TRUE LOVE AT LAST: Brad Womack proposes to Emily Maynard (above) before sealing the deal with a kiss. (abc)
(
)
Every once in a while in reality-TV land, nice girls do finish first.
After a three-month saga, ABC’s “Bachelor” Brad Womack chose blond, sweet-as-puddin’-pie single mom Emily Maynard over brunette, fun-loving divorcée Chantal O’Brien.
A consistently awkward Brad got down on one knee to present Emily with a sizable diamond ring.
Emily, dressed in a soft-peach gown, listened quietly as Brad read a prepared speech: “You’re my once in a lifetime. I’m asking you to please give me your [sic] forever.”
“I would love that. I would love to,” she said as she crouched to kiss him.
Chantal took the news hard.
“I don’t know how else to say it, except I have stronger feelings for someone else,” Brad told her as her eyes welled up.
“It just sucks, because I felt so strongly,” Chantal sobbed.
“I really felt like Brad and I had that thing.”
In its 15th season, “The Bachelor” tried something new this time by featuring an “old” Bachelor. Brad appeared in Season 11 and angered millions of fans by rejecting both the final two contestants.
While it was Chantal who brought drama to the competition by slapping Brad in the season premiere — payback for disappointing his female fans in first go-round on the show — and falling into frequent crying jags, Emily’s drama was deeper.
Midway through the season, she revealed that she had lost her then-fiancé in a plane crash, only to find out she was pregnant.
She gave birth to a daughter soon after.
After finally allowing Brad to meet her daughter, Emily seemed to open up.
Emily’s back story inspired Brad’s family and endeared her to them, although they raised concerns about Brad becoming an instant father.
Brad’s mom cried when Emily referred to him as her “angel,” and it quickly became evident that the whole family was rooting for her quiet poise and warm demeanor.
Things weren’t looking so good for Brad and Emily before the final rose ceremony. In a romantic turn, Brad asked permission to become her daughter’s “real father.”
When Emily pushed him to more clearly define what that meant, Brad became angry that she didn’t trust him. And he, in turn, questioned whether she was prepared to let him in.
In the end, though, true love appeared to quash Emily’s doubts.
“There’s no question in my mind that Brad is the right person for me,” she said.