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‘You’ll never, ever know’: Osher Günsberg on how seriously the Bachelor franchise takes the mental health of contestants

Content warning: This article discusses mental health.

If you or someone you care about needs support, please contact:

Lifeline 13 11 14
Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467
MensLine Australia 1300 78 99 78
Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636

TV consumers will never be aware of the true extent of mental health support available to contestants, host of Bachelor in Paradise, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, Osher Günsberg, has claimed.

This year there has been increased scrutiny on the wellbeing of contestants both within the filming environment, and how they cope with feedback and backlash once the edited version of ‘reality’ goes to air.

A contestant from this year’s Bachelor in Paradise, Jamie Doran, has said he is commencing legal proceedings against Ten and Warner Bros over his portrayal.

Doran is not happy with how he was edited 

Günsberg, however, told Mumbrella that the duty of care is taken extremely seriously, as contestants are effectively visitors to a worksite. He conceded, however, that it’s difficult to address individual concerns with the public, due to confidentiality restrictions.

“I’m not gonna lift the lid completely, because that would break confidentiality, but I think it’s important [to address the issue],” he told the Mumbrellacast. “I guess I just want to bring some reality into the reality of reality. We’re a workplace like any other, and the wellbeing of the people that are on our worksite is important, and I think that’s important for people to realise. None of us would be comfortable with going to work somewhere that would be damaging to a person.

“But you’re never going to ever, ever, ever know the level of support, the level of access, who accessed, how they accessed, how long after the how they accessed it for. You’ll never know, but you just have to know that it’s there, and that the people that are involved in the show are, in their hearts, incredibly good people – from my immediate story producers, to the show runners, to the executive producer, to the director, to the network executive, to the commissioning executive, to the CEO of the company – they’re all women, and powerful women, strong women, who in their hearts are really just vigilant as far as the integrity of our workplace. And just understand that that goes all the way down the line. And not everything makes the cut.”

Bachelor in Paradise wrapped up last night on Ten to 480,000 metro viewers, and Günsberg is set to host The Masked Singer on Monday and Tuesday nights, as well as The Bachelor from Wednesday night. A renewed format of The Bachelorette will go to air later this year.

He won’t, he said, be overly worried about ratings this time around.

Günsberg has fronted the series since 2013

“I don’t control who gets promoted. I don’t control the promos. I don’t control the programming. I don’t control if they’re going to put us up against this show or that show. I don’t control any of those things. I can only control how well I can do my job and how professional I am on the day, and at the end of the day, I go home, and that’s success for me,” he said.

“All I can really do, in these times when there is so much that is out of our control, I can only control what I can control, and that is for me doing the very best job that I can do, and me to make sure that everyone on the team that I’m a part of can do the very best job that they can do. And if we all do that, we give those people who have put their lives on hold to come on our show to hopefully find love the very best chance of finding what they came to find.

“And honestly, once that finale happens, and once we call a wrap on the finale and we do that final interview with our couple, or with nobody in the case of Nick Cummins, that’s it. We go home, and there’s nothing more I can do. If the ratings come, that’s nice, it means we might get to come around again. If the ratings don’t come, I know that I did the very best that I could do to make the best show I could possibly make.”

If you or someone you care about needs support, please contact:

Lifeline 13 11 14
Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467
MensLine Australia 1300 78 99 78
Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636

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