Arts & Entertainment
Bachelor Nation Erupts Over Arie Luyendyk's 'April Fool' Prank
Arie Luyendyk's season of The Bachelor may have ended but the former race-car champ still drives home some cringe-worthy moments.
SCOTTSDALE, AZ – It was hard to imagine that Arie Luyendyk, Jr., could once again feel the wrath of Bachelor Nation. Yet, here we are again.
Just a couple of months after the former Indy-car racer picked a fiancee and then dumped her on camera so that he could settle down with the woman who had been the runner-up, Luyendyk was once again the target of the anger of Bachelor Nation.
Late Sunday morning, he tweeted ot a photo of fiancee Lauren Burnham appearing to have a bit of a baby bump.
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"Secrets finally out, we have a bunny in the oven," he wrote.
A couple of hours later, the truth came out in another tweet.
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"APRIL FOOLS!" he wrote.
Bachelor Nation was not amused, quickly taking to social media to let Luyendyk what they thought of his stunt; they had already made clear what they generally thought of him, providing his season with some of the lowest ratings in the show's history.
"Is tht what you said to Becca when you told her you weren't in love with her and broke off the engagement too?" one person wrote, referring to Arie's o-camera break-up with Becca Kufrin.
His dumping of Minnesota native Becca prompted one state legislator there to introduce a bill banning from the state.
"What exactly is funny about heartbreaking, bank-breaking efforts to overcome or live with infertility?" wrote another. "Is it the miscarriages? The failed adoptions? The guilt and feelings of inferiority ? The waiting?"
In all, there were than 500 replies to his tweets, many of them critical.
Later on Sunday, Luyendyk made things worse, writing that he and Lauren "really are making" a baby. Only it was a type of pancake known as a "Dutch Baby."
On Monday, he finally apologized.
"I do have sympathy for women struggling from infertility," he wrote on Twitter. "My April Fools prank was in no way meant to offend women who struggle with that. I apologize if you were effected personally by my post."
File photo via Steven Lawton, stringer/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images
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