PHOTOSDeMario Jackson Admits Suicide ‘Crossed My Mind’ After ‘Bachelor In Paradise’ Scandal
Aug. 16 2017, Updated 3:55 p.m. ET
With the Bachelor in Paradise season 4 premiere behind him, DeMario Jackson has finally opened up how his sexual encounter with Corinne Olympios, which turned into a scandal, truly affected him and his family. As previously reported, there were “allegations of misconduct” after DeMario and Corinne engaged in a sexual encounter during the first day of filming, which led to the show shutting down production and sending the cast home. Warner Bros. then launched an internal investigation, which ultimately concluded no misconduct had occurred. However, DeMario admits the damage was done.
“I signed up for this reality,” DeMario explained to Entertainment Tonight. “I feel guilty, because my mom didn’t sign up for this, and she’s been getting harassed, people tweeting at her, on her Instagram saying, ‘Your son’s a rapist…’ That was the part I was most sad about,” he added. “I feel like I created this for my family, in a sense, by being a little reckless…And I just want to say I’m sorry to them.”
He also admitted to being “suicidal, but not like the suicidal that you might think…I never thought, ‘Oh, I’m gonna kill myself,’ but it crossed my mind.” Jackson added that he was so stressed he lost over 20 pounds and had to start going to therapy: “I remember just talking to my mom, like, ‘My life’s over. Like, I don’t even want to live anymore.’ And she, like, lost it.”
However, it seems time heals all wounds, as the BIP star told ET he finally feels “vindicated” after Monday night’s BIP premiere, which addressed his and Corinne’s sexual encounter.
“I feel like they rolled enough of the tape,” he admitted. “You can’t show too much, because that’s gonna disrespect Corinne and I, and I just feel like it wouldn’t be the best or the classiest thing to do. But, they showed enough.”
"I do wish they explained more,” DeMario added. “Like, that very moment of us getting into the pool and everything, that’s when we had kinda got, you know, a little more cozier, so to speak. Everything happened and then we were just finished.”
“The public, they need to see something. I think they just needed to see that she’s lucid. I’m lucid,” he continued. “We’re swimming around. We’re having fun. We’re friends. It wasn’t like I’m some predator who was at the bar waiting for the girl to get extremely drunk, then I’m like, ‘Oops! Let me pounce on her.’ No, it was very mutual and, in fact, she was a little bit of the aggressor in it, and I love how they painted the picture and the story of us actually talking, mingling, getting to know each other.”
Do you think ABC showed enough footage of the “incident?” Sound off in the comments!
