In a conference call with the media, eliminated Bachelorette contestants Juan Barbieri, 35, and David Good, 27, spoke separately about their bad blood, which blew up in Week 3 when David’s dislike for Juan (for his repeated offenses against “the Man Code”) turned into a heated, hostile yelling match between the men.
Now, despite their continued differences of opinion on many matters, the men had one common point to make: the whole thing was blown waaay out of proportion.
According to David, The Bachelorette editors misrepresented how the feud began in the first place. On the show, David’s initial dislike seemed to begin when Juan pretended to drink a liquor shot during a round on a group date, which included Jillian. The fake shot happened, said David, but it actually happened before the men left the bunkhouse. And he said the issue just kept getting more distorted from there.
“Everyone makes a big deal about the shot [but] that was like the minor thing. The thing that really bothered me was we would all be sitting around hanging out… and Juan would see the cameras coming and jump up — we’d all be in our scrubs, shorts, and tank tops and stuff, and have hats on — and he would go upstairs when he saw the cameras coming and change into some jeans with some sandals and an argyle sweater,” David said. “Then [he’d] fill up a beer when he hasn’t been drinking all day long and sit down with us and act like he’s part of the conversation and cutting up and drinking with the guys when he [actually] never did that.”
“Everybody saw it, everybody just tied of it and I was the one — everybody kind of came to me in the house for some reason, I was like the big brother or something — so I finally said something about it. And the finally straw was when you pour out eight shots for guys and you’re about to go down and meet up with Jillian and you see him dump it out and fake it right in front of you it’s just… I mean, I dunno. He was really separating himself from the group and as far as I was concerned it wasn’t for any good reason, really. There was no reason to do it.”
After seeing himself portrayed as a villain of sorts on the show, David continually defended his character to reporters, attributing his unflattering image largely to editing.
“That was 1% of me as a person and that was the 1% that is the bad part of David Good and they decided to take that 1% and run with it,” he said. “It was kind of upsetting because I’m a very outgoing and funny and comical person and for America to only see that one side was really a loss for, as far as I’m concerned, the show, and definitely for me as a person. There’s a lot more to me than that part that they showed.”
Juan partially attributed his aloof behavior (what David called “fake”-ness) to being “the oldest guy” in the house, and the abundance of alcohol around them:
“I like alcohol just as much as the next guy, but I’m 35 years old, so it’s kind of like been there, done that. Some of the guys were 25, 26, 27 years old and they went a little crazy.”
As far as David’s “big brother” claim, Juan had some different names for David’s role in the group: “He himself said he was “top dog” and “alpha male” and he seemed to have beef with a lot of guys. It was difficult and it really wasn’t something I prepared for.”
The feud came to a head at the third pre-rose ceremony cocktail party, when David confronted Juan about his phoniness (which is the worst possible Man Code offense, he told reporters)–a confrontation that David called exaggerated.
“That was kind of blown up as well. I would not hang out with Juan if we were to see other outside [the show] if I didn’t have to,” David told reporters. “I wasn’t the only guy that didn’t get along with Juan, obviously, but I seemed to be the guy that they showed the most because I think I was the most outspoken about it but I’m a pretty outspoken person.”
“That all happened really late in the night after some alcohol and it all came to a head. You know we’d been in the house for almost a month together and it all came up at that point. The things I said — I said I wanted to kill Juan, that doesn’t mean I want to kill Juan [literally]. Everyone kind of blew that out of context.”
For both men, looking back on the incident, much of the tension and aggression comes down to alcohol:
Juan: “I know Dave is a little intimidating both physically and verbally and a few of the guys seemed to avoid him. When we had our “confrontation” at the pool, he was visibly drunk. No one tells you what to say or what to do, you’re on your own. I saw that he was drunk and somewhat aggressive, so I didn’t think I needed to add much to what he was saying. You have to realize that you’re on television and you have to be careful.”
David: “When you lock 20 guys in a house and take away the phones, the TV, and everything and you put them in there and stock a full liquor bar and there’s really nothing else to do, personalities are going to come out. Those Rose Ceremonies are very long, they’re not a short process — it’s not a couple of hours. They’re very long and there’s drinks provided the whole time and it definitely has something to do with the way everybody acted but that’s not an excuse. I’m not making any excuse for the way I acted.”
As far as his Man Code violations, Juan shrugged it off as “a bit silly,” and attributed his fake shot to romantic strategy, not unmanliness:
“I didn’t even know Dave and I had a problem until some of the other guys told me. What you saw was we all sat by the pool and we had shots, I definitely had that drink, there was nowhere for me to dump it. He was referring to something earlier off-camera when we were getting ready in the hotel room and I was trying to pace myself a little bit since it was an opportunity to make a second impression with Jillian. So, we all had a shot up there, but I only had half the shot, and Dave made a big deal about it.”
Good and Barbieri both claimed that the fight was a relative flash in the pan during their time on The Bachelorette, and they later reconciled.
“We settled it, we hugged it out,” said David.
“We’re totally fine now!” Juan insisted, though he didn’t list David as one of the guys with whom he hopes to stay in touch after leaving The Bachelorette (Ed, Reid, and Jake, if you’re curious).
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
Meghan hails from Walla Walla, WA, the proud home of the world’s best sweet onions and Adam West, the original Batman. An avid grammarian and over-analyzer, you can usually find her thinking too hard about plot devices in favorites like The Office, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and How I Met Your Mother. In her spare time, Meghan enjoys drawing, shopping, trying to be funny (and often failing), and not understanding the whole Twilight thing. She’s got a BA in English and Studio Art from Whitman College, which makes her a professional arguer, daydreamer, and doodler.
