for his The Bachelor 24 finalists.

"No, I don't believe I was grooming Peter. In fact, when we were filming, nothing happened," Julie claimed during Tuesday, July 7 episode of "The Ben & Ashley I: Almost Famous Podcast."

Julie wrote in the book that she first had sex with Peter when preparing for his The Bachelor: The Women Tell All special after he had already ended his engagement to his winner, Hannah Ann Sluss.

The Women Tell All special presumably taped in February 2020 while The Bachelor's 24th season was nearing the end of its run on ABC.

Julie also claimed that she slept with Peter -- who failed to revive his relationship with his The Bachelor runner-up, Madison Prewett, following After the Final Rose -- multiple times in March 2020, before he quickly moved on with fellow The Bachelor 24 alum Kelley Flanagan.


Julie continued on the podcast, "When we were filming and I was his producer, I am very much focused-in on my job and the role. I cared about Peter; I saw him as a really nice guy. Coming off of a season where I had a really hard time with the lead, Peter felt like family. It felt like best friends."

Julie said that when she was writing her book -- which hit shelves on July 7 -- she was looking back on her time producing The Bachelor and tried to make sense of her feelings.

"It's reflective looking back now where I realize, 'Oh there were some moments.' It's like, 'When he got upset with me, why did that affect me so much? I should be glad he wanted time away from me,'" Julie recalled.

"Moments during the actual season is more reflective looking back, [because] when we were in the season and filming, I was very much in producer mode."

RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOW: WHOM DID 'THE BACHELORETTE' STARS AND THEIR BACHELOR PICKS ULTIMATELY END UP WITH?! (PHOTOS)  


Julie went on to tell the podcast's co-hosts Ashley Iaconetti and Ben Higgins, "Now, of course, part of our job is to get close with them, and for me, I think I can't fake [it]. I realized I'm not a person who can fake a connection. But with him, it became very easy because we connected really well."

Ben -- who starred on The Bachelor's 20th season -- acknowledged how it's easy for lines to get blurred between a producer and the show's lead considering they spend so much time together.

"I think it was an unfortunate scenario, but I don't think you were grooming [him]," Ben said.

"That would be [a reach]... saying you were prepping and planning the whole time that someday you were going to make him fall in love with you and all of these things you were doing on his The Bachelor journey were to lead him away from all the women that were there. I don't believe that to be the case."

"Not at all," Julie interjected.


"I know you," Ben confirmed. "I don't think it was this big scheme that you had, or some brilliant idea... I would say it was a mistake. So that would be my question [for you]."

When Ben asked Julie if she viewed hooking up with Peter as a mistake, Julie replied, "I don't like to think anything is a mistake."

Julie explained, "Because I now, from a higher perspective, understand why it happened. It really was to push me out of a show that no longer aligned with who I was and really was the catalyst for me to understand my wounds and my triggers with men. So I'm actually, now, grateful it happened."

But Julie later confessed, "Was it right? No, I understand it wasn't right from, you know, a professional standpoint. That's why I left [the show in 2021]. That's why I dealt with a lot of shame. That's why I stayed hidden for years, quite literally."

Julie said she had to do "a lot of healing" and so it was "really difficult."


But she continued, "I don't think anything is a mistake. I think I was actually divinely guided. I think my book is about my journey for love, but on a deeper level, it's about my spiritual journey back to God and the unconditional love that is given to us all."

Julie therefore reiterated how she's "super grateful" for "what people may call a mistake."

"Because it led me here," Julie said.

When looking back on her producing role and The Bachelor environment, Julie shared, "I didn't actually admit to myself that I was developing feelings until after the first round of headlines came out, all of a sudden."

RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' COUPLES NOW: WHO DID 'THE BACHELOR' STARS AND THEIR BACHELORETTE PICKS ACTUALLY END UP MARRYING? (PHOTOS)

Julie was referring to how there was speculation Julie and Peter were dating -- or secretly hooking up -- in January 2020 when they were celebrating New Year's Eve together.


Peter and Julie had wrapped filming The Bachelor's 24th season by that point and Peter was engaged to Hannah Ann. The show was about to premiere on January 6, 2020 on ABC.

"Timeline-wise, when I was in full-producer mode, there were no actual thoughts of, like, 'Oh, I'm falling for this guy.' It was more reflective as I was looking back about these moments," Julie said.

"But then, you know, he broke up with Hannah Ann in January [2020] and the show's airing on TV and then suddenly a Reddit theory took off like wildfire that he was with me. At the time, nothing had happened -- at all. But we got along really well, and our families had met and they loved each other."

Julie said Peter's mother Barb was even "praying" for them to end up together.

"My dad said, 'Julie, I've never seen you this way with a man.' And then, seemingly, the whole world was actually rooting for us to end up together," Julie recalled.

"And so, here I am -- a hopeless romantic who's always dreamed of this fairy-tale ending. And all of a sudden, seemingly, the entire world is rooting for that fairy-tale, rom-com ending. And then there was this Cinderella moment where I almost became the Bachelorette."


Julie said that so much was going through her mind at that point.

"So of course I got caught up in the stories we've been fed and conditioned to want and desire in life as women!" Julie explained.

She added, "So, yeah, I got caught up in the fairy tale I created. And I was trying to understand whether I actually felt something or if I had gotten mixed up with the stories I created for a living. So it became a really difficult, confusing time for me."

After Peter and Julie had sex multiple times, Julie admitted she was devastated to learn from news headlines that Peter and Kelley had reunited in Chicago in late March 2020.

Kelley and Peter went Instagram official in May 2020, and they proceeded to have an on-again, off-again romance until their official split in early 2023.

Julie said she finally professed her love to Peter over the phone in March 2024 -- which was about four years after they last hooked up -- but they both decided their timing was always off and they should just remain friends.


After hearing Julie's side of the story, Ben noted that Peter shouldn't have been off-limits for her to date just because they had worked on a show for a few months.

"That seems crazy to me," Ben admitted.

And Ashley -- who is a friend of everyone involved in this controversy, including Nick -- that she read Julie's book "very innocently."

"I feel like most people would," Ashley said. "But of course I understand Peter's [frustrations]... but it didn't feel dirty, it really doesn't."

Ashley concluded that "of course the timing wasn't great" but Julie made Peter look like a kind and good human being in the book.

RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELOR' FRANCHISE COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER?? (PHOTOS) 


Interested in more The Bachelor news? Follow our Bachelor Nation News Page on Facebook or join our The Bachelor Facebook Group!







About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski