When asked if she could pick out the single best memory of her entire experience on “The Bachelor” — two months of filming and nine two-hour episodes — Ashley Hebert didn’t hesitate.
In fact, she was able to narrow it down to a very specific, three-minute interlude she spent with “Bachelor” star Brad Womack.
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“It was on Brad and I’s Vegas date, right before we went on stage. We had a few minutes there ... we looked into each other’s eyes, and the romance was really there,” said Hebert, 26, a Madawaska native who was eliminated Monday night from ABC’s reality show “The Bachelor.”
“I would have to say those three minutes were the best three minutes of the whole two months.”
Minutes later, Hebert and Womack were flying high — literally — suspended from wires 50 feet above the stage as part of Cirque du Soleil’s “Viva Elvis” show in Las Vegas.
But a few episodes later, the pair had reached a low point in their on-screen romance, and Womack decided to send Hebert home, focusing instead on the last two women still competing for his attention on the show. (Womack faces Hebert, and the other women he rejected, on the next episode, airing at 8 p.m. Monday.)
Speaking to media around the country on a conference call set up by ABC on Thursday, Hebert talked publicly for the first time about her experiences on the show. She was as at ease during the call as she had looked on TV these past two months, answering questions easily and calling reporters by their first names.
When asked why she wanted to go on the show, knowing millions of people would see her kissing and romancing a potential beau, Hebert said it started with a dare from a friend.
“To be honest, one of my friends put me up to it, and I thought, ‘I’ve been single for about four years. Why not, you know?’ ” said Hebert, speaking from Philadelphia, where she is a dentistry student at the University of Pennsylvania. “I didn’t think it through initially, so I think I was doing it a lot for the hope of coming out of it in a very great relationship, a little (for) going through the experience.”
There’s no question the experiences she had were eye-opening, including adventurous dates in South Africa, Costa Rica and Anguilla. In the latter location, she got to do something few, if any, women from Madawaska have ever done: She posed in a red bikini for Sports Illustrated’s legendary swimsuit issue. The issue, with Hebert’s photos in it, went on sale Feb. 15.
As seen on the show, Hebert took off her bikini top and posed holding a couple of seashells in front of herself for some of the shots.
Didn’t that make her family back in Madawaska gasp? At least a little?
“My family has been so supportive, it didn’t matter what I would have done,” said Hebert, whose mother and stepfather are paper mill workers. “They liked the seashell picture. I liked the seashell picture.
“I have some on right now, actually.”
EARLY PREDICTION: ONE OF FINAL TWO
Because Womack eliminated Hebert, she never got the chance to hear a marriage proposal from him — which is, after all, the object of the show. (Even though, in the show’s previous 14 seasons, none of the bachelors ultimately married the women they picked.)
The show’s season finale — when Womack is tentatively scheduled to propose to someone — is scheduled for March 14.
But what if Womack had proposed to Hebert? Did she love him?
“When I was there, I personally didn’t feel I was ready to say, ‘I love you.’ I think I was falling in love with him, but I couldn’t say it to him,” said Hebert. “But what I can say is that when I got home, I realized that I did love him. But at that point, it was too late.”
In last Monday’s episode, Hebert and Womack started talking about what they both wanted for their futures, and whether their future plans could mesh. Womack asked Hebert where she might want to live. She mentioned southern Maine before saying more broadly that she would live anywhere where she could be close to people she loved.
Womack turned the words on her later, saying he was concerned that she never mentioned Austin, Texas, as a place she might like to live, because he lives there. Hebert said Thursday she felt like Womack was “looking for someone to fit into his life in Austin,” but that was not the main reason their relationship fizzled.
“You know what’s funny? I would have been happy to move to Austin,” said Hebert. “I think he just felt strongly for someone else (fellow contestant Emily Maynard), and wanted to highlight all the reasons we wouldn’t work out.”
For most of the show’s run, Hebert looked like a front-runner. She got the first one-on-one date with Womack and the first on-screen kiss. Womack was heard early on saying he was fairly certain Hebert would be one of the final two women he would choose from.
So what went wrong?
“I think there was a lot of miscommunication between Brad and I ... I went into it not really expecting to feel as strongly as I did, and I think I guarded myself,” said Hebert. “No doubt we had something that was really, really strong. I never handled it well; I never made good use of our time together. I do take responsibility for a lot of wasted time.”
WOULD CONSIDER ‘BACHELORETTE’
As soon as Hebert was off the show Monday night — she made it to the final three women out of a field of 30 — the Internet was flooded with speculative reports that ABC had offered her the starring role in its companion dating show, “The Bachelorette,” which usually airs in the summer. In that series, there’s one woman and a large field of men vying for her attention.
ABC has not yet announced who the next “Bachelorette” will be, and Hebert said during the conference call Thursday that they had not asked her.
But if they did, she said she’d think about it.
“I’d consider it,” she said. “I feel like the process worked for me once.”
Hebert made it clear, however, that even if she did do “The Bachelorette,” finishing dentistry school would still be her first priority. She said she’d have to weigh the prospect of taking time off from school to do “The Bachelorette.”
“I’m planning to graduate in a couple months,” she said. “Dentistry is the No. 1 thing in my life right now. I will never veer away from that.”
So, with her future focused on dentistry, would good teeth be a crucial characteristic for any future suitors?
“I like good teeth, but I don’t like perfect teeth,” said Hebert. “Brad had great teeth.”
Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at:
rrouthier@pressherald.com
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