Are you a reality TV show obsessive struggling with Love Island USA withdrawal? Do you find yourself constantly checking your phone to vote for your favorite Islanders, only to realize the winners have already been decided? Then you’re in luck, because a new Bachelor in Paradise season 10 twist has turned the dating show into a kind of Love Island–Bachelor hybrid guaranteed to fill the void.
As host Jesse Palmer announced during the Aug. 4 episode, Bachelor in Paradise contestants aren’t just competing for love—they’re competing for money. At the end of the season, Jesse said, one couple will get “the possibility of leaving paradise with up to half a million dollars.”
Adding a potential prize of $500,000 to BiP certainly changes the vibe in Costa Rica, but it’s also changing the game. In the old BiP, all the cast had to do to stay was get a rose at the weekly rose ceremony. In other words, they just needed to find a connection. Now, singles will need more than a relationship or mutual infatuation to keep them in paradise. Here’s what we know so far:
- There will be no more singles arriving in Paradise. The BiP cast competing for the cash prize has now been locked.
- Couples will compete in challenges and “relationship tests.” Winners of these challenges will get dates as well as power. “Sometimes there will be winners who need to make a pivotal decision, and sometimes there will be losers that won’t have any roses to hand out,” Jesse said.
Following Jesse’s announcement, the cast went straight into a couples challenge meant to test how well partners know each other. Bailey Brown and Jeremy Simon were crowned the winners, giving Bailey the power to decide which woman in the bottom three couples (Leslie Fhima and Gary Levingston, Faith Martin and Kim Buike, and Brian Autz and Parisa Shifteh) would not be getting a rose. In the end, Bailey decided to give roses to Faith and Parisa, leaving Leslie rose-less and going home, with Gary by her side.
It’s hard to see a budding couple go, especially since Leslie and Gary were building such a sweet relationship that, in past BiP seasons, could have taken them all the way to the finale. But Bachelor in Paradise isn’t about love anymore, it’s about money. And everything just got a whole lot messier.
