While I don't support Brendan and Pieper's motives for coming onto Bachelor in Paradise for fame and followers, you have to respect them outwardly discussing it on camera so we, the fans, don't have to teeter back and forth on the "right reasons/wrong reasons" see-saw. After Pieper's explosive arrival last Monday, and the swift eviction of Chris and Alana on Tuesday, this week's episode seems primed to be all about the reckoning of Brendan and Pieper.
After an episode of pure chaos, Brendan and Pieper have both lost a significant amount of followers on social media platforms like Instagram. And after some rather callous posts too (don't worry, we'll get into that), the numbers kept dropping. And dropping, and dropping.
So what do Brendan and Pieper's post-BIP follower counts look like? Let's examine their social media accounts by the numbers, plus how they've each responded to the backlash.
Crunching the numbers...
Instagram account @bachelordata is doing the Lord's work week-after-week tracking social media traffic for Bachelor contestants. And while it's usually fun to see who explodes in follows after a positive 1-on-1 date, it's even more fun to see whose numbers tank after a negative day on the beach.
According to @bachelordata, just three days after the episode aired, Brendan had lost 86k followers while Pieper had lost 9k. As of a week after their "premiere" episode, Brendan was at 251k, for a total loss of almost 100k with Pieper somewhere around 77k, losing about 10k total.
Natasha, however, is at 430k gaining over 330k followers. Guess the plan to become a "Bachelor Couple" backfired.
What got us here...
While the episode itself was enough for fans to possibly want to unfollow Pieper and Brendan, it certainly didn't help their case that they both posted rather insensitive captions the day their episode aired last Monday. The two seemed to tag-team in sharing cheeky posts with captions that seem fully aware of the backlash that was to come.
Brendan posted "Here for the wrong reasons" with a smirk face emoji. The photo didn't last long, as he has since deleted it. Again, thank you for the transparency but also, ew? Pieper, meanwhile, posted "All's fair in love and war" with a wink face emoji. She later deleted the caption, but kept the photo. She also posted a TikTok video mouthing the words to "Rumors" by Lizzo. That video has been deleted as well.
The inevitable apology statements
Pieper doesn't really apologize, nor does she take any responsibility for her actions. (She blames editing and later told US Weekly that, "I don't think I have any regrets.")
Brendan's apology seems sincere to me, but the part about Pieper and him having "misunderstandings going into paradise" is misleading. If he means that she didn't understand that he had to "play the game" to stay there, then yeah sure. But if he means that he thought they were "casual" and Pieper thought they were "dating," then he is, once again, not being very honest. Also, if a full statement is to follow, that makes me think we're going to get even more chaos from these two on Tuesday night's episode.
As for what happens next, keep an eye on their socials. Chances are this is just the beginning of the storm in Paradise. And now that Chris and Alana were kicked out so swiftly by Joe, Riley, and crew, Brendan and Pieper may want to prepare for the worst. Last week may have truly just been the calm before the storm.
Images: ABC