In the world of Bachelor In Paradise, there are few things more unlucky than coming into the game “late.” Just look at the couples still standing after the Tough Conversation culling in Tuesday night’s penultimate season 6 episode, “Week 6, Part 2.” Every single person remaining in Sayulita was also there on day one of Paradise 2019 (save for Kristian Haggerty, whose presence was mentioned in the premiere). This is a game built to shatter newcomers.
Yet, one unlikely candidate has broken through the noise to become the absolute best thing in “Week 6, Part 2.” That honor goes to Bachelor 2019 alum Bri Barnes, the so-called “supermodel” who gave Paradise one of its most thoughtful splits with roughly just five minutes of screen time.
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Bri is officially more than a pretty face — she may have been one of the smartest people on the Paradise beach in 2019.
The Bri problem comes down to the world “supermodel.” The 24-year-old’s Bachelor profile from earlier this year lists her career as “model.” Her biography talks about her modelling multiple times. If you’ve ever looked at Bri’s Instagram, it’s a smorgasbord of her in different fashionable looks in different fashionable locales. She’s legitimately a working model.
Matt Donald is unable to get over this fact. Despite his awkward voice cracking and delayed ability to kiss, the fellow Paradise latecomer ends up in a love triangle with former Knicks dancer Sydney Lotuaco and model Bri. He picks Bri. It seems fairly obvious the California guy made that decision because of Bri’s professionally good looks. We know this because Matt can’t stop saying “supermodel.”
During Matt and Bri’s first date in “Week 5, Part 2,” he sputters out, “Who would have thought I’d be sitting on a beach next to a supermodel? Like, pretty cool.” Then, before defining the relationship with Bri in “Week 6, Part 2,” Matt announces in a confessional, “She’s so much more than a supermodel. She’s… awesome. But so help me God, if I walk away from this with a supermodel girlfriend!” Finally, to start the chat, he tells Bri directly, “First of all. You look beautiful as always… supermodel.”
Bri responds like the insistence of using the word is like a knife to the chest. She chokes out a “thank you” to Matt's "compliment" before adding, “You and this ‘supermodel.’” Matt laughs, oblivious to how uncomfortable he is making Bri feel. So she tells him.
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“I’m honestly feeling a little bit like you made the wrong decision by giving me the rose,” Bri says. “[I] feel like you see the exterior of me but i want to be chosen because you know things about my heart and the person that I am.”
It becomes clear that while Matt was obsessing over Bri’s facial symmetry or leg-to-torso ratio, Bri wasn’t just running around in a sponsored bikini. She was assessing Matt’s behavior — and realized how alarmingly shallow it all was. No one deserves to be with someone who has boiled them down to an object. Especially not someone as funny as Bri, the girl who went viral on Colton Underwood’s season of The Bachelor for faking an Australian accent to stand out. Since Matt is clearly more interested in Bri’s job than her surprisingly goofy and cunning personality, she breaks up with him.
“I can’t see this going further,” she admits and walks off the beach. As you watch Matt stand next to a daybed dumbfounded, a single Kim Kardashian meme comes to mind: “It’s what she deserves.” In an episode of painful splits and tough conversations, Bri’s rejection of Matt is the one scene that makes you want to really cheer.
Between this pitch-perfect Paradise exit and an equally good refusal of Luke Stone’s very weird rose (“I just don’t think that I see that with you”), Bri deserves to be the first person in Paradise for 2020.